NASA - Space agency will review debate about Columbia

WASHINGTON -- NASA's top official said Thursday that engineers' dire speculations while Columbia was still in orbit were evaluated at the proper level below top management but that the space agency would review the decision-making process.

Speaking before the House Science committee, Sean O'Keefe, administrator of the space agency, vigorously defended the way NASA dealt with a flurry of e-mails between engineers about the possible destruction of Columbia during its return to Earth. He said experts considered the issues and decided the space shuttle would be safe.

O'Keefe also announced that because the Columbia accident forced grounding of the space shuttle fleet, Russian spacecraft will be used to exchange crew members aboard the International Space Station.

A debate among engineers on the risks Columbia faced during its re-entry never reached top NASA officials, but O'Keefe said the space agency management system expects lower-level experts to evaluate risks and make decisions about mission operations.

"I certainly am not privy to every single one of those deliberations that go on across an agency of 18,000 people and another 100,000 folks who engage in launch operations and the continued activities of the agency," O'Keefe said in a heated exchange with Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-NY.

Weiner, who apologized at one point for getting "hot under the collar," said it was "stunning" that serious safety concerns were never shared with NASA's top management. He said it should be O'Keefe's "job number one" to keep up with discussions of space shuttle safety and, yet, the administrator learned of the debate between the engineers only when NASA released the e-mails on Wednesday.

'That's crazy'

"Why was it that even if there was hint of a footnote of a memo on a scrap of an envelope that was within this investigation's scope, that it only made its way to you yesterday, at the same time it made its way to everyone else on the AP wire," Weiner asked. "This is stunning to me that this is the process being followed. That's crazy. You must have gotten these memos and hit the roof. Is that a fair characterization?"

"It looks like that dialogue went on at exactly the right level," responded O'Keefe. He said senior engineers made the decision. How NASA handles such engineering decisions will be considered, among other issues, by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, he said.

"We want to know the truth and will make the corrections indicated," said O'Keefe.

Associate Administrator William Readdy, who attended the hearing, told reporters afterward that the debate between the NASA engineers about the possibility that Columbia was damaged during launch and could experience catastrophic problems during re-entry or landing was typical of discussion in the space shuttle program.

"That is what engineers and flight controllers do each and every mission," said Readdy, a former astronaut.

He said the discussion was not passed to his management level at NASA's headquarters in Washington.

"It was being looked at on the proper level," said Readdy.

O'Keefe said that a Russian Soyuz spacecraft now docked at the international space station will be used to return three crew members to Earth next month and that a two-man replacement crew will be sent to the station aboard another Soyuz.

He said this process could be repeated every six months for the next year and a half.

The administrator told the committee that the 16 nations participating in the space station project have "acted like partners" in deciding how to respond to the space shuttle accident.

He said the European Space Agency has agreed to make a payment to Russia and that this money would be credited toward the expense of later flying a European to the space station.

O'Keefe said the station would be resupplied by additional flights of the Russian Progress, a cargo spacecraft that can dock automatically at the station. He said the Russians have agreed to build enough spacecraft to send four Progress ships to the space station this year and five in 2004.

The NASA administrator said that the space station would be abandoned only if the crew was endangered. Otherwise, he said a two-member crew could conduct science and maintain the orbiting laboratory. The crew is limited to two, said O'Keefe, because of limited supplies, particularly water, that can be brought to the station by the Progress cargo ships.

Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Texas, introduced legislation that would allow NASA to help defray the Russian expense of building the additional spacecraft if President Bush notifies Congress the vehicles are needed to ensure the space station crew safety. The proposed legislation would exempt NASA, for purposes of financing the spacecraft, from the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000, which would forbid such payments to Russia.

O'Keefe, however, said that because of participating by the other space station nations it may not be necessary for NASA to send funds to Russia for the extra spacecraft.