Shuttle Probe Faults NASA
For Relying on Contractors

WASHINGTON -- Although a collision with a piece of foam led to the breakup of the space shuttle Columbia, NASA and the complex bureaucracy of contractors that runs much of its day-to-day activities must share responsibility for the loss of the orbiter and its crew, an independent investigation board concluded.

A final report by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board raised fundamental questions about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's increasing dependence on Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp. and a handful of other contractors. The board said that while NASA streamlined the space program during a push toward privatization that began in the mid-1990s, it abdicated much of its responsibilities for overseeing the safety of manned space flight.

After reviewing 30,000 documents and conducting more than 200 formal interviews since the Feb. 1 crash, the board criticized NASA for doing little since the 1986 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger to foster an environment in which safety concerns flowed freely from low-level engineers to top NASA managers. Federal spending cuts and mounting pressures to complete the already-overdue International Space Station also contributed to a shift in emphasis to schedules rather than safety.

"The two causes of the accident were the foam and the loss within NASA of its system of checks and balances," said retired Adm. Harold Gehman Jr., who headed the 13-member committee that investigated the accident.

THE COLUMBIA REPORT See the full text1 of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's 248-page report, or read the executive summary1. COMMENTARY • Back on Earth2 By Sean O'Keefe, NASA Administrator, 08/27/2003

Columbia, the oldest in the nation's fleet of shuttles, disintegrated during re-entry after superheated gases melted away its left wing. All seven crew members on board were killed, and debris was scattered over hundreds of miles. The three remaining shuttles have been grounded since.

The 248-page report was unapologetic in its assessment that top NASA officials bungled the analysis of whether foam that peeled away from the orbiter's external fuel tank was capable of causing serious damage. The report also noted that Boeing, which was responsible for studying the potential damage caused by the foam, used an outdated software program operated by a team of largely inexperienced engineers who failed to seek assistance from senior colleagues.

Boeing has defended its analysis, saying it was done by a team of people that included senior engineers. Both Boeing and Lockheed issued statements saying the companies are working with NASA to respond to the board's recommendations. NASA and the companies already are working on a new software-analysis tool to replace the Crater system that failed to accurately determine the damage inflicted by the foam. They also are looking at ways to insulate the fuel tanks without such foam panels.

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe described the situation as a "seminal moment." He said the Columbia report "should serve as a blueprint, a road map" for the agency to "fix its problems." While noting that the board had been upfront in the months leading up to the report's issue in detailing the problems, he said the agency already is drafting plans to address each of the recommendations, particularly those that stand in the way of future launches.

Adm. Gehman, who also headed the 2001 investigation of the terrorist attack in Yemen on the USS Cole, noted that the space shuttle itself "is not inherently unsafe." But the board issued 29 safety recommendations, several of which must be completed before the shuttle's next flight. NASA officials had discussed a flight as soon as March or April, but space experts say that's probably too ambitious, given the changes required.

The accident board called into question the original analysis that led NASA to outsource day-to-day activities to private companies. The board said a 1995 report by a top NASA official endorsing privatization of the nation's shuttle fleet was "flawed." That report described the shuttles as a "a mature and reliable system ... about as safe as today's technology will provide."

But James Logsdon, a member of the investigation board and a professor at George Washington University, said that report was used to justify awarding a November 1995 contract to United Space Alliance, known as USA, for a host of shuttle activities. "We believe that was a mistake," he said. Going forward, "there needs to be stronger technical oversight by civil servants and government employees."

United Space Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed, is the prime contractor for NASA's shuttle program, performing everything from flight operations to astronaut training. The venture has 10,000 employees, many of whom used to work at the individual companies or NASA itself. In addition, NASA contracts with each company for specific tasks. Lockheed, for example, makes the external tanks and applied the thermal-protection foam that hit the shuttle.

About 85% of NASA's total budget in fiscal 2002, or about $13.3 billion, went to private contractors. The contract with United Space Alliance, which was initially touted as a way to save NASA $1 billion a year, has actually saved only $1 billion over its first six years, largely because NASA did not completely privatize the shuttle program.

While the report didn't call for a radical change in the structure of USA's relationship with NASA, the board did call on NASA to have greater "insight" into operations to avoid being completely reliant on others to make critical decisions. In particular, the board chided NASA "for not having the training necessary to evaluate" Boeing's Crater analysis, based on a piece of debris that was 1/400th the size of the piece that actually hit the shuttle.

Board members said they consider "brain drain" to be the biggest downside of NASA's reliance on contractors. Many of the agency's most experienced employees have fled for higher salaries and better benefits in private industry. Over the next five years, record numbers of aerospace engineers throughout the industry are expected to retire.

The board "challenged" Congress and the White House to hold "a vigorous public policy debate" about where the manned space program goes from here. Among the issues that need to be resolved, said Adm. Gehman, is whether the government is willing to spend the money to pursue space exploration properly, and a decision on the balance between manned flights and robotic ones, such as the Voyager missions.

With the Cold War over, NASA in the 1990s was increasingly forced to do more with less. The agency lost 40% of its work force, and its budget was under "constant pressure to reduce or at least freeze operating costs," while keeping to tight schedules, the report said. The board said that the shuttle program was operating "too close to too many margins," and that the "little pieces of risk add up" until managers "are, in fact, gambling."

Many within the space community had been bracing for what Mr. O'Keefe had warned would be an "ugly" assessment of NASA's shortcomings. Apollo 11 astronaut Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, who attended many of the shuttle board's meetings and is a proponent of aggressive space exploration, said he believed the board did its job. "Now it's up to NASA, Congress and the voting public to decide whether they want to pay the costs to do this thing the right way."

Write to J. Lynn Lunsford at lynn.lunsford@wsj.com³ and Anne Marie Squeo at annemarie.squeo@wsj.com⁴

Updated August 27, 2003 8:33 a.m.