Crack in Discovery's external fuel tank insulating foam

[banquo's_bumble_puppy]

The engineers are cool with it.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttl...050407rollout/

[Sammy]

Ihe crack's in the foam on the tank, not in the tank.

A big difference

[Nicolas]

Apparently they don't fear this crack will lead to foam being tossed onto the shuttle at lauch?

[Swift]

Apparently they don't fear this crack will lead to foam being tossed onto the shuttle at lauch?

I haven't been able to find any details, but one possibility is that the crack is on the side of the tank facing away from the orbiter. In that case, even if insulation came off, it wouldn't damage the orbiter.

[Sammy]

The article I read said that the crack (which is quite small) is in a non-critical area, i.e., one from which loose chunks would not strike sensitive areas of the shuttle.