Cause of Columbia Shuttle Disaster.

"Under Reagan's watch"... "A Bush appointee". Are you saying that
Republican presidents cause shuttle disasters?



wrote:
I posted here last February, my opinion on what caused the Columbia
Shuttle disaster. I was pretty much 'right on the money', this article
verifies my points. I may have been wrong on some of the technical
information involving space flight, but my analysis that it was bad
management that contributed to the tragedy was 'right on the money'.
And I compared it to the last time we had a Shuttle disaster, 17 years
ago, when our other Space Shuttle, Challenger, blew up also, under
Reagan's watch.

I was roundly condemned by most of the people who responded to my post,
and I was even accused of being unpatriotic back then for questioning
O'Keefe's management, a Bush appointee. But now the truth comes out,
this article vindicates me. I was right. I'm always right.

Abel Malcolm
http://www.democrats.org

Shuttle report urges major changes in NASA

Management decisions singled out for criticism

By Kathy Sawyer and Eric Pianin

Wednesday, August 27, 2003

From The San Francisco Chronicle

Washington -- The shuttle Columbia and a crew of seven were destroyed
on Feb. 1 because NASA, for the second time in its recent history,
allowed its engineering to grow careless, its safety system to wither,
its communications to get muddled and its professional curiosity to
become stunted.

Those conclusions were part of a far-reaching indictment issued
Tuesday by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in a comprehensive
and unsparing assessment of the human spaceflight program. Placing at
least part of the blame for NASA's failings on persistent budget and
other pressures flowing from Congress and the White House over several
administrations, the plainspoken 248-page report is designed to provide
the foundation for an unprecedented national debate on the future of
human spaceflight, which the board said is long overdue.

A 1.7-pound chunk of foam insulation that struck Columbia's left wing
at more than 500 mph during the Jan. 16 ascent was "the direct, physical
action that initiated the chain of events leading to the loss of
Columbia and her crew," the board wrote.

But, in chilling echoes of the environment that produced the 1986
Challenger accident, the board found that NASA's management and cultural
mind- set were just as culpable because they paved the way for the foam
strike to do its deadly work. Before the mission, managers did not heed
signs of the potential threat; and during the mission, they allowed
deadline pressures to squelch the aggressive pursuit of information
about the possible damage and its implications.

"Management decisions made during Columbia's final flight reflect
missed opportunities, blocked or ineffective communications channels,
flawed analysis and ineffective leadership," the report said. "Perhaps
most striking is the fact that management . . . displayed no interest in
understanding a problem and its implications."

'MISSED OPPORTUNITIES'

The investigators identified eight "missed opportunities" when NASA
officials suggested using spy satellites or other methods to investigate
the wing damage, but the agency didn't follow through.

Unless the agency makes fundamental changes this time, the board
warned, "the scene is set for another accident." At the same time, the
investigators repeatedly said that, based on NASA's past performance,
they expect the NASA bureaucracy to resist such a transformation. "The
changes we recommend will be difficult to accomplish -- and will be
internally resisted."

There were bits of good news for NASA in the board's grim verdict,
however. Among them, the board did not find the shuttle to be
"inherently unsafe."

Board chairman Harold W. Gehman Jr. said at a briefing for reporters,
"If this board had set out to spend seven months listing all the good
things that NASA does, the report would be thicker than this one.
Unfortunately, that's not what our task was."

To make certain that NASA implements not only the 15 actions it
recommended before the next shuttle flight, but also the more basic and
difficult long- term changes, the board called for a system of long-term
external policing.

REPORT HAS SOME SURPRISES

While the panel had signaled many of its findings in advance, there
were some surprises. For example, the report offered the first direct
criticism in the investigation so far of NASA administrator Sean
O'Keefe. Citing unsolicited comments from NASA personnel, the report
said employees blamed O'Keefe for a seemingly "arbitrary" buildup of
pressure to meet a deadline of February 2004 for the launch of a key
space station component -- at the same time top management was denying
there was schedule pressure.

The board found that the four flights scheduled in the months from
October 2003 to February 2004 would have required a shuttle processing
push comparable to the much-criticized pattern that led up to the
Challenger accident 17 years ago.

Concern about the schedule "may have begun to influence" managers'
decisions regarding the foam shedding during Columbia's launch and one
of Atlantis last October, the report said. The rigorous shuttle
schedule "had no margin to accommodate unforeseen problems," and with
flights coming in rapid succession, there was no assurance that
anomalies on one flight would be identified and resolved before the
next.

O'Keefe on Tuesday reiterated his intention to "comply with the full
range of recommendations released today" and said the agency has set up
a special team to help "change the culture." O'Keefe has set a target
date of next March for resuming shuttle flights, but a launch next
summer is considered more realistic.

On Tuesday, Bush issued a statement that implied continued support
for his appointee, saying, "The next steps for NASA under Sean O'Keefe's
leadership must be determined after a thorough review of the entire
report." He added that, "Our journey into space will go on."
As the board had previously documented during its public hearings and
tests,
the report said the insulating foam that came off Columbia's external
propellant tank during the ascent smashed the heat shielding along the
underside of the leading edge of the left wing. When the shuttle
re-entered the atmosphere on Feb. 1, superheated air at temperatures as
high as 8,000 degrees penetrated the wing structure, melting it from the
inside and leading to the vehicle's disintegration.
NASA already is redesigning the external tank to eliminate the most
serious source of foam shedding -- a problem the board said engineers
had wrongly come to accept as routine, much as engineers did almost two
decades ago when they accepted problems with the O-ring seals of the
shuttle rocket boosters before the Challenger disaster.

But because it is unlikely that all debris impacts on the shuttle can
ever be eliminated, the board also has called on NASA to harden the
shuttle's protective heat shielding to better withstand minor impacts,
and to develop in- flight inspection and emergency repair capabilities
before the next flight.
Columbia investigators' recommendations
Some recommendations from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's
final report, released Tuesday:

--Try to eliminate debris shed from external fuel tank, while increasing
shuttle's ability to sustain minor debris damage and still safely
re-enter Earth's atmosphere.

--Improve preflight inspections of the thermal protection on shuttle
wings.

--Develop methods to inspect and do emergency repairs of any potential
damage to the shuttle's outer thermal layer -- during a mission -- with
or without the aide of the International Space Station.

--Improve launch pad maintenance.

--Develop computer models to better evaluate damage caused by debris.

--Upgrade imaging system on both the shuttle and ground to take better
pictures of shuttle during and after liftoff.

--Better train mission management team to handle emergencies.

--Establish an independent Technical Engineering Authority, funded from
NASA headquarters, to identify and analyze any possible hazards during a
shuttle system's life. It would be the sole waiver-granting authority
for all technical standards and would independently determine launch
readiness.

--Give NASA Headquarters Office of Safety and Mission Assurance direct
authority over entire safety of shuttle program, providing its resources
independently.

--Submit annual reports to Congress on progress of implementing
independent safety measures.

--By 2010 recertify all shuttle components and systems for operation.

From URL:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...7/MN250559.DTL


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In article , Mike Spera
wrote:

"Under Reagan's watch"... "A Bush appointee". Are you saying that
Republican presidents cause shuttle disasters?

do not feed the trolls.

--
Bob Noel

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
In article , Mike Spera
wrote:

"Under Reagan's watch"... "A Bush appointee". Are you saying that
Republican presidents cause shuttle disasters?

do not feed the trolls.

--
Bob Noel

Exactly. Don't respond just killfile the sender.

Howard