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Shuttle Columbia Accident Investigation Panel Set to Unveil Final Report

Posted on: Monday, 25 August 2003, 06:00 CDT

Aug. 25--Close links to NASA initially caused concerns about the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, but expectations now are high that its final report will be tough and independent.

On Tuesday, the 13-member panel will formally outline the causes of the Feb. 1 shuttle tragedy, findings that will give NASA a road map to resume shuttle missions.

Experts say the value of the investigation will depend on how critically it looked at NASA's management lapses and policy shortcomings of the White House and Congress.

"In my mind, the way to help NASA get on with what it's doing is to give them a very large dose of very tough medicine," said Alex Roland, a Duke University professor specializing in technology history.

In the past few months, the board has signaled that it was willing to dig deeply and speak freely.

By early this summer, NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe told Kennedy Space Center workers: "It's going to be really ugly."

A tough final assessment could prove crucial to the nation's $15.5 billion per year space strategy. If the findings are too forgiving, nobody will debate the future of the shuttle and resources will begin to flow elsewhere, experts say.

"Do you fix the problem, or do you fix the problem that created the problem," said Howard McCurdy, a professor of public administration at American University who has written extensively on NASA. "If the organizational, institutional and cultural systems are not fixed also, the people at NASA are doomed to repeat the procedures that led to Columbia."

Investigators believe the spacecraft's Feb. 1 breakup over Texas was triggered by a chunk of fuel tank insulation that broke off and struck the left wing just after launch.

Questions over the board's independence arose almost immediately after O'Keefe announced appointments on Feb. 2. Under a pre-existing NASA accident response plan, he asked Harold Gehman, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, to chair a panel that included four military and two civilian aviation safety professionals, NASA's own safety chief and the director of a space agency field center in California.

The 1986 loss of the shuttle Challenger was investigated by a 14-member commission appointed by President Reagan and led by William Rogers, an attorney and diplomat. Critics in Congress wanted no less independence for the Columbia investigators.

O'Keefe, under pressure, made changes. The board was expanded. NASA's safety chief was dropped.

Gehman was granted more leeway and decided to take secret testimony from more than 200 witnesses. The panel enlisted 22 consultants.

Gehman, a Virginia resident, chose Houston over Washington as headquarters. O'Keefe lifted a 60-day report deadline.

"We have placed ourselves at the top of the investigation," Gehman declared Feb. 12. "Ours is going to be a deep and thorough investigation."

The board's first public display of independence surfaced in late February when Gehman asked O'Keefe to reassign several space agency managers. Though he protested, O'Keefe complied.

Then, May 14, before NASA's Senate oversight committee, Gehman clashed with O'Keefe, most notably over willingness of agency managers and safety experts to say the foam insulation problem was a maintenance issue rather than a safety threat.

O'Keefe acknowledged his agency had misjudged the hazard, but Gehman insisted the problem was more profound: NASA's safety and engineering organizations were inadequately staffed and lacked the authority to raise concerns, he said.

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(c) 2003, Houston Chronicle. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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