Printer-friendly version

29 August 2003

Panel Releases Report on Shuttle Columbia

By Richard Stenger, CNN.com

August 26, 2003 Posted: 1:17 PM EDT (1717 GMT)

A bureaucratic NASA culture compromised by lax safety standards, slipshod management and dwindling funds was as much to blame as a colliding chunk of foam soon after launch for the loss of the space shuttle Columbia and its crew, an independent report said Tuesday.

Following a painstaking, seven-month examination, the final report of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board said that the U.S. space agency had done little to improve shuttle safety since it lost the shuttle Challenger in 1986.

The board offered dozens of recommendations before the shuttle program returns to flight. Without major changes, the panel warned, NASA risks losing another one of its remaining three shuttles.

"If we thought the shuttle was unsafe, we would have said so. Now, that is not to say, there are not a lot of things they need to do to improve the safety of the shuttle," retired Adm. Harold Gehman Jr., the board chairman, told reporters Tuesday.

"But if we thought this shuttle was just inherently unsafe, we would have said so."

NASA would like to return the shuttles to flight as early as the spring of 2004, primarily to send crews and equipment to the international space station.

Download the complete report (.pdf file, 9.8 MB)

We'd like to thank Tim Dolan for forwarding this item to us. -SG