Shuttle commander confident

Space shuttle commander Eileen Collins has expressed her confidence in the mission she and her crew will fly later this year aboard Discovery, according to a Houston Chronicle report.

STS-114 will test many new features and procedures during NASA's return to space operations. Three spacewalks are scheduled for the mission, and the flight will test a number of measures intended to increase safety aboard shuttle missions.

"If I didn't want to fly this mission or if I thought that it wouldn't be safe, I wouldn't have flown it," Collins said.