Space Forum / Shuttle / February 2004

Ellen,

 The letters are at
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2004/01/letters.htm.

 Here are the first 3:

  Columbia's Last Flight" (November Atlantic) contains much useful
information about the tragic accident that took the lives of our
heroic Columbia astronauts and the subsequent investigation by the
Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Our nation indeed owes the
board and its leader, Admiral Hal Gehman, a debt of gratitude for
clearly pinpointing the combination of technical, human, and process
errors within NASA that led to the tragedy—errors we are committed to
correcting.

I am concerned, however, that William Langewiesche's account presents
an incomplete and often inaccurate view of NASA's response to the
investigation.

From February 1 onward we took concrete actions to ensure that the
accident investigation would be independent, thorough, and credible,
no matter how bad the agency or people within it might look. Early on
I modified the board's charter to give the panel more authority and
the people it needed. I also modified the charter to ensure that the
board's report would be issued at the same time to the White House,
Congress, NASA, and the public. I never attempted, as Langewiesche
asserts, to keep the report from being made available to the public.
Further, throughout the board's work NASA willingly provided technical
assistance to investigators and responded positively to every request
we received for information or action—nearly 800 in all. This was not
the behavior of an agency unwilling to face the truth.

Following the release of the board's report, on August 26, as
promised, we have embraced the board's findings and its
recommendations as our starting point for returning to safe
shuttle-flight operations. Our return-to-flight plan lists specific
actions that NASA will take to fully implement each of the board's
safety recommendations, and additional actions we will take to raise
the safety bar higher. A copy of the board's report and our
return-to-flight plan can be found on the NASA Web site at
www.nasa.gov. (Our Web site also details the important scientific
research conducted by Columbia's astronauts. Viewed objectively, this
information contradicts Langewiesche's assertion that no useful
science took place on the STS-107 mission.)

In the aftermath of Columbia, NASA is taking other steps to develop an
organizational culture that empowers open dialogue and rewards
excellence in all aspects of our work. In November we opened a new
Engineering and Safety Center that will draw on our best engineering
and scientific talent to take a no-holds-barred approach to analyzing
and acting on all safety aspects of our missions. We've also empowered
a distinguished return-to-flight task group, led by the former
astronauts Thomas Stafford and Richard Covey, to carefully evaluate
and publicly report on our progress in implementing the board's
recommendations.

I am disturbed by Langewiesche's assertion that no one at NASA
"stepped forward to accept personal responsibility for contributing to
this accident," "certainly not Sean O'Keefe." Following the accident I
expressed my deep sense of personal responsibility and accountability
for this horrible event. In a March session with reporters I said,
"First and foremost, the responsibility begins with me for what
happened on that day and everything leading up to it." I've repeated
that and will continue to act in that manner every day of my tenure at
NASA.

Sean O'Keefe
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Washington, D.C.

illiam Langewiesche's portrayal of the Columbia's doomed flight is
chilling and no doubt largely accurate as far as it goes. But his
article fails to acknowledge or discuss the years of funding
shortfalls and personnel reductions, as dictated by Congress and the
Office of Management and Budget, that severely eroded the environment
of safety that must surround the space-shuttle program if catastrophes
like the loss of Columbia are to be avoided.

I served as a member of and a consultant to NASA's Aerospace Safety
Advisory Panel from 1980 to 2001. The ASAP is a congressionally
mandated advisory group established in the aftermath of the Apollo
fire in 1967. Its task is to advise the NASA administrator and
Congress on "the hazards of proposed operations ... with respect to
the adequacy of proposed or existing safety standards." For many years
we monitored the development and operations of the space-shuttle
program as our priority concern. Each year, and more frequently if
conditions warranted, we reported in writing and in person to the
administrator, and occasionally to Congress, on a wide range of safety
issues affecting the space shuttle. Most of our time was spent at NASA
field centers talking to managers, engineers, contractors, and
technicians about what was really going on. We spent as little time as
possible at NASA headquarters watching view-graphs or PowerPoint
presentations.

