In Need of a Magic On-orbit TPS Repair Recipe

NASA Says Shuttle Should Be Ready on July 13, Washington Post

"NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin said yesterday that the space shuttle should be ready for launch July 13 despite the agency's failure to fully comply with safety recommendations made in the aftermath of the Columbia disaster."

Despite Concerns, NASA Is Planning to Go Ahead With Shuttle Launching, NY Times

"On Capitol Hill yesterday, Dr. Griffin told lawmakers that the board's recommendation were "admirable goals," but that "we have reduced the level of risk due to debris damage to an acceptable level." That is a different tone than had been expressed by Dr. Griffin's predecessor, Sean O'Keefe. Before he retired this year, Mr. O'Keefe repeatedly said NASA would, as he put it in June 2003, "comply fully without any equivocation" with the recommendations."

Mike Griffin Reveals His Commercialization Vision for NASA: Part 2, SpaceRef

"The CAIB recommendations in their full scope are recommendations and they are not all implementable." ... "So, unless someone walks in with the magic recipe some time in the next few days, we're going to have to sign up to launch Discovery and Eileen Collins and her crew without having complied with that recommendation because we can't."