Ten questions and answers about the report of the Columbia disaster investigation committee

Excerpts from a Space.com project from June 2003, shortly after the book "The Crash" was published but before the official publication of the investigative committee's report. The dates and other details have been updated according to developments 

 
NASA remembers her death in three disasters that coincidentally clustered in one week at the end of January.

1) After flying this craft for 22 years, doesn't NASA know how to fly the shuttle?
– The shuttle Columbia [Columbia] took off for the first time on April 12, 1981, on STS-1. It was the first time two astronauts flew a US-made shuttle on a maiden flight. After only three more test flights over the next two years, NASA declared its space transportation system operational, removed the evacuation chairs from Columbia, and began using the shuttle as a comprehensive solution to the nation's commercial, military, and scientific needs in space.
With each mission, NASA gained more confidence in its all-capable flight vehicle. The crews grew and satellites were launched, repaired and rescued by "spacewalkers" who floated with the help of jet backpacks.
Then, in 1986, the Challenger disaster burst NASA's bubble. A presidential team of investigators found a flaw in shuttle technology and NASA's decision-making. It took NASA nearly three years to fix the booster rocket problem and reorganize its operation.

On September 29, 1988, the space shuttle Discovery returned America to space. It was not long before the shuttle program regained its confidence, resumed its status as a symbol of technical superiority, and continued its role as an icon of the American spirit of research. Then on February 1, 2003, Columbia and its seven astronaut crew members were killed.

The Columbia Disaster Commission of Inquiry will say that despite the success the shuttle program enjoyed, NASA became too "accustomed" to the program, like an old friend whose friends turned a blind eye to its odd habits and flaws. And in one word: operative. Instead, NASA should treat each mission as a test flight.

The committee noted that NASA's historic aircraft, the X-15, flew 199 missions from 1959 to 1968 and each mission was considered an extremely dangerous test flight. The shuttle, however, flew 113 times in a 22-year period. As a result, NASA has more experience with the vehicle that led to the shuttle than with the shuttle itself.

2) What happened on February 1, 2003?
- On February 1, 2003, the seven crew members of the Columbia flight completed a scientific mission that lasted 16 days, and which was the product of international diplomacy, politics and the desire to keep scientists busy while waiting for the final assembly of the International Space Station [ISS ].

More than eighty experiments, ranging from the topic of developing new skies to building stronger foundations in sandy soils, kept the team busy around the clock in two shifts. There were few problems.

At the beginning of the second day of the flight, military radar observed a small object drifting from the shuttle more than 3,000 times before it burned up in the atmosphere as DHA.

On February 1, at 13:15 p.m., Columbia's interceptor missiles were fired and the shuttle left its orbit and prepared to land at the Kennedy Space Center. When the spacecraft passed over the USA, observers noticed glowing parts falling from the Columbia.

At 13:59:32, Flight Commander Rick Husband acknowledged a call from mission control and cut off mid-transmission, the last time we heard from him. At the same time, sensors on the left wing recorded increasing heat. The shuttle stayed on track but worked harder than it ever had to in order to stay that way.

After about a minute, the vehicle began to disintegrate, killing the seven astronauts and raining debris over Texas and Louisiana. Within an hour, NASA implemented its "emergency plan", which included the establishment of a committee to investigate the Columbia accident. As the nation learned about the tragedy, meetings were convened to decide what had gone wrong and an effort to pick up the pieces began.

NASA acted according to its plan, became entitled to credibility in the eyes of the public for the way it handled the release of information and helped the nation mourn the loss of seven heroes.

Ron Ditmore, the former shuttle program manager, should be reprimanded for the way he represented NASA these past few days.

3) What went wrong at Columbia and caused the tragedy?
- The shuttle Columbia and its crew were lost while entering the atmosphere, when the extremely high heat caused by friction in the atmosphere penetrated the inside of the left wing, causing it to melt from the inside until it failed and was released from the spacecraft. When this happened, the spacecraft went out of control and disintegrated.
Heat insulation tiles and thermal "blankets" cover most of the shuttle in order to function as its heat shield. The nose of the shuttle and the tip of the wings are protected by strips of reinforced carbon [RCC – reinforced carbon carbon], a composite material that can survive at 1650 degrees Celsius. A small hole in the tip of the left wing allowed heat to enter the wing. As the material burned, the breach grew until the wing was finally eaten away.

