The crew of the space shuttle Columbia could have been rescued if NASA had taken concerns about their safety seriously, the final report on the tragedy says.
The report, compiled by the independent Columbia Accident Review Board, found that NASA's managers had "failed to heed alarm bells" sounded by engineers who reported that a piece of foam had come off the shuttle when it left Earth on January 16.
The foam damaged or dislodged heat-resistant tiles on one of Columbia's wings, allowing super-heated air to enter the craft and blow it to pieces when it tried to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere on February 1, after a 16-day voyage.
NASA's attitude to safety has not changed much since the Challenger disaster in 1986, the report found, saying the agency does not have an effective system of "checks and balances" or a "culture of safety" and should not send another shuttle into space until this changes.
NASA's managers ignored repeated warnings from engineers, who wanted to take satellite pictures of Columbia in orbit to see whether the flying foam had damaged the shuttle's wings. The managers had come to see flying foam as a normal part of lift-off.
NASA's engineers had struggled to make their concerns about the crew's safety heard but they were "separated from the decision-making process by distance and rank" and management did not "ask questions or listen" at rushed meetings about the shuttle's safety, the report concluded.
"We are convinced that the management practices . . . were as much a cause of the accident as the foam that struck the left wing," said the report, which cost $US20 million ($31 million) and took six months to produce.
The accident board said the seven astronauts on board died from either head wounds or lack of oxygen, after the craft broke up.
Jon Clark, husband of one of the astronaut, Laurels Clark, and father of their eight-year-old son, told CNN that "sweeping changes" would be good for NASA.
The accident board also found that the agency could have rushed another shuttle, Atlantis, into space to rescue Columbia's crew, who had enough breathable air to survive until February 15.
The two shuttles would have had to face each other in space, with their back doors open, and Columbia's astronauts would have had to spacewalk to the Atlantis.
Columbia would probably have been ditched into the Pacific Ocean.
The chairman of the accident board, Harold Gehman, stressed at a briefing in Washington that NASA was an "outstanding organisation". But he concluded that Columbia was not doomed by a lack of technology, but by a lack of leadership.
NASA's administrator, Sean O'Keefe, told reporters that NASA would adopt the board's recommendations.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/27/1061663853551.html
The report, compiled by the independent Columbia Accident Review Board, found that NASA's managers had "failed to heed alarm bells" sounded by engineers who reported that a piece of foam had come off the shuttle when it left Earth on January 16.
The foam damaged or dislodged heat-resistant tiles on one of Columbia's wings, allowing super-heated air to enter the craft and blow it to pieces when it tried to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere on February 1, after a 16-day voyage.
NASA's attitude to safety has not changed much since the Challenger disaster in 1986, the report found, saying the agency does not have an effective system of "checks and balances" or a "culture of safety" and should not send another shuttle into space until this changes.
NASA's managers ignored repeated warnings from engineers, who wanted to take satellite pictures of Columbia in orbit to see whether the flying foam had damaged the shuttle's wings. The managers had come to see flying foam as a normal part of lift-off.
NASA's engineers had struggled to make their concerns about the crew's safety heard but they were "separated from the decision-making process by distance and rank" and management did not "ask questions or listen" at rushed meetings about the shuttle's safety, the report concluded.
"We are convinced that the management practices . . . were as much a cause of the accident as the foam that struck the left wing," said the report, which cost $US20 million ($31 million) and took six months to produce.
The accident board said the seven astronauts on board died from either head wounds or lack of oxygen, after the craft broke up.
Jon Clark, husband of one of the astronaut, Laurels Clark, and father of their eight-year-old son, told CNN that "sweeping changes" would be good for NASA.
The accident board also found that the agency could have rushed another shuttle, Atlantis, into space to rescue Columbia's crew, who had enough breathable air to survive until February 15.
The two shuttles would have had to face each other in space, with their back doors open, and Columbia's astronauts would have had to spacewalk to the Atlantis.
Columbia would probably have been ditched into the Pacific Ocean.
The chairman of the accident board, Harold Gehman, stressed at a briefing in Washington that NASA was an "outstanding organisation". But he concluded that Columbia was not doomed by a lack of technology, but by a lack of leadership.
NASA's administrator, Sean O'Keefe, told reporters that NASA would adopt the board's recommendations.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/27/1061663853551.html
