Kay Bailey Hutchison: “the House has passed and sent to the Senate, H. Con. Res. 448, which commends NASA and the crew of the Space Shuttle…”

“the House has passed and sent to the Senate, H. Con. Res. 448, which commends NASA and the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery on the successful completion of the STS-121 mission earlier this week. I support this resolution and urge my colleagues to join with me and provide the Senate concurrence to this resolution. I also note that the House passed this resolution on July 20, the 37th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, adding special significance to the action we are being asked to endorse. The resolution recognizes and applauds the very successful STS-121 mission, which accomplished all of its test objectives regarding on- orbit repair procedures, as well as delivering 14 tons of equipment and supplies to the International Space Station, and a third space station crew member. This restores the space station to its full crew complement since the Columbia accident and allows for additional crew time to be spent doing on-orbit research. The mission also demonstrated that changes made to the external tank, while still not fully completed, resulted in the least amount of foam shedding during lift-off and the cleanest, most undamaged underside of the shuttle yet seen. The successful completion of this second Return-to-Flight test mission is especially significant because it means the Shuttle Program is once again on the threshold of completing the important work of assembling the International Space Station.…”