HOUSTON (Reuters) - Astronauts on the shuttle Discovery slowly scanned the wings and nose of their spacecraft with a laser-equipped robot arm on Wednesday in a critical safety inspection never before performed on a shuttle mission.
Maneuvering the computer-aided arm from within the orbiter, the astronauts looked for cracks that could endanger the shuttle when it returns to the Earth's atmosphere for landing on Aug. 7 and builds up temperatures up to 2,500 degrees F.
