The space shuttle Discovery blasted off into orbit Tuesday, opening a new chapter in space history more than two years after the Columbia tragedy grounded NASA's shuttle fleet. However, several hours after the launch, questions arose about some debris falling from the shuttle.“It’s a great day,” said deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale. Thousands of onlookers cheered as Discovery rose from its launch pad at 10:39 a.m. ET, its white plume blending in with the cottony clouds over NASA's Kennedy Space Center.Shuttle commander Eileen Collins, making her fourth and possibly last spaceflight, told controllers later that "we had by far the smoothest ascent" she had ever experienced.Amazingly vivid video imagery, transmitted from a camera mounted on the shuttle's external fuel tank, appeared to show at least one piece of debris falling away from the spacecraft during the ascent, but it wasn’t clear if the shuttle’s sensitive skin had been jeopardized.More than 100 cameras captured Discovery's rise, and Hale said the space agency would be going over all the video footage “frame by frame” in the next few days for any signs of hazards or damage.A 1˝-inch-wide bit of tile captured on camera appeared to fly off the shuttle’s belly, on the edge of a door that encloses the nose landing gear. It was not clear if the tile had been struck by anything. Pieces of tile, which protect the shuttle from searing heat on return to Earth, have been lost on past flights without preventing a safe homecoming.
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