Shuttle report The Columbia Autopsy
The news in the final report of the panel that investigated the accident of the space shuttle Columbia was not about what happened, but in the distressing picture it paints about what comes next. By describing the space agency's missteps in harrowing detail and tracing the accident's roots far back in organizational history, the board's 248-page critique has made it inescapably clear just how daunting the task of reviving the nation's manned space program will be.
The board had months ago expressed its conviction that the disintegration of the shuttle was triggered by a chunk of foam insulation that fell off the external fuel tank and gashed the leading edge of the wing. It had also signaled its belief that management weaknesses and cultural attitudes were a deeper underlying cause of the tragedy. The panel's most striking new conclusion is that the space shuttles should be phased out "as soon as possible" as the primary means for transporting humans into orbit around Earth.
The panel judged the shuttles "inherently risky" but not so inherently dangerous that they could not be allowed to fly for another few years, provided certain fixes are made, like developing the ability to inspect and repair the shuttles in orbit. The board believes, however, that by 2010, a successor vehicle for the aging shuttle fleet should be close to readiness, or the shuttles should undergo a rigorous recertification process, which might ground the shuttles or require very costly improvements. With no successor vehicle even on the drawing boards, that prospect would seem to leave the future of manned spaceflight very uncertain.
It will also be hard to change the culture and attitudes that led the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to become complacent about risks and reduce its attention to safety while struggling to meet flight schedules on constrained budgets. The space agency can presumably set up independent offices to oversee technical and safety issues relatively free of operational pressures, but as the board members noted, no real change will occur unless people throughout the space program decide in their guts that change is important.
The board noted that the nation's political leaders had been holding down NASA's budgets and had never given NASA a compelling mission requiring humans in space, and it expressed hope that its report would set the stage for a vigorous national debate on the future of the space program. That debate ought to take place, although with budget deficits widening under the impact of huge tax cuts and the costs of rebuilding Iraq and waging the war on terror, the likelihood of pursuing grandiose goals in space seems as remote as the asteroid belt.
