discovery's astronauts arrived to a rousing celebration wednesday as nearly 700 people crowded an airplane hangar, waving flags and holding signs that read: "welcome home, astronauts!"
the seven-person crew returned to earth on tuesday after being the first to take a space shuttle into orbit since the columbia disaster of 2003.
"in the last two and a half years, we have been through the very worst that manned space flight can bring us, and over the past two weeks we have seen the very best," nasa administrator michael griffin told the astronauts and their families, colleagues and fans wednesday.
the crowd waved american flags for the u.s. astronauts and japanese flags for crew member soichi noguchi, one of the spacewalkers.
"as a rookie astronaut, i could not ask for more," noguchi said. "we had three spacewalks, two bonus extension days in space and one great crew."
while the homecoming has been filled with excitement for what mission controllers declared a "truly spectacular test flight," uncertainty remains for the future of the shuttle program.
shortly after discovery blasted off july 26, a nearly 1-pound chunk of foam insulation fell from the fuel tank -- the very thing that was supposed to have been fixed after dooming columbia.
the foam missed discovery, but nasa grounded all shuttle flights until engineers fix the problem.
nasa ground crews inspected discovery after its return from orbit and found it in good condition, an official said wednesday at nasa's dryden flight research center at edwards air force base in california.
technicians counted 101 dings and divots, including 20 that were larger than 1 inch. schaaf dean, landing support convoy commander, said the numbers were similar to the results of other shuttle post-landing inspections.
a preliminary inspection of the shuttle's thermal blanket under the commander's cockpit window showed it remained intact during re-entry into the earth's atmosphere.
 
(agencies)