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American Morning

Investigation Board To Release Shuttle Columbia Report Tuesday

Aired August 25, 2003 - 07:15   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Tomorrow, the final report on what caused the shuttle Columbia disaster will be released. And when the orbiter broke up on February 1 upon re-entry, it killed the crew of seven and thrust the entire shuttle program into uncertainty. Well, NASA is going to have to follow up the boards -- investigative board's recommendation, rather, to the letter, if it hopes to resume flights. Can they? Will they?
CNN analyst Randy Avera, a former NASA engineer, joins us from CNN Center with more.

Mr. Avera, good morning. Nice to have you. Thanks for joining us.

RANDY AVERA, CNN ANALYST: Good morning, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Will the report have a definitive answer on exactly what happened? Obviously, everyone has been theorizing that shedding foam hit the left wing and that's basically what caused the damage. But will there be a final answer as to what caused that disaster?

AVERA: Well, accident investigations typically look for probable cause. Admiral Gayman (ph) in the recent past has stated that the report will likely talk about the foam striking the leading edge of the left wing of the orbiter Columbia and creating this catastrophic event on February 1 of this year.

Probable cause typically means that there is no other evidence that points to the direct event, and we expect it to be more like a National Transportation Safety Board report for, say, a typical airline accident of sorts.

O'BRIEN: In addition to probable cause, however, the report is also going to look at the culture of NASA. What do you expect that that report is going to find?

AVERA: Well, in my book, "The Truth About Challenger," I wrote about the nine recommendations of 1986 that the Rogers Commission presented to President Reagan on the return to flight of the space shuttle program and what to do internally within NASA.

It's important to note two of those recommendations. One of them included the communications within all NASA centers that it desperately needed to be improved upon. The other was a safety panel that was put into place called the NSTS Board or safety group headed by astronaut Bob Crippin (ph) back in those days. And this report is anticipated to talk again about a safety panel and communications again.

The interesting point is: How will the accountability of that safety panel and the communications be ensured? A system in place should check the system itself. Human beings, having our own way of being not so reliable, we need a system in place that checks that reliability.

O'BRIEN: NASA spokesman Sean O'Keefe has been quoted as telling his colleagues that "This report is going to be ugly." Would you agree with that assessment? Just how tough do you think it's going to be?

AVERA: Well, certainly, with the loss of a $5 billion orbiter, the astronauts and the experiments on board, accountability is certainly important here. This is a national program. NASA is a research and development organization that, and many of us, we believe that NASA is being pressured to be more like an airline operation, when its charter actually is about research and development.

So, it will be very interesting to see the tone of this report. And on Tuesday, I'll be at the NTSB in Washington reading that report. And after 10:00 a.m., the public will be able to see that out on the Internet and on the news services as well.

O'BRIEN: You talk about accountability and about some of the recommendations, accountability possibly being one of the recommendations that will come out again in the wake of this investigation. Who enforces those recommendations? I mean, how do you make sure that that accountability is there?

AVERA: I think the general public -- the people that pay for and own the space shuttle program, those orbiters and the NASA agency itself. It's very important that people get involved to find out exactly: Does this report have teeth that will ensure changes that are meaningful will be in place? And then, in fact, NASA will continue to be the agency that the entire world looks at as a leader in space exploration. I, for one, know that NASA has been a tremendous leader, and its accomplishments have been extraordinary through the decades and the brightest days of NASA are ahead.

O'BRIEN: But how do you go about enforcing giving engineers, who are hierarchically lower than the managers, the ability to stand up and say, I think there's a problem here, I think there is a risk to this flight, and even though all of this money and all of this energy and the ball is rolling toward lift-off, we've got to stop it?

You write about that in your book. I mean, that seems to be the critical issue here, right?

AVERA: Well, in America, we live in a culture where if you were to interview all of the employees, management and worker bees, and we live in a culture where people are, in fact, fearful that some sort of retaliation could happen if they were to bring up an important point in this case about safety of flight. And even though there may be this so-called system in place that all you have to do is raise your hand and you can be heard, the real proof of that is to look back and to be able to show times when this really occurred and that the smallest person, the new hire in the company who saw something that was not right, in fact, was able to be heard all the way to the top of the organization.

O'BRIEN: Randy Avera is a former NASA engineer and also CNN's shuttle analyst. Thanks for joining us this morning. Appreciate your time.

