The engineers had resisted the launch, had recommended against it, citing the "blowby" in an earlier low-temperature launch and studies of the elasticity of the o-rings.
"Almost no other country affects the United States as much on a day to day basis as Mexico, " said Shannon O'Neil, a Latin American studies fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"It's hard to see how a cop will be able to leave the station house without some potential adverse impact on his personnel folder if it all goes into effect, " said Eugene O'Donnell, a professor of police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.