Shuttle Board Prepares NASA Suggestions
Posted on: Wednesday, 19 March 2003, 06:00 CST
HOUSTON (AP) -- While an investigative board continues to look into what caused last month's Columbia accident, it is preparing to make some suggestions on how NASA can improve its operations.
"There are a couple of (recommendations) that are percolating up to where we think they are benign enough, obvious enough that we don't need any further research," retired Navy Adm. Harold Gehman Jr., the board's chairman, said Tuesday after the group's weekly news conference.
"We're as anxious as everybody else is to get everything on the table so they can make the (return to flight) as quickly as they can."
Gehman, who is scheduled to testify before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on Thursday, said one of the first recommendations the board could make in the next week or so is that NASA needs to improve its communications with other governmental intelligence agencies.
He wants the space agency to better coordinate how resources such as spy satellites and telescopes can be used to photograph the shuttle during orbit to detect problems.
"It's not a security issue. It's a bureaucratic issue," Gehman said. "This is a system that broke."
The board suspects that the heat-shielding tiles on Columbia's left wing were breached, possibly by insulating foam or other material falling from the external fuel tank, during the Jan. 16 launch.
As it aimed for a Florida landing on Feb. 1, the shuttle broke apart over Texas, killing all seven astronauts.
On Tuesday, board member and physicist James Hallock said atmospheric gases at 3,000 degrees filled Columbia's left wheel well, melting part of a titanium door mechanism. The hot gases were eventually ejected from both sides of an exterior door.
"Sometime during the event we had very, very hot temperatures in (the wheel well). What we're hoping to be able to do is home in on possibly where this breach actually occurred. We're not yet ready to turn around and say here is the story but we're getting many, many pieces of that puzzle."
Hallock also said he's doubtful a micrometeoroid or piece of space junk caused the hole that let superheated gases penetrate the left wing.
During its meeting, board members said an object seen orbiting near Columbia one day into its 16-day flight was more than likely a "carrier panel" from a wing. These rectangular parts are behind the carbon leading-edge panels, connecting the carbon pieces to thermal tiles on the wing. The piece re-entered the atmosphere and burned up a few days later.
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