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NASA plans to delay the launch of space shuttle Discovery, the first shuttle set to fly since the 2003 Columbia accident, from May until July, an official familiar with NASA's timetable said on Thursday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the decision was made by NASA's new administrator, Michael Griffin, and would be formally announced on Friday. The U.S. space agency on Thursday temporarily halted preparations for Discovery's launch while managers debated nagging concerns that debris could damage the spacecraft during liftoff. Shuttle program managers met at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to talk about the likelihood...

HAMPTON -- Gerry Brown says there is a chill in the air at NASA Langley Research Center. People are afraid to talk, he says - afraid that if they express concerns about safety, they'll suffer the same fate he did.

The foam that struck the space shuttle Columbia soon after liftoff -- resulting in the deaths of seven astronauts -- was defective, the result of applying insulation to the shuttle's external fuel tank, NASA said on Friday. The official investigation into the accident, conducted by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, left the matter open, since none of the foam or the fuel tank could be recovered for study. A suitcase-sized chunk of foam from an area of the tank known as the left bipod, one of three areas where struts secure the orbiter to the fuel tank during liftoff, broke...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA (news - web sites) is considering whether it can return its space shuttles to flight without making two safety improvements that have so far proved to be high hurdles for agency engineers, top officials said on Friday. After the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas last year and killed the seven astronauts aboard, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board drafted a lengthy list of ambitious reforms. Among other proposals, the board recommended NASA come up with a way to repair damage to the leading edge of a shuttle's wing, such as the kind that doomed...

Columbia's Final Minutes The second-by-second account of the shuttle's last minutes By Michael Cabbage and William Harwood January 27, 2004 EDITOR'S NOTE: From "Comm Check ... The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia," by Michael Cabbage and William Harwood, which is being published Tuesday by Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster. Cabbage is the space editor of the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel; Harwood is a veteran space reporter for CBS News. Printed by permission. "The most complicated machine ever built got knocked out of the sky by a pound and a half of foam. I don't know how any of...

Speaking at the church where they have found solace since space shuttle Columbia broke apart, two widows of the astronauts said Sunday that their husbands followed their dreams into space. "The very first thing that captured Rick's imagination when he was 4 was when they placed man on the moon," said shuttle commander Rick Husband's wife, Evelyn. "He was so excited about that." Husband spoke alongside Sandy Anderson, wife of Columbia astronaut Michael Anderson, at Grace Community Church in Houston. Husband said she thinks President Bush's plan announced earlier this month to return man to the moon and go eventually...

<p>NASA penalized the contractor that maintains and operates the space shuttle fleet $45.2 million for its role in the shuttle Columbia accident, according to a letter NASA released Thursday.</p> <p>The United Space Alliance, a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, had to forfeit the money even though NASA said the contractor did nothing specific to cause the accident.</p>

Spacehab Inc., a maker of living modules for the U.S. space shuttle, filed an $87.7 million formal claim against NASA on Tuesday for equipment destroyed during the Columbia disaster, citing the findings of the investigation board. Spacehab, which had filed a draft claim in July, said it revised its newest claim to incorporate the findings of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report. The CAIB said in August that NASA officials missed eight chances to address fears that falling insulation foam may have damaged the shuttle, which broke apart over Texas last Feb. 1, killing all seven astronauts aboard. The foam...

The inside story of President Bush's space initiative. The Bush administration's new policy for America's space program represents the product of a year of difficult choices and balanced risk, designed to create a comprehensive approach to human exploration of the solar system. Developing this policy -- contrary to what some outside the process have suggested -- took a careful, deliberate and quiet effort. It also is the result of the aftereffects of a crisis that struck at the very core of the space program. United Press International interviewed senior administration sources for these articles, including participants at meetings. Based on...

The space shuttle Atlantis, which was supposed to fly the first shuttle mission after the Columbia accident, may be grounded until late October 2004 because its nose wasn't thoroughly inspected during a recent overhaul, shuttle engineers said Wednesday. A prolonged grounding of Atlantis could make it difficult for NASA to return to flight next year because only a few launch dates are available from mid-October of 2004 until the end of the year. The misunderstanding of the Atlantis inspection raises new questions about how much the agency knows about its inspections and the accuracy of its record-keeping. Shuttle managers thought...

