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NASA ON THE SPOT

February 4, 2003 -- Now that the initial shock of Saturday's shuttle catastrophe has sunk in, NASA officials are vowing to leave no stone unturned in determining what caused the horrific explosion that took the lives of the Columbia crew just minutes from touchdown.
Should they be trusted?

Back in 1986, the space agency made similar promises when the shuttle Challenger exploded just seconds after takeoff.

It quickly became apparent, however, that NASA was in no hurry to be forthcoming about the causes of that disaster. Not for nothing was the agency's acronym said to stand for "Never A Straight Answer."

Did NASA's burdensome bureaucracy become as complacent about space flights as the general public? Specifically, did warnings of potential safety problems go unheard by the top brass?

The General Accounting Office warned Congress two years ago that a declining shuttle workforce had reduced NASA's ability to safely support the shuttle program - a problem the GAO reiterated just last week when it revisited the issue.

Last April, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel - an outside board set up after the 1967 Apollo 1 fire - reported to Congress that it had "the strongest safety concerns" in 15 years about the shuttle.

Equally troubling is a published report that five members of that panel, and two consultants, were fired by NASA after the report was sent to Congress. A sixth member, upset over the firings, resigned.

Ultimately, the investigation into the Challenger disaster concluded NASA had discounted warnings that faulty seals on the booster rocket posed a potential threat.

All the more reason, then, that the inquest into the destruction of Columbia be conducted by a truly independent panel answerable directly to the White House and not to NASA.

It should investigate not just the physical problems, but the question of whether the mindset at NASA has been one of disturbing nonchalance about the continued - and now painfully obvious - risks and potential dangers of manned space flight.

There's no contradiction between enthusiastic support for manned space exploration and profound skepticism of an apparently sclerotic bureaucracy meant to achieve such a lofty goal.

This story won't be over soon.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/68231.htm

Ok, I will give you a summarization.

Here is what I am reading:

A major engineer in NASA warned 2 days before the landing of the shuttle that it was not going to be possible to return the columbia in peace. This is what NBC network reports. In the same report, the engineer witnessed the damage that was done and brought up the matter to those involved.

Today there was more being done in the investigation, as at NASA they say that the temperature problem in the left wing was the reason for the explosion. On Channel 1 a picture from the broadcast Ilan Ramon (of blessed memory) made to Prime Minister Sharon, shows a crack in the wing that caused the explosion, where the angle of the camera was turned to.

You might remember that one of the main hypothesis of the reason for the crash is weakness in the left wing of the shuttle. This weakness was the one that brought a downfall in the systems of the shuttle during the large amount of pressure that was put on it with its entry to the atmosphere.

The picture shown on Channel 1 was taken from a broadcast between Ilan Ramon (of blessed memory) and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. During the talk, the angle of the camera was moved and the crack was seen.

Even with the critism that has been heard in the last night, NASA says that they did not hide any info from the public. They also say that the problem was known to NASA right after the launch. It looks as like that during it a piece of the tile was detached and the crack was made. Even with this, none of this was really reported as no one thought that the problem was serious. Other points are that NASA could not have done anything after the launch.

Yesterday, TV stations broadcasted pictures of space shuttle launches from the past, where the same incidents occured, and even with that the shuttles returned safetly.

2 days after the crash of the Columbia shuttle, experts say that the poor maintance of the shuttle fleet of NASA in all and of Columbia specifically, could have been the reason for the problem.

Yesterday a quote of Richard Bloomberg in the Washington Post, who was in the past one of the leaders of NASA, said that the cutting of the funding caused some maintenence suspensions. Other critics say that Columbia was left in operations even though it was more then 20 years old, and even with its problems. Heads of NASA pushed away these arguments and said that the shuttle was in excellent condition after getting a touchup in 1999.

--The article continues to talk about the firing of the security consultants after their reports on safety concerns and the like. They also mention the Congress hearing accounts from the security consultants last spring.