The Columbia Disaster Commission of Inquiry will say they are certain, but cannot definitively prove, that a piece of insulating foam fell from the shuttle's outer canister about 82 seconds after liftoff, striking the left wing tip and damaging a carbon-carbon strip. (In the end this was indeed the proven conclusion)

Apparently the object seen on the military radar, flying from Columbia during the second day of the mission, was part of the shuttle's heat shield, which caused the hole in the left wing or contributed to its enlargement.

Assembling or rather rearranging the remains of the shuttle at the Kennedy Space Center, analyzing the information recorded during takeoff and reentry, as well as the results of tests where insulating foam was fired at a heat shield; All of these independently strengthen the theory.

4) How could NASA let this happen?
- The only part of human space flight that takes place in a vacuum is the space flight itself. The rest of the mission takes place among a dense collection of people and organizations that are sensitive to every human strength and weakness.

So when there is an omission in the importance of the Columbia tragedy, investigators sometimes find that the culprit is more than a random technical failure. Someone or some organization probably failed as well. People screw up. The Columbia Disaster Commission said just that.

The disaster has many more factors than a piece of insulating foam that hit the wing during takeoff. The US Congress and the White House, previous NASA administrators, outside experts and defense committees - as linked together through the annual budget process, all contributed to creating an environment that allowed the tragedy to happen.

In particular, the whole way the shuttle program is organized between NASA and its partners, who enable the lines of authority and channels for communication, should prevent disaster. And still seven astronauts lost their lives.
The Columbia report offers a solid history lesson regarding how the agency's organization has changed over the years, especially after the Challenger disaster and during the last attempt to transfer the shuttle operations to a private entrepreneur, namely - the United Space Alliance.

So here is the big question: when the dust settles, will the management of the shuttle program be centralized at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, or at NASA headquarters in Washington?

The pendulum has swung both ways throughout the history of the shuttle program.

Which way will the Columbia Disaster Commission say NASA should swing now?
5) The signs of disaster seem clear now. So what was NASA thinking?
- The Columbia Disaster Investigation Commission took great pains to avoid falling into the trap, because what seems clear now was not before the tragedy.

The burning of Apollo 1 in 1 is a prime example: pumped pure, compressed oxygen into a spaceship, locked three guys inside for a whole day and only cared about the miles of wiring in the spaceship. In the case of the Columbia tragedy, no one saw the whole picture. The clues were there, but no one understood that there was a problem to solve at the beginning of everything.

First, the outer tank was designed with a foam-insulating layer that should not come off during the launch. It's designed to stick to the tank, so if it doesn't stick then something isn't working the way it's supposed to.

Second, the shuttle's heat shield made of tiles, RCC - reinforced carbon strips and thermal "blankets" were not designed to be damaged in any way for any reason. This is why the spacecraft must not fly through rain, remain outside during hail or be at risk of workers dropping tools on it. The tiles are extremely fragile.

But for some reason, when the foam fell on liftoff and damaged the tiles, NASA managers didn't seem concerned. When the shuttle returned and there was no apparent damage, managers convinced themselves that there was no flight safety issue. After 112 flights in which foam fell seventy times and in which tiles returned damaged each time, the ferry operator got used to it.

Some call it the "gambler's dilemma", the roulette wheel came out red 112 times in a row, so there is no reason to believe that it won't come out red again. Writer Diane Vaughan, writing about Challenger, called it "the normalization of deviance."

We call it stupid. On the other hand, in covering the space program for two decades, we never connected the dots or had the same information. The committee told NASA to form a security group that would take a step back and be especially sensitive in order to diagnose when the hardware is not working as required, a group that would look for "unknown disappearances".
 
6) Who is responsible for safety at NASA?- Everyone at NASA is responsible for safety.

While this sentiment makes a great quote or looks great as an inspirational key phrase on an office wall poster, it is much more difficult to fully understand.

One of NASA's biggest challenges now is to ensure that everyone who is authorized to observe and take part in making things safer knows how to offer their power, whether they are part of the chain of command of a particular program or not.

During official testimony before the Columbia Disaster Investigation Team, Belablo testifies frequently in descriptions of who they report to and where their budget comes from. As a result, the committee's report called for asking NASA to establish clearer lines of authority.