NASA defended the International Space Station on Monday from a stinging rebuke by a safety expert who said the same inattention to safety that doomed the shuttle also lurked in the orbital platform. "I do not consider the space station an accident waiting to happen," said Bill Gerstenmaier, the space station program's manager. But he acknowledged mistakes had been made on both the Russian and U.S. sides of the station. Last week, a departing member of the NASA Safety Advisory Board, Arthur Zygielbaum, said the space station program had safety problems equal to that of the breakaway foam that doomed...

<p>Nine experts on a NASA space safety advisory panel have resigned in the wake of sharp criticism from the Columbia accident investigation board and by Congress, the space agency said Tuesday.</p> <p>The members of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel and two staff members of the panel sent letters of resignation to NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe.</p>

Workers at Kennedy Space Center are packing up the 84,000 pieces of the space shuttle Columbia for storage. But unlike debris from the Challenger, some remnants will be available to researchers and perhaps someday put on display in a museum. "The overall goal ... was to make Columbia available to do further science and research, not only by the shuttle community but other contractors, universities and scientists," said Scott Thurston, who was the vehicle manager for Columbia. NASA (news - web sites) hasn't decided whether any pieces of the shuttle will ultimately be given to the Smithsonian National Air and...

At the end of the movie "October Sky" which was based on my memoir Rocket Boys, there is a dramatic launch of the Space Shuttle. The director of the film wanted to show the transition from my small amateur rockets in West Virginia to the huge professional rockets of NASA as a metaphor for my own transition from coal-town boy to big-time space engineer. The scene works wonderfully. When I was at the Venice Film Festival, the audience rose to their feet after this scene and applauded me while tears streamed down their faces. When I go to the Cape...

NASA recently posted a series of emails sent to officials of the NASA Headquarters Office of Safety and Mission Assurance in response to a Freedom of Information Act Request. Among the emails released are several which make mention of a closed, members-only website called "107 Team". This closed site was designed, according to an invitation email message (below) sent only hours after the accident from Dr. J Steven Newman to John Lemke, as "our group's private website. We can use it to share group documents, schedule events, hold online discussions, and more." Membership in the 107 Team intranet is by...

<p>The Columbia Accident Investigation Board report was released on Tuesday.</p> <p>I haven't read it in its entirety, but I've skimmed the whole thing.</p> <p>The Gehman Commission is to be commended. They've pulled few punches and provided a lot of useful guidance to NASA to get the shuttle flying again -- if not completely safely, at least much more so. I also recommend reading the sections on history and space policy to anyone interested in those subjects. They provide very good insight into how we got into the mess we're in, which is to say that they've dealt very well with describing the past.</p>

I haven't read the Gehman Report on the Columbia accident in its entirety, though I've skimmed the whole thing, treading lightly on parts with which I'm already (unfortunately) all too familiar. These included the history of manned space flight in the U.S., and the specific technical description of what went wrong. The latter, in fact, is almost irrelevant to policy formulation per se — it's only of importance to those at NASA who have to implement specific technical fixes. In any event, I've read enough to know that there's little new here, to anyone who's followed the vagaries of...

Bush in the hot seat over shuttle's future Lawmakers urge administration to set course By KAREN MASTERSON Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau THE INVESTIGATION WASHINGTON -- President Bush, silent for three years on NASA's future, must quickly define his intentions for the shuttle program if the space agency is to recover from Tuesday's critical review of its safety and management problems, key members of Congress said. While acknowledging that Congress was in part responsible for NASA's troubles, lawmakers said providing long-term vision and goals for the agency is the administration's responsibility. "It's doable if the president goes to the...

WASHINGTON — A flawed NASA culture is to blame for the Columbia shuttle disaster, according to a detailed, 200-plus-page report released Tuesday. Earlier Tuesday, NASA (search) leaders were bracing for a storm of criticism. "The report is going to be embarrassing," physics professor Robert Park of the University of Maryland told Fox News. Space shuttle Columbia broke into pieces on Feb. 1 upon return into the atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard. Members of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (search) completed the report late last week after spending seven months probing the technical facts of the space tragedy and interviewing...

he computer program that helped NASA mistakenly decide that the shuttle Columbia had not been deeply harmed by a piece of falling foam would have predicted serious damage if used properly, said the retired Boeing engineer who developed the program. The engineer, Allen J. Richardson, said the program, known as Crater, was never intended to be used in a mission to predict damage, as it was in Columbia's fatal flight. Members of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which is expected to release its final report on the disaster tomorrow, have disparaged Crater as a flawed tool. But Mr. Richardson said...