Commander Kelly didn't sweat tile gouge

The crew, from the left: Commander Scott Kelly, Pilot Charlie Hobaugh, Tracy Caldwell, Rick Mastracchio, Dave Williams, Barbara Morgan and Al Drew. Click on photo to enlarge.

Safely on the ground after guiding Endeavour to a perfect landing, Commander Scott Kelly walked beneath the orbiter and examined the gouge that NASA engineers decided not to repair, a decision which resulted in no further damage and did not threaten the crew.

"I was a little bit underwhelmed at the size of the gouge," said Kelly, a Navy test pilot with thousands of hours in flight. "We knew how big it was conceptually, but to see it, it looked rather small."

Kelly said the divot validated NASA's post-Columbia process of examining damage and repairing it only if necessary.

"We continue to make corrections based on what we learn," he said.

During the 13-day mission to the International Space Station, Endeavour's astronauts installed a truss, replaced a gyroscope, performed many construction tasks and delivered 5,000 pounds of cargo.

Additionally, Barbara Morgan conducted two education events with U.S. schools, while Dave Williams, a Canadian, led an education program with Canadian schools.

Endeavour returned a day early, to make sure Johnson Space Center could be evacuated if Hurricane Dean threatened. The lost day cut short some of the crew's relaxing and Earth-gazing time.

"A day lost in space is something you can never make up for," lamented Pilot Charlie "Scorch" Hobaugh, a U.S. Marine pilot on his second trip to space.

Hobaugh added that the mission had proven the effectiveness of NASA's system of evaluating the health of the shuttle thermal tiles, which protect the craft from the heat of re-entry.

"If a thermal (tile) guy, says 'Hey, you're going to be fine,' you're going to be fine," he said.

"If they say, 'You're not going to be fine,' you might be OK," he added. "They're very conservative."

IMAGE NOTE: Click to enlarge the very cool horizontal image of the crew of shuttle Endeavour during a post-landing news conference at the Launch Complex 39 Press Site at Kennedy Space Center. Photo credit: Patrick Peterson, Florida Today.