MUSIC: Our World theme
Straight ahead on "Our World" ... NASA launches the space shuttle, then suspends future flights ... An epidemic of fat ... and surprising results from a study of malaria drugs.
ROSENTHAL: "Non-ACT regimen that we studied has a better effect at preventing a second infection because the drugs are rather long-acting. They stay in your bloodstream for a long time after treatment."
The expensive drug may not be the best, mixed news on immunizations, and more... I'm Art Chimes. Welcome to VOA's science and technology magazine, "Our World."
It has been an up-and-down week for the U.S. space agency, NASA.
First the good news. On Tuesday, the space shuttle Discovery roared into space, in a picture-perfect launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
LAUNCH CONTROL: "Six. Five. Three engines up and burning. Three. Two. One. And LIFTOFF of Space Shuttle Discovery, beginning America's new journey to the Moon, Mars and beyond. And the vehicle has cleared the tower."
Less than 48 hours after the dramatic blast-off, the shuttle arrived at its orbiting destination, the International Space Station.
KELLY: "Houston, Alpha-Discovery, we have contact and capture. The shuttle is in free drift."
Shuttle pilot Jim Kelly confirmed the connection, and the shuttle will remain docked at the space station until Friday, with a scheduled return to earth next Sunday.
The shuttle brought supplies and equipment to the space station, where the two-man crew has had to rely on shipments from much smaller Russian spacecraft.
The long-awaited "return to flight" comes two and a half years after shuttle Columbia was destroyed as it re-entered the atmosphere in 2003. Seven astronauts died, and NASA embarked on a major effort to upgrade safety in the shuttle program. And the main purpose of this mission - formally known as STS-114 - is to test those safety improvements.
To monitor the condition of the shuttle during launch, NASA added a veritable constellation of cameras on the ground, in the air, and on the shuttle itself. One of those new cameras provided spectacular live video during the early minutes of the flight, showing the underside of the shuttle covered by critically-important, heat-resistant tiles as the shuttle and its external fuel tank separated. Shuttle manager John Shannon explained that -
SHANNON: "We should remember that this is a test flight and we're seeing areas of the vehicle working in flight regions that we have never seen before. And that's allowed the damage assessment teams and the debris assessment teams that we've set up to go through all this data a head start."
The shuttle is now also equipped with a re-engineered boom to get close-up images of the vehicle's underside, and there are repair kits on board in case they find dangerous damage to the shuttle's heat-resistant surfaces.
Now the bad news. The cameras have enabled NASA technicians to identify several problems. Some of the shuttle's insulating tiles were damaged - none seriously, it seems so far. More worrisome is a one meter-long, 400-gram chunk of foam that broke off during ascent from a structure called the PAL ramp on the shuttle's external fuel tank. NASA specialists believe the foam piece flew off harmlessly, not hitting the shuttle itself. Another, smaller piece of foam may have hit the wing, but apparently was too small to have done any damage if it did. Still, that's a concern.
It was a flyaway piece of foam in 2003 that damaged Columbia's wing, leading to the shuttle's destruction as it re-entered the atmosphere. NASA engineers were confident that modifications since then had solved the flyaway foam problem.
But program manager, Bill Parsons, conceded that engineers have not figured out how to get the insulating foam to stay put.
PARSONS: "We were wrong. We need to do some more work here. And so, we're telling you right now, the PAL ramp foam should not have come off. It came off. We've got to do something about that."
As a result, NASA has suspended future shuttle flights until agency scientists can figure out why the foam won't stay on the external tank, and how they can fix it.
PARSONS: "Until we fix this, we're not ready to go fly again. And so, I mean, you can say that means we're grounded or whatever terminology you want to use. But right now, until we understand this problem, and until we're ready to say that we've fixed it and we can say that we're safe to go fly, we're not going to go fly."