NASA Chief Vows to Follow
Proposals Without Reservation

WASHINGTON -- Space agency administrator Sean O'Keefe said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will, without reservation, follow the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, including a major renovation of NASA's culture.

"We get it," Mr. O'Keefe said Wednesday at a news conference. "We clearly got the point."

He said the report clearly spells out NASA's human failures and how its culture must change to assure safe human spaceflight, and added that NASA reorganization will assure that the safety changes in the space agency culture are permanent.

In the report, the board found a continuation in the modern NASA of characteristics that were blamed 17 years ago for the accident that destroyed space shuttle Challenger and killed seven astronauts. NASA had pledged to change, and did for a while, but eventually drifted back to its old ways, the report found.

Former astronaut Sally Ride, the first American woman in space and a member of the board, said there were "very disturbing" echoes of the Challenger disaster. NASA "put a lot of attention into solving those problems in the few years right after 1987, but those lessons seem to have been lost," she told NBC's "Today" on Wednesday.

Columbia broke apart while returning to Earth on Feb. 1 following a 16-day mission. All seven astronauts on board were killed.

The report said some of the negative aspects included flawed decision making and a tolerance by managers of abnormal events, such as the shedding of foam insulation from the shuttle's external fuel tank during launch.

Members of the board also found that communication was stifled in NASA and that the safety program often was "silent" because engineers with safety concerns were intimidated into silence.

The board's chairman, Ret. Navy Adm. Harold Gehman Jr., said the panel was confident that NASA would make sure that the next few space shuttles that fly will be among the safest ever, pushed by a vigorous vigilance, zeal and attention to detail inspired by the Columbia tragedy.

But Adm. Gehman and others said they were worried that that enthusiasm will fade with time and NASA will slip into its old culture, setting the stage for another accident.

To guard against this, Adm. Gehman said the board included in its report recommendations designed to prevent the "atrophy of energy and zeal."

After the Columbia tragedy, the space shuttle fleet was grounded. But the board said the shuttle was "not inherently unsafe," and NASA officials have a goal of resuming flights sometime between March 11 and April 6 next year. However, they acknowledge that may be too optimistic, given the board's recommendations.

The board said NASA should be required to submit to Congress annual reports detailing how these recommendations were being carried out.

Because such changes would be so difficult, Adm. Gehman said the board wasn't insisting that they be made before the shuttle was cleared to fly again. But the board did make 15 recommendations that it said must be accomplished before another shuttle can be safely launched.

The board also recommended that mission managers be trained to respond to safety contingencies that occur after the shuttle is in orbit. It also called for NASA to relax its tight shuttle launch schedule and make sure that the pressure of time does not impact safety.

Separately, the director of the Marshall Space Flight Center said Wednesday that Jerry Smelser, manager of the space shuttle's external tank project, had been removed from his position and would retire by the end of the year.

Director Dave King also took responsibility for the technical cause of the Columbia space shuttle disaster, saying employees there failed to realize the danger posed by shedding pieces of fuel-tank foam insulation.

Copyright (c) 2003 Associated Press

Updated August 28, 2003 12:45 a.m.