Riding Rockets - Mike Mullane [225]
I was in northern New Mexico at the time of the disaster, visiting my daughter and her family. Had I known of the reentry trajectory, I could have stepped outside and watchedColumbia pass nearly overhead. But I was not an eyewitness. I received the news from TV: “The space shuttleColumbia is overdue for landing at the Kennedy Space Center.” Images ofColumbia ’s fiery destruction soon followed. As I watched them I couldn’t help but visualize what the crew had experienced. I had no doubt their fortress cockpit had kept them alive during the out-of-control breakup of their machine. Just like theChallenger crew, they were trapped. Their backpack-parachute bailout system was useless at the extreme altitude and speed. And I couldn’t help but visualize the families. They would have been waiting at the KSC Shuttle Landing Facility, giddy in anticipation of having their loved ones safely on the ground and in their arms. They would have been chatting happily about the parties and postflight trips that were planned. Then an escort into widowhood would have come to their side to tell them the news. Their husbands and wife, fathers and mother would not be coming home.
I wasn’t affected byColumbia ’s loss as deeply asChallenger ’s. I had only a passing acquaintance with a few members of the crew. But I was still heartbroken. I stepped from my daughter’s house, walked into the adjacent desert hills, and began my prayers. Even as I was saying them, atoms ofColumbia and her crew were quietly and invisibly settling to Earth around me.
The final report of theColumbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) would read remarkably like theChallenger report issued seventeen years earlier. In fact, in some key paragraphs of their document, the CAIB could have plagiarized the Roger’s Commission report nearly word for word. The only edits required would have been to substitute “External Tank” for “Solid Rocket Booster” and “foam-shedding” for “O-ring erosion.” Workplace cultural issues, including overwhelming pressure to keep shuttle launches on schedule, had, again, resulted in NASA mishandling repeated evidence of a deadly design flaw.
I have been too long removed from NASA to make any firsthand comment on those cultural issues or the leadership failures they suggest. Nor can I predict whether the agency will be able to fix itself…though I see reason for hope. The shuttle team’s meticulous response to the heat-shield damage sustained byDiscovery on the first post-Columbiashuttle mission (STS-114) and the agency’s intention to keep the shuttle grounded until the maddeningly persistent ET foam-shedding problem is fixed suggests NASA has made safety its top priority. The question is, “Can this reinvigorated safety consciousness persist through the remaining life of the space shuttle program?” It didn’t last afterChallenger, asColumbia ’s loss attests. Perhaps new NASA administrator, Dr. Michael Griffin, is a leader who can keep the agency focused on safety. I pray so. There have been enough families devastated in this business, not to mention the disastrous impact on America’s manned space program that another shuttle loss would precipitate.
In Senate testimony, Dr. Griffin has said he intends to retire the shuttle by 2010, arguing, “The shuttle is an inherently flawed system.” He’s right. It is an outrageously expensive vehicle and lacks a viable crew escape system. A well-led and adequately funded team might still have been able to safely operate even this “flawed system,” but the old NASA lacked both leadership and money.
Griffin continued, “We all know that human perfection is unattainable. Sooner or later there will be another shuttle accident. I want to