According to this article, their gonna launch before fulfilling their promises of safety!
Nasa reports that they have done quite a few things toward making manned spaceflight as safe as possible, but do you really think merely changing a few attributes of the fuel tanks will keep people safe in flight. The reality is they have only addressed half of the issues that were found in the Columbia investigation. It's my humble opinion that instead of rushing back into space they should do what they SAID they would do and get it right BEFORE they send these highly trained people into space. I for one would not want to be the first one in the air after this horrible disaster if I knew NASA had only fixed half the problem! "Last week, an independent oversight group assigned to assess NASA's compliance postponed a key evaluation session because it believed shuttle managers were not prepared." Raises some questions doesn't it?
Fortunatly, they are being much more cautious then they used to and it would appear that due to some "problems" they have delayed the launch date for the time being, but who knows! This is NASA we're talking about. "Discovery's launch period extends until June 3. NASA would then have to consider launching in July." They are looking more at mid-April as a launch date, and have already moved the orbiter to the launchpad. Hopefully they don't launch an unsafe craft just to meet some silly deadline! no matter what they end up deciding to do, I wish them the absloute best of luck, and to the crew...
Godspeed Discovery crew.... Godspeed!