To help illustrate its thinking, the commission described how other high-risk operations, such as nuclear submarines, combine safety with factors such as engineering requirements, schedule and budget.

The way in which NASA handles emails also requires careful examination. When an engineer asks a question about a safety issue and uses informal, but quite dramatic language (for example: "If you don't fix it, it's going to be a bad day!") there should be a system that will warn about this centrally and determine if this is a confirmation call between friends? Or a desperate call for help from a concerned engineer?

In the meantime, the commission to investigate the Columbia disaster - but especially the American Congress - should be careful not to fall into the trap of demanding too many people responsible for security just to say that the size of the organization has doubled. In some cases, the other people will just get in the way.
The origin of the security guard is irrelevant. It may be necessary to establish new bodies to create a difference between the employers of the auditors and the audited body. Remember, a NASA safety officer is not automatically better than a contractor safety officer. It is more important that the right number of qualified people do the work and keep an eye.

7) What needs to be fixed before the shuttle can fly again?- As a senior ferry manager explained, there will be three courses of action that came out of the Columbia Commission report.

The first includes all the tasks that must be done before the shuttle can fly again. The second will contain the tasks that must be done as early as possible, but do not constitute a stop to the flight. The third route will contain the works to be performed when the appropriate technology is developed and entered into the schedule.

The hard work will be to ensure that the first lane is not overfilled. Some legislators who are afraid to even agree to the natural risks of space flight may want to overload the first orbit so that NASA cannot lift a shuttle off the ground for years. It would be a tragedy as bad as Columbia and Challenger together.
The Columbia Commission of Inquiry and NASA administrators also said they see nothing that should prevent the shuttle from flying safely again in the next six to nine months. (Actually, a year and a half later, not a single ferry has yet flown. A.B.)

We agree that the first container should contain the works that the committee has already announced, and also change the way NASA manages its safety. The agency should assemble a team of experts to study issues such as in-flight anomalies and trouble reporting during preparations on the ground. Their task is to find out if there is a pattern that hints at a bigger story.

NASA officials like to say, "We have to convince ourselves it's safe to fly." This sentence should come out of the space program because it can be interpreted in many ways. It is a fact that officials in the shuttle program convinced themselves that it was safe to fly despite the falling foam and damaged tiles, a problem seen in dozens of previous flights.

A more specific list of fixes with detailed explanations was recently presented in Florida Today, in the excellent series of reports called "Seven Fixes Needed for Return to Flight".
The list contained: reducing the number of security disclaimers, reducing damage from foam, improving intra-organizational communication in the agency, developing an in-flight repair plan, identifying safety issues at a higher level, making sure the right workforce is in place and considering other re-entry routes to prevent flying over populations greatness
We agree with all of them, except for the last one - this is a discussion that can be held another time.

8) What did the commission to investigate the Columbia disaster say that must be done?
- NASA must formalize an orderly working procedure with the National Imaging and Mapping Agency (NIMA) for taking images of the Space Shuttle in orbit during each mission.
The idea is to use classified spy satellites to photograph the shuttle and see if there is any worrisome damage to the tiles. Under ideal conditions, the photos will be taken at the beginning of the mission, in daylight, and the shuttle will be required to maneuver so that it is photographed from the best perspective - all of these will have an impact on the planning of the mission.

Officials didn't ask for the photos because they didn't think they would see anything. And they were probably right. Given the location and extent of the damage to Columbia's wingtip, it is highly unlikely that a spy satellite would have picked up anything. In fact there is some doubt that even an astronaut on a spacewalk, looking exactly at the damaged spot, would have seen anything.

- NASA must investigate the strips of reinforced carbon-carbon [RCC - Reinforced carbon-carbon] on each shuttle wing between each mission, it is desirable that this be done without necessarily removing or destroying them in the testing process. The expensive strips that require preparation time can hide defects in the content that a simple visual inspection will not reveal. Officials say this is probably one of the more challenging technical requirements the committee has set so far.

- NASA must develop programs and equipment that will allow shuttle astronauts to examine and repair the heat protection tile system and the carbon-reinforced carbon strips without help from the control team on the ground, or rely on docking at the International Space Station [ISS - International Space Station].

