BOB VILA: THE PROBLEM WITH THE TILES ON THE LAST SHUTTLE WAS THE GROUTING -- WE'RE READY THIS TIME. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The space shuttle Discovery catapulted America back into space for the first time in almost three years last summer, but NASA officials declared the mission a failure because a thermal tile broke off from the spacecraft's belly during liftoff and put the crew in peril.
Now nearly a year later, Discovery is set to launch again this Saturday, and NASA officials are taking no chances with the safety of the crew. If a problem arises with any of the tiles during the mission, NASA has arranged to have Bob Vila, the former host of television's This Old House, on standby to command a second shuttle mission to repair them.
NASA Director Bradleys Roadhouse explained that when the problem occurred during last year's shuttle mission, NASA consulted Vila, and he correctly diagnosed the problem. "One of the most common problems with tile," Vila explained, "is that people don't wait 24 hours to grout," he said. "That's what happened there. It's that simple."
In selecting Vila to lead a possible repair mission, NASA is not concerned that he has no training as an astronaut. Roadhouse explained that he saw Vila supervise the installation of tile around a bathtub on an episode of This Old House several years ago, "and the manner in which he screwed the cement backer board directly into the studs was nothing short of genius. I saw that and I said to myself, 'That's the man I want to command a shuttle repair mission.'"
Vila is excited about the possibility of leading a repair mission. "We could turn it into a TV show and call it, 'This Old Spaceship'," he said.
