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STS-123: To the pad

Endeavour travels to pad 39A in the overnight hours of Feb. 18 in preparation for liftoff on STS-123.

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Progress docking

The 28th Progress resupply ship launched to the International Space Station successfully docks.

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NASA '09 budget

NASA officials present President Bush's proposed Fiscal Year 2009 budget for the agency.

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Introduction to ATV

Preview the maiden voyage of European's first Automated Transfer Vehicle, named Jules Verne. The craft will deliver cargo to the International Space Station.

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Station repair job

Station commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Dan Tani replace a broken solar array drive motor during a 7-hour spacewalk.

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Mercury science

Scientists present imagery and instrument data collected by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft during its flyby of Mercury.

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STS-98: Destiny lab

NASA's centerpiece module of the International Space Station -- the U.S. science laboratory Destiny -- rode to orbit aboard Atlantis in February 2001.

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Earth science update

NASA leaders discuss the agency's Earth science program and preview major activities planned for 2008, including the launch of three new satellites.

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STS-97: ISS gets wings

Mounting the P6 power truss to the station and unfurling its two solar wings were the tasks for Endeavour's STS-97 mission.

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STS-92: ISS construction

The Discovery crew gives the station a new docking port and the box-like Z1 truss equipped with gyroscopes and a communications antenna.

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Expedition 17 crew

Pre-flight news briefing with the crew members to serve aboard the space station during various stages of Expedition 17.

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NASA names new space shuttle program manager
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: February 22, 2008

John Shannon, chairman of NASA's Mission Management Team and the man responsible for the conduct of space shuttle missions, was named manager of the shuttle program today, replacing N. Wayne Hale, a veteran ascent-entry flight director who helped steer NASA's recovery from the 2003 Columbia disaster.

Shannon, a former flight director known for his self-assured, no-nonsense management style, takes over at a critical time for NASA as the agency attempts to finish construction of the international space station and fly a final 12 shuttle missions before retiring the winged orbiters in 2010.

"John Shannon is completely ready to take the reins in NASA's most critical program," Hale said in a NASA statement. "His leadership skills are well established, and the shuttle program will do well under his care."

Shannon joined NASA in 1988 and in four years was leading the shuttle guidance, navigation and flight control office in mission control. He became the youngest flight director in NASA history in 1993 and served as deputy director of NASA's Columbia Task Force in the wake of the 2003 shuttle accident. He was named deputy shuttle program manager in November 2005 and chairmen of the Mission Management Team.

The NASA statement did not provide any insight into what led to the management shuffle, saying only that Hale had been named deputy associate administrator for strategic partnerships at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. In that capacity, the statement said, Hale will provide "strategic leadership to foster cooperative partnerships that help achieve NASA goals, build alliances across the public and private sectors, and improve U.S. competitiveness and economic growth."

With the possible exception of NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, Hale has been the most visible face of the shuttle program since NASA's return to flight following the 2003 Columbia disaster.

With a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University, Hale joined NASA in 1978 as a propulsion officer in mission control, rising through the ranks to become a flight director, a position he held for 40 shuttle flights, including 28 missions overseeing ascent and entry.

"I guess you could call me one of the true space cadets," Hale said in an interview for the book "Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia." "I've always wanted to work in the space program. I was three years old when Sputnik went up and my mom tells this funny story about how that was what I wanted to talk about every day when she came home. I have always wanted to do this and it was a dream come true when I graduated from colledge and put my application in to NASA and got to come to work down here. It was just all I ever wanted to do."

Known for his thick glasses and calm demeanor in the high-pressure world of shuttle launch and landing operations, Hale agreed to serve a one-year stint as launch integration manager at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida starting in early 2003, a critical position that would give him the ultimate authority for clearing shuttles for liftoff.

But his first official day on the job was Feb. 1, 2003, the day Columbia disintegrated on the way back to Earth. Seven astronauts were killed in NASA's second shuttle disaster and the program was grounded for more than two years.

Hale was already in Florida when Columbia took off on Jan. 16, 2003, and engineers worried about a foam strike on the underside of Columbia's left wing asked him to forward a request for imagery from classified military satellites that might show whether the shuttle had suffered any major damage.

Hale called Linda Ham, then chairman of the Mission Management Team, and passed along the concern about the foam strike. But he did not immediately mention the request for satellite imagery. Returning to work the following week, Hale pursued the request for photos, but Ham and then-shuttle Program Manager Ron Dittemore deemed that and similar requests from others as unnecessary.

In the wake of the accident, Dittemore left NASA to join private industry and was replaced by Bill Parsons, then director of NASA's Stennis Space Center. Hale returned to Houston to serve as deputy program manager. In that role, he oversaw day-to-day shuttle operations, applying his encyclopedic knowledge of shuttle systems to the difficult task of recovering from the Columbia disaster.

In September 2005, following the first successful post-Columbia mission, Parsons returned to Stennis and Hale was named shuttle program manager.

An early adopter of calls for changes in NASA's management culture, Hale brought a willingness to entertain minority viewpoints and dissenting opinions to the program that some managers privately criticized as evidence of an overly conservative approach. But in numerous interviews and briefings, Hale said his motivation was flight safety and a desire born of Columbia to learn from the past.

"A lot of us out here are working because we believe that sending people into space is important," he said in the 2003 "Comm Check" interview. "I don't know how else to say it, that sounds too simplisitic, but we think that's an important thing to do. And we were not good enough and we're going to have to live with that for the rest of our lives, that we were not good enough.

"And it fills me with two kinds of things: A great deal of remorse and anguish and wish-we-had-been-better. But it also fills me with this sense that, never again. OK? I don't know if we'll be good enough, but within my power, personally, and I think there are a lot of folks who feel this way out here, we're never going to let this happen again. It's too important what we're doing.

"The sad fact of life is, this is a very hazardous operation," he said. "And I think as a country, people thought ... it's no big deal, sending people into space. It is a HUGE deal and it is extremely risky and it always will be, until they invent some new way to get there. When Han Solo takes off, it doesn't look like a big deal. But you know, that's science fiction and we are a long way from that and it's going to be a risky business for a long time to get the first hundred miles off the planet."