FOR SALE: ONE SLIGHTLY USED AMERICAN MADE ORBITER/RE-ENTRY VEHICLE, GOOD MILEAGE

The world is holding it's breath and waiting to see if the seven NASA astronauts on Discovery will have to hold their breath and wait. After a two year hiatus during which the National Air and Space Agency put the remaining shuttle fleet up on blocks and ran the motors in reverse to roll back the odometer, the shuttle Discovery returned to space with a clean bill of health. That is until the bird strike, and the two foot chunk of foam fell off the brand new external fuel tank on launch. "Minor details" says NASA, "no worries" they say, "we build 'em tough round" here they say. And then they noticed that the filler between the all important heat shield tiles was falling out. "Stand by" they say, "we are looking in to contingencies" they say, "we can rescue your astronauts by February" the Russians say. Myself, I can't say I'm surprised to find that the high tech instructions on how to fix the problem include the word "wiggle". Maybe on future missions they might make sure to bring some bondo and a can of Crylon as well as the hack saw they will use.