Countdown Discovery

Summary:

NASA tries to launch the first Space Shuttle since the Columbia disaster in 2003

Timely on:

July 13: Shuttle is scheduled to launch in mid July

Tones:

Authoritative, Emotional, Polished

Language:

English

Description:

Pat Duggins, News Director of WMFE-FM and National Public Radio's resident "NASA expert", is your host for this updated version of the documentary "Countdown Discovery".

This new program follows up "Columbia Remembered...Atlantis, Go for
Launch", which aired on over 100 NPR affiliates in 2004. This program goes
behind the scenes of the first Space
Shuttle mission since the Columbia disaster and looks at major changes coming
for the Shuttle and the U.S. Space Program.

Countdown Discovery also examines issues like the critical refurbishment to
the fuel tank that shed foam insulation during Columbia's fatal flight, killing
the Astronauts. We'll also look back at the Challenger disaster, through the
eyes of ten year old students who witnessed NASA's first shuttle disaster.
Nineteen years later, the mid-morning accident is still vivid to the teachers
and students visiting the Cape for what they thought would be a routine shuttle
launch. Also, with the end of the Space Shuttle program looming, residents of
Brevard County, home of the Kennedy Space Center, are anxious over the same
economic downturn that occurred following the end of the Apollo manned moon
landings.

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