Although the subject was studied before the shuttles began flying in 1981, no other composition of materials has been given permission to be installed in the shuttle and fly into space. Advances in the development of composite materials and the experience gained in spacewalks over the past two decades have made this a more achievable goal than initially believed. It's also something NASA started working on within days of the Columbia crash and officials are confident they'll be ready with something soon.

- NASA must have at least three good cameras that provide different views of the shuttle launch during the separation of the rocket from it.

The ancient camera systems along the coast of Florida, most of them operated by the 45th Air Force Wing, provided the footage that showed the piece of foam hitting the Columbia wing. One of the three camera angles, which would have helped engineers analyze the impact, was not available because the camera was not working.

NASA must determine that the availability of the three camera angles is a criterion for launch, and that the camera systems will be upgraded, and that the space agency will consider providing new camera angles from mobile bodies such as an airplane or a drone.

All four suggestions are considered mandatory before the shuttle can fly again, but none should take too long to complete. The first one (with NIMA), for example, has already been signed.

9) Until when will the space shuttle still be able to fly safely and what should NASA do in the meantime?- We believe that the shuttle should continue to fly until it has launched every component of the space station that is already designed and built for delivery to orbit by the shuttle - no matter how long it takes. NASA thinks it will need the shuttle by 2020.
At the same time, the nation must move forward in building a new vehicle whose sole purpose is to fly humans from Earth's orbit and back to it, which is probably going to be called the "Orbital Space Plane" [OSP - Orbital Space Plane].

The OSP does not have to be fancy and contain all the latest refinements. It just has to work using proven technology. And if the OSP becomes available before the shuttle finishes assembling the space station, then the shuttle should be modified for takeoff, cruise, docking, de-docking, re-entry and landing under remote control.

In the meantime, the shuttle must continue to be upgraded where possible to make it safer for the astronauts, while keeping in mind that it is impossible to make every shuttle mission completely risk-free.

From now on, all future cargo destined for the space station or anywhere else in space should be designed to fly on unmanned launch vehicles, which can be sacrificed when necessary. And in order to stop the shuttle operation as early as possible, a multi-purpose cargo that can return a large amount of weight from orbit should be added to our bag of tricks.

And while we're building this wish list, add some kind of autonomous, multi-purpose orbital maneuver vehicle capable of moving satellites between orbits.

If you want to talk about sending humans beyond low earth orbit [LEO – Low Earth Orbit], then you have to start designing these ships as well, but without trying to create a ship that can do all things to all people and be equipped with innovative technology. This is what people were asked to make during the seventies, and we got the space shuttle - the most wonderful flying machine ever invented that did not fall short of its goal.

By doubling NASA's budget in the next ten years, we will be able to do all this and much more. Unfortunately, we do not think that the White House or Congress, whether led by Republicans or Democrats, will have the political courage to provide the leadership and money to do so.
Finally, we believe that the last shuttle mission to ever fly should be the mission to return the Hubble Space Telescope from orbit to Earth, to the display at the National Air and Space Museum.

10) Did the Columbia Disaster Commission do a good job and should we believe their work?– The short answer is yes.

A slightly longer answer is that they did a great job, covered all the bases, got the right people to look at the right things and approached the whole issue from a properly objective point of view.

Looking at all the public hearings and our participation or listening to almost all the press conferences, we could see how the members of the committee stuck to the problems and developed their understanding of the technical and managerial challenges that the space agency faces every day.

There were no prima donnas on this committee. When they asked to be divided into work groups, they took it seriously.

And throughout the goings-on, committee chairman Hal Gehman kept things flowing with efficiency and good humor.

There was no doubt for a moment about the committee's independence from NASA, even if the reports on its operations were a little more difficult from time to time due to not taking full advantage of the NASA-TV resources at the major centers.

But with the help of calls to the media, conference calls and the possibility given to the public to receive news summaries regularly, it cannot be said that the committee did all its business in secrecy.

Certainly, they conducted more than 200 interviews with licensees that did not see the light of day, a fact that bruised the egos of several legislators. but allowed the space program employees to tell their story anonymously. It may not be the most reliable method of reporting a news story, but sometimes it's the only way to get the real story.
We believe that the committee will produce a report that will offer the true story of what happened, explain why, and offer a framework for discussions in which direction NASA's space program should go in the future.
Then, it will be up to all of us to ensure that Rick Husband, Willie McCall, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, Mike Anderson, David Brown and Ilan Ramon did not die in vain.