WHATEVER went wrong with the shuttle, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board will have to probe deeper than the design of the craft鈥檚 foam insulation and thermal tiles. As with the Challenger investigation 17 years ago, it is becoming clearer by the day that NASA was having problems with the way serious concerns were 鈥� or were not 鈥� analysed and communicated during the mission.
At first, the evidence was limited to a few emails expressing one NASA engineer鈥檚 concerns. But events took a dramatic turn last week when the agency released a flurry of emails in response to journalists鈥� freedom-of-information requests. The messages, between no fewer than seven engineers, including the flight director at mission control, showed a rising tide of concerns that started a week before Columbia鈥檚 scheduled landing and continued up to the day before the disaster.
Some describe in detail aspects of the scenario that might unfold, including the altitude at which problems would begin, the sequence of sensors that would fail, and the possibility of the left wing burning through and shearing off. While we don鈥檛 yet know if that is exactly what happened, the descriptions seem alarmingly prescient. Some of them match the facts we do know so closely that they strengthen the case for the root cause of the accident being the impact from a piece of insulation foam as Columbia lifted off.
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鈥淲hy are we talking about this on the day before landing, and not the day after launch?鈥� wrote William Anderson, an engineer at JSC. Among the possibilities he outlined that day were several that included damage to parts of the left wing or wheel well as a result of tile damage. One concluded: 鈥淏ail out is your only option (probably won鈥檛 even be able to do that).鈥�
But no such concerns were ever communicated to the crew. A videotape of their final moments shows astronaut Kalpana Chawla adjusting her pressure suit gloves, with no apparent sense of urgency, even as the hot plasma was already beginning to stream by outside. We now know that there was never a chance to bail out, but if the damaged shuttle had survived re-entry unable to land, seconds would have mattered.
Engineers at Langley tried to bring their concerns to their superiors at NASA but the message never made it up the line. NASA chief Sean O鈥橩eefe says he only heard about the emails from last week鈥檚 news reports.
In the wake of all this, Harold Gehman, head of the Columbia investigation, was right to ask O鈥橩eefe to reassign some top NASA staff who were becoming subjects of the investigation they were helping. But that is hardly the end of the matter. After Challenger, NASA鈥檚 structure was given a thorough revamp. Is it due for another one? To the investigating board, and to the legislators who control the agency鈥檚 budget, such questions are now firmly on the agenda-which is where they should be.