Critics Fear NASA Rush to Launch Safety Doubts Persist As Shuttle Flight Nears

As NASA prepares to return the space shuttle to orbit this spring, a debate is running inside and outside the space agency over whether the fleet is as safe as it should be.

There is widespread agreement that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, prodded by a searing report from the panel that investigated the loss of the shuttle Columbia two years ago, has made the fleet safer and that the agency is moving full speed toward launching as early as May.

But critics, citing internal agency documents and NASA’s own acknowledgment that it has not made all of the improvements it committed to, contend that the agency is rushing back to the unforgiving environment of space with much of the job left undone.

Columbia broke up over Texas as it returned to Earth on the morning of Feb. 1, 2003, killing the seven astronauts on board. A hole that had been punched in the leading edge of Columbia’s left wing by an errant piece of insulating foam 81 seconds after liftoff 16 days earlier had let superheated gas into the wing during re- entry. It was the worst space disaster since the loss of the shuttle Challenger and its seven-member crew in 1986.

The independent board that investigated the Columbia disaster recommended goals for the short term that included prevention of future foam damage and gaining the ability to inspect and repair shuttles in orbit. For the long term, the board recommended measures to fix the “broken safety culture” that it said had led to the disaster. The 15 return-to-flight recommendations, the report said, represented “the minimum that must be done to essentially fix the problems that were identified by this accident.”

The agency’s administrator, Sean O’Keefe, repeatedly vowed that NASA would, as he put it in June 2003, “comply fully without any equivocation” with the board’s recommendations.

But since then, NASA officials have distanced themselves from those promises, arguing that because they have made significant strides on many safety issues, the need is not as pressing to meet the technical specifications for others. The head of the accident investigation board supports the agency’s view, as does a special panel formed by NASA to monitor the agency’s progress in meeting the recommendations.

But another board member and several NASA employees, who for a variety of reasons spoke on the condition of anonymity, disagreed in several areas:

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The accident board recommended that NASA develop a “practicable capability” to inspect the shuttle while it is in orbit and repair damage to its thermal-protection system. NASA now says it will not be able to make any but the most minor repairs in space.

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The board called for sharp reductions in the amount of foam that might fall off of the external tank and strike the tiles and panels protecting the craft, but internal agency documents suggest that NASA’s efforts to limit the size of pieces are still fraught with uncertainty.

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A plan to use the International Space Station as a “safe haven” for astronauts from a damaged shuttle a goal not required by the accident investigation board but taken on by NASA as a way to make up for the inability to repair damage in space would have little chance of success under many circumstances envisioned by the agency itself, according to internal agency documents and Sergei Krikalev, the veteran Russian astronaut who will be commander on the next shift on the station and who echoed the view in comments this month to reporters.

NASA appointed a task force to monitor its progress in complying with the recommendations of the accident board.

That task force, led by two former astronauts, Richard Covey and Thomas Stafford, is expected to make its final determination of NASA’s progress next month, but it already appears to be willing to allow NASA some slack. In a report on Jan. 28, it said that the work left undone included “some of the toughest technological challenges the recommendations present” and that the accident board’s recommendations need not be carried out to the letter so long as the activities resulted in “reduced risk” overall.

But the Stafford-Covey return-to-flight group raised concerns that NASA was basing many of its claims of increased safety including critical questions about where debris would strike the orbiter on the use of computer models instead of physical testing.

NASA officials say that no shuttle mission can be risk-free and that the agency has generally raised safety levels enough to justify returning to flight. That assertion is supported by Harold Gehman, the retired admiral who was chairman of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.

“I give them a passing grade, over all,” he said in an interview, adding that the board’s goal was “breaking the chain” of problems that led to foam’s falling off the fuel tank and striking Columbia. But critics inside and outside the agency say it is rushing to launch with inadequate safeguards.

“Going ahead half-cocked and losing a third orbiter for known defects will affect the rest of history in ways that are immeasurable, and lead to the demise of NASA as we know it,” said another member of the Columbia accident board, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.