Bringing her home

With the Columbia disaster in the back of their minds, thousands of specialists worked round the clock and round the world to bring Discovery home | Lynn Vincent

As a boy growing up in Burlington, Iowa, Jim Kelly dreamed of becoming an astronaut. At night, he would often crack open his bedroom window and listen to the roar of jets flying low just beyond the cornfields.

Mr. Kelly does not plan to open a window, but he does plan to listen Aug. 8 for the roar of space shuttle Discovery's twin engines as they hit a powerful de-orbit burn, untethering the ship from orbit speed and sending pilot Kelly and six fellow astronauts hurtling home.

Given the disastrous ending of the previous landing attempt when the shuttle Columbia broke apart over Texas in January 2003, killing all aboard, this homecoming was viewed as far from routine. Its success can restore the nation's faith in NASA, an agency hobbled by budget woes and whispers of obsolescence. Its failure, as Apollo 13 flight director Gene Kranz famously said, is not an option.