AVERA: You're welcome, Soledad.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.




Tuesday>


Aired August 25, 2003 - 07:15   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Tomorrow, the final report on what caused the shuttle Columbia disaster will be released. And when the orbiter broke up on February 1 upon re-entry, it killed the crew of seven and thrust the entire shuttle program into uncertainty. Well, NASA is going to have to follow up the boards -- investigative board's recommendation, rather, to the letter, if it hopes to resume flights. Can they? Will they?
CNN analyst Randy Avera, a former NASA engineer, joins us from CNN Center with more.

Mr. Avera, good morning. Nice to have you. Thanks for joining us.

RANDY AVERA, CNN ANALYST: Good morning, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Will the report have a definitive answer on exactly what happened? Obviously, everyone has been theorizing that shedding foam hit the left wing and that's basically what caused the damage. But will there be a final answer as to what caused that disaster?

AVERA: Well, accident investigations typically look for probable cause. Admiral Gayman (ph) in the recent past has stated that the report will likely talk about the foam striking the leading edge of the left wing of the orbiter Columbia and creating this catastrophic event on February 1 of this year.

Probable cause typically means that there is no other evidence that points to the direct event, and we expect it to be more like a National Transportation Safety Board report for, say, a typical airline accident of sorts.

O'BRIEN: In addition to probable cause, however, the report is also going to look at the culture of NASA. What do you expect that that report is going to find?

AVERA: Well, in my book, "The Truth About Challenger," I wrote about the nine recommendations of 1986 that the Rogers Commission presented to President Reagan on the return to flight of the space shuttle program and what to do internally within NASA.

It's important to note two of those recommendations. One of them included the communications within all NASA centers that it desperately needed to be improved upon. The other was a safety panel that was put into place called the NSTS Board or safety group headed by astronaut Bob Crippin (ph) back in those days. And this report is anticipated to talk again about a safety panel and communications again.

The interesting point is: How will the accountability of that safety panel and the communications be ensured? A system in place should check the system itself. Human beings, having our own way of being not so reliable, we need a system in place that checks that reliability.

O'BRIEN: NASA spokesman Sean O'Keefe has been quoted as telling his colleagues that "This report is going to be ugly." Would you agree with that assessment? Just how tough do you think it's going to be?

AVERA: Well, certainly, with the loss of a $5 billion orbiter, the astronauts and the experiments on board, accountability is certainly important here. This is a national program. NASA is a research and development organization that, and many of us, we believe that NASA is being pressured to be more like an airline operation, when its charter actually is about research and development.

So, it will be very interesting to see the tone of this report. And on Tuesday, I'll be at the NTSB in Washington reading that report. And after 10:00 a.m., the public will be able to see that out on the Internet and on the news services as well.

O'BRIEN: You talk about accountability and about some of the recommendations, accountability possibly being one of the recommendations that will come out again in the wake of this investigation. Who enforces those recommendations? I mean, how do you make sure that that accountability is there?

AVERA: I think the general public -- the people that pay for and own the space shuttle program, those orbiters and the NASA agency itself. It's very important that people get involved to find out exactly: Does this report have teeth that will ensure changes that are meaningful will be in place? And then, in fact, NASA will continue to be the agency that the entire world looks at as a leader in space exploration. I, for one, know that NASA has been a tremendous leader, and its accomplishments have been extraordinary through the decades and the brightest days of NASA are ahead.

O'BRIEN: But how do you go about enforcing giving engineers, who are hierarchically lower than the managers, the ability to stand up and say, I think there's a problem here, I think there is a risk to this flight, and even though all of this money and all of this energy and the ball is rolling toward lift-off, we've got to stop it?

You write about that in your book. I mean, that seems to be the critical issue here, right?

AVERA: Well, in America, we live in a culture where if you were to interview all of the employees, management and worker bees, and we live in a culture where people are, in fact, fearful that some sort of retaliation could happen if they were to bring up an important point in this case about safety of flight. And even though there may be this so-called system in place that all you have to do is raise your hand and you can be heard, the real proof of that is to look back and to be able to show times when this really occurred and that the smallest person, the new hire in the company who saw something that was not right, in fact, was able to be heard all the way to the top of the organization.

O'BRIEN: Randy Avera is a former NASA engineer and also CNN's shuttle analyst. Thanks for joining us this morning. Appreciate your time.

AVERA: You're welcome, Soledad.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.




Tuesday>