NASA has made substantial progress toward returning the shuttle to space, but much work remains.
Last fall, after months of gathering information, the board investigating the Columbia shuttle disaster had pinpointed its cause and released a series of recommendations, including the increased use of nondestructive testing (NDT) and the development of new NDT technologies. Since then, there have been significant changes in NASA's space shuttle return-to-flight effort, the latest of which are detailed in the second interim report issued by the Stafford-Covey Task Group in May.