The head of the investigative committee looking into the ferry crash testified before a Senate committee. "The NASA people were wrong when they did not heed the requests to photograph the damage to the shuttle's wing while it was in space," he said. "If the extent of the damage had been discovered, perhaps a second shuttle could have been launched for a rescue mission"
"Columbia" crash: the shuttle was not photographed in space due to bureaucratic errors
The head of the investigative committee looking into the crash of the space shuttle Columbia said Tuesday (Wednesday) that NASA personnel made a serious mistake when they did not heed requests to take satellite pictures of the damage caused to the protective coating of the left wing while it was in space. In his first testimony before a Senate committee, retired admiral Harold Gehman said that if NASA had known the extent of the damage caused to the shuttle and its consequences, it is not impossible that they would have launched a second shuttle for a rescue mission.
In his words, Gehman pointed an accusing finger at the American space agency, noting a series of errors in judgment, bureaucratic procrastination and failures in communication between senior NASA officials and the lower technical ranks of the agency, who contacted management and pointed out the need and the available option to photograph the shuttle's wing before it returned to Earth. NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, who appeared alongside him at the committee, agreed with his words and said that in retrospect, wrong decisions were indeed made on this issue. However, Gehman did not place the blame on specific people or office bearers, but said that some of the mission managers at NASA "did not fully understand what they were talking about", and that in some cases "they made decisions based on a distorted understanding of reality".
Gehman pointed out that in the last ten days the investigative committee headed by him increased its efforts to check whether the people of Colombia could have been saved in some way. According to him, the committee discovered that Columbia could have been left in orbit around the Earth for a longer time than NASA engineers had initially estimated, and it is possible that during this period of time a rescue operation could have been planned and executed. "Even if they had reached a solution that only had a 10 percent chance of succeeding, we would certainly have done something," he said.
NASA Director O'Keefe promised at the hearing that after the completion of the work of the Gehman investigative committee, conclusions will be drawn regarding senior NASA officials responsible for the disaster.
The Walla News website reported that Gehman also stated that in the past NASA personnel had asked to photograph the shuttles in space, but this was prevented, among other things, due to budget difficulties. Kol Yisrael reported that in their testimony in Congress in Washington, Gehman and O'Keefe refused to say whether such photographs would have helped to prevent the "Columbia" disaster.
Columbia disaster investigation: The black box data was published and analyzed
Expert: The data supports the leading theory regarding the circumstances of the crash - a hole was created in the edge of the wing, apparently from the impact of the insulation foam during takeoff, and hot gases penetrated it and disintegrated it
The recently decoded data from the black box of the space shuttle Columbia supports the leading theory about the circumstances of the disaster, said an expert who appeared at a public hearing in Houston, Texas, today (Tuesday). According to this theory, the left wing of the shuttle was damaged to the point of forming a hole in the outer protective shell, and the penetration of hot gases that resulted in the disintegration of the entire wing. At the moment there is no conclusive evidence as to what caused the hole to form, however the main explanation is that insulating foam from the shuttle's solid fuel tank broke off during the take-off phase and caused the critical damage to the wing.
The black box was found on a muddy slope in East Texas on March 19, about a month and a half after the disaster in which the seven crew members were killed, including the first Israeli astronaut, Major General Ilan Ramon. In the past months since the facility was found, the magnetic tapes inside it were deciphered by United Space Alliance, a contractor of the American space agency NASA. The films recorded the information received from the shuttle's 622 sensors about temperatures, pressures, vibrations and maneuvers.
According to the expert, Douglas White, the data indicates that "something bad happened to the leading edge of the left wing about 290 seconds after the shuttle entered the atmosphere." He could not point to conclusive evidence that a hole had formed but said the data supported such a possibility.
"It is possible that a rescue plan could be organized for Colombia"
The head of the team investigating the disaster blames NASA for the crash and claims that senior officials made decisions based on a "misunderstanding"
The head of the Columbia space shuttle disaster team, retired admiral Harold Gaiman, accused NASA that it could have taken more measures to assess the damage caused to the shuttle during liftoff. During his testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Gaiman said that if the fault had been detected, there might have been enough time to come up with a rescue plan.
In his testimony, published in The Washington Post newspaper, Gaiman claims that NASA failed by not trying to obtain satellite images of the damaged shuttle before it crashed in February and all seven astronauts on board were killed.
Gaiman also said that there is evidence that the ferry could have stayed
It has been on track for many more days than the shuttle managers thought, it is possible that there was enough time to carry out a rescue plan. Gaiman talked about many bureaucratic media briefings and said that some senior NASA officials "reached decisions that were based on a misunderstanding of what was going on."
The US space agency believes that the foam tiles that struck the shuttle's left wing during takeoff on January 16 punched a tiny hole in Columbia's hull and allowed hot gas to gnaw through the wing as it entered the atmosphere on the return journey.