Since its earliest flight the space shuttle has been an R&D vehicle,
despite sporadic attempts by NASA and the OMB to declare it
"operational." The distinction is more than semantic. The space
shuttle is the most complex machine ever conceived, built, and flown
by humankind. This complexity means that utmost care must be expended
at every stage of its operations and on every flight to avoid glitches
and errors that in many cases could cause catastrophic loss of the
vehicle and its crew. It must never be seen as "operational" in the
sense that a Boeing 747 is operational. Above all, as the ASAP
repeated over and over, "Safety first, schedule second" must be the
space shuttle's operating mantra.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, in response to budget pressures emanating
from the OMB (that is, the White House) and sustained on Capitol Hill,
the resources—dollars and people—needed to operate this R&D vehicle
safely were whittled away. Unrealistic and potentially disastrous
personnel reductions were imposed on the space-shuttle organization,
field centers (especially Johnson Space Center, Kennedy Space Center,
and Marshall Space Flight Center), and NASA contractors (especially
the United Space Alliance). Toward the latter part of the decade and
continuing into 2000, 2001, and 2002, approximately $300 million was
shifted each year from the space-shuttle account to the floundering
International Space Station project.

Thousands of experienced managers, engineers, and technicians were
given pink slips or early retirement. Although any bureaucracy can
usually make do with fewer people, these cuts went far beyond
reasonable downsizing. Engineers who carried unique knowledge of the
space-shuttle operating systems in their heads (each vehicle has its
own peculiarities) were shown the door. In performing their highly
complex and critical functions, technicians used to rely on a second
set of eyes provided by NASA quality-control personnel; but many
quality-control workers were eliminated in the layoffs. The
technicians were given sole responsibility for making sure that many
jobs were done correctly.

In its 1997 annual report the ASAP warned that "further erosion of the
personnel base could affect safety and increase flight risk because it
increases the likelihood that essential work steps might be omitted."
The panel expressed similar concerns over the need to restore NASA's
aging infrastructure at the Kennedy Space Center.

In 2001 the ASAP's annual report noted that the panel's safety
concerns had "never been greater":
Budget cutbacks and shifts in priorities have severely limited the
resources available to the Space Shuttle and ISS for application to
risk-reduction and life-extension efforts. As a result, funds
originally intended for long-term safety-related activities have been
used for operations ... The Panel has significant concern with this
growing backlog because identified safety improvements are being
delayed or eliminated.
It was in this resource-constrained environment that the decisions of
NASA's space-shuttle managers must be seen. There appeared to be
safety issues far more urgent than the loss of foam from the external
tank. I have no reason to doubt that the space-shuttle program
manager, Ron Dittemore, would gladly have authorized an updated
alternative to the Crater model used to analyze the likely effect of
foam strikes on the underside protective tiles. But with limited funds
and people to invest in risk-reduction studies, the money went to more
immediate needs. With limited analytical capabilities, the foam
strikes came to be seen as annoyances rather than the life-threatening
events they in fact turned out to be.

In retrospect, the NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe's determination to
bring the ISS to initial completion no later than February of 2004
served to turn the ASAP's "Safety first, schedule second" on its head.
The pressure was on to maintain space-shuttle flights in support of
ISS construction. In this environment, and taking into account the
resource cutbacks that had been occurring for at least five years,
there existed little latitude for space-shuttle managers to
investigate any but the most obvious safety concerns.

None of this absolves NASA or its managers from the catastrophic
mistakes identified by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and
recounted in Langewiesche's insightful reporting. NASA's management
culture must achieve fundamental change. But it does suggest some
additional culprits: namely, the OMB and Congress. These institutions
created the environment in which safety took a back seat to schedule,
and needed risk-reduction initiatives were forgone. And these
institutions have now run for cover, more than willing to let NASA
take full blame for the tragic events that unfolded over the western
United States on February 1.

John G. Stewart
Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, 1980-2001
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Knoxville, Tenn.

illiam Langewiesche is dead wrong when he states as "fact" that
allowing witnesses to be protected in Columbia Accident Investigation
Board interviews was "arguably [Admiral] Gehman's biggest mistake,"
that many believed this wouldn't have an effect on what people said,
or that people would have been willing to speak without privacy. As
one who conducted a third of all the interviews, I saw firsthand that
we gained invaluable information—information we likely would not have
gained if the comments had been open to public scrutiny. Indeed, not
unlike reporters protecting their sources, we had people offering
testimony under privilege that could have cost them their jobs if made
public. Such testimony, particularly when validated through multiple
interviews, went on to help us piece together the dysfunctional
communications within NASA, the organizational incongruities that had
evolved, and even concerns about what the next accident cause could
be—the next Challenger O-ring or Columbia bipod ramp.

As a board member, I also had the privilege of meeting with
congressional leaders to discuss our investigation. When pressed to
explain why we were doing privileged interviews (often the first
question I was asked), I responded by giving examples of interviews in
which witnesses put their jobs on the line with their responses. No
further questions were asked.

Duane W. Deal
Brigadier General, USAF
Colorado Springs, Colo.