Report Volume 1, August
2003
Harold W. Gehman, Jr. chair
ISBN 0-16-067904-4
Read 2003 November 14 –
2004 January 13
Reviewed 2004 January 14
In the week of November 17,
2003, NASA Administrator Sean OÕKeefe requested that all employees of the
agency read, absorb, reflect on, and talk about this report, and he sent us all
black and white copies. It took me
two months of intermittent lunches to get this done.
Today the President made vast
and focused new plans for NASA:
Finish the space station, retire the shuttle by 2010, replace it by 2008
and fly the replacement by 2014.
Go to the moon by 2015 and settle by 2020. Use that as a hopping off point for going elsewhere, perhaps
Mars by 2030. And perhaps even a
little more money.
This is the first time that
IÕve heard a formal plan that extended beyond my nominal retirement date. What will happen in the next
administration, or this one for that matter?
It appears that NASA is a
better place in the aftermath of the unnecessary though inevitable Columbia
tragedy. This report goes to the
bottom and all over the place besides.
They are thorough. They
describe everything that happened or could have happened. They call names; they name places. The blame doesnÕt stop before Congress
and the President are implicated.
Amen.
I come away with the belief
that it is impossible for thousands of people to do anything efficiently and
safely. Dangerous and hazardous
systems are operated all the time, but on minimum people following strict rules
with checks and balances. None of
this is true of the Space Shuttle Program. It is good news that it will be retired and replaced with a
real space ship rather than an airplane that goes to space and pretends to fly
on return. It is good news that
people are saying, Òin thirty years none of the ultra-cheap promises have come
true, including STS.Ó It is good
that we got lucky and got onto Mars eleven days ago with a working rover.
Parts of the report made me
sleepy, like most of the mechanical detail in Chapter 3. Parts were surprisingly interesting,
like Appendix A about the investigation itself. None of these public documents ever discusses the demise of
the crew, except in the most circumspect, Òfor the sake of future improvementsÓ
ways.
The board did good work. They fired a piece of foam into an RCC
panel and damaged it, proving even to the stalwarts at Marshall that it could happen.
As they said going in, ÒLook where the denial is.Ó Then they said, ÒThe foam did it and
you have a lot of work to do before returning to flight, and even that should
be temporary.Ó
In a couple of weeks we will
observe the anniversary of the tragedy.
It has been a long year but the cause moves forward, with greater
earnestness than before. Husband
and his crew are thus honored.
Postscript 2007 June 28.
The hills in MarsÕ Gusev Crater near the Spirit landing site are named for Husband, McCool and the crew. Spirit and Opportunity are still going strong today. Opportunity is about to enter Victoria Crater.