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Columbia: The Shuttle Tragedy

Aired August 26, 2003 - 10:01   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.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Houston, we have a problem. That's what we're likely to hear in the next hour, when investigators release an unflinching bare-knuckled report on the Columbia disaster, and the many problems within NASA that doomed the flight and the seven astronauts onboard.
Joining us now, CNN space correspondent Miles O'Brien and a CNN analyst who just finished an advance review of the report, Randy Avera.

Good morning, guys.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Leon.

We have the report in our hands. We're able to tell you a little bit about it. Randy Avera and some other people from CNN have been inside now in a special reading room for the past four hours trying to digest 250 pages of this report. We're told it is scathing in its indictment of NASA's culture. That's the headline.

Some specifics from Randy. First of all, would you agree with that characterization?

RANDY AVERA, CNN ANALYST: Well, I think that the report surely had issues that were addressed. It has stern recommendations, but I think they're appropriate recommendations based on the current events that have happened with Columbia, and the time that has passed since 1986 and the recommendations of the Rogers Commission Report.

So in summary, there are basically five points I'd like to share. First of all, the board recommends a national commitment to human flight that it's critical to the NASA future. Secondly, safety will be the core of the program and that the safety program, a new safety program will have accountability.

Now, the obvious question is, who would be accountable? The board recommends that the United States Congress and the president of the United States will be accountable for that safety program. And fourth, the use of spendable launch vehicles to supply the International Space Station to supplement the shuttle flights, and that the national direction will be to develop an orbital space plane to replace the space shuttle that we have today and that the core of the development of that space plane will be safety for the flight crew as opposed to performance of the vehicle.

And the fifth main item, overhaul of the NASA safety system, the management of that safety program, and the resources, including funding, to ensure the higher level of safety for this program.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about that last point for a minute because those first issues are issues, which are fairly clear cut. Overhauling safety, that's a difficult thing to get your hands around. Did it offer specific recommendations on what NASA isn't doing now that it should be doing?

AVERA: Well, the investigation revealed that basically there was no safety program within NASA, and the reason that they say that is because it was so fragmented and that the...

O'BRIEN: Say it again, though, no safety program?

AVERA: No safety program as a unique across the board program. What the board found was that will lower level management had been delegated to come up with their own recipe of what safety process to use and how they would document it and implement a safety program. So, so for the past many years, NASA has been operating under what would be a multiple safety program with very little continuity, which led to the upper management not realizing all the way to the administrator not realizing the problems at hand that were critical for safety of flight.

O'BRIEN: You are somebody who's involved in the investigation of the Challenger accident. To read this and hear those kinds of statements, it must be kind of haunting.

AVERA: It is haunting. It's as if we've gone backing to 1986 and are discussing the same issues. The point being that humans are not as reliable as we would like to be, and we need a system in place that's reliable and that that system would check itself to be more reliable than we are as human beings, and the board was very specific about leadership from the top, that the tone and the culture of NASA totally depends upon that leadership, and that employees would be not only willing to come forward with safety problems, but would be supported as heroes of the program by bringing this information forward and solutions for these technical problems.

O'BRIEN: So in these 250 pages it, offers really a blueprint for wholesale fundamental change for NASA. Do you think it's warranted?

AVERA: I think it's warranted, and I think that the aggressive programs that are slated for the future and the new programs that have come up having to do with the Earth and our solar systems and the programs beyond. We have to remember that there's public safety involved, as well as the NASA mission, and the charter of NASA certainly is in the doorway of being overhauled, starting with its safety program, and certainly the culture of the NASA program management and how the engineers interface to that management group will certainly be overhauled.

O'BRIEN: All right, Randy Avera who spent four hours in there reading. Why don't you put your earpiece in, because Leon Harris back in Atlanta has got to ask you a question.

(CROSSTALK) O'BRIEN: Go ahead, Leon.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Sure, Miles.

As a matter of fact, I want to ask both of you this question, specifically Randy, since he's had a chance to look at this report. It seems as though so much of the blame or at least a lot of the finger pointing is going at NASA's management. It sounds like a blockbuster of a report to me, if he's saying that there was no safety program. I want to know, Randy, if you saw anything in that report that indicated whether or not there was a budgeting problem and whether or not whether or not it's a money issue or whether it's a management cultural issue, because so much of what has been done decision wise with NASA has been based upon how much money or how little money they've had to work with. Some of the experts talked about the reason there were so many holes in the safety net, if you will, is because they had to make so many safety cutbacks along the way.

AVERA: Well, the board did address that directly. The board pointed out that it's not a matter of funding, it's not a matter of the fact that it was contracted out to the contractors, you know the shuttle program has been largely contracted out to United Space Alliance, but it said that that was not really a direct cause of all of this, but it was more a management procedural problem, a failure to get critical information to the top, to the decision-making levels, where changes could be implemented for safety.

O'BRIEN: What Randy is talking about, Leon, and I'll give him an opportunity to put his earpiece back in once again for another question. Specifically if you recall during the course of this mission, there were a series of e-mails, which showed some genuine concern on the part of lower-level engineers in the system about this foam strike which is the probable cause of the accident, having breached the heat shield of the Space Shuttle Columbia at the leading edge of the wing. Those sorts of e-mails did not filter up to the top, and I suspect that it addresses that issue of how that communication bubbles up.

AVERA: It clearly did. It addresses the breakdown in that communications, and the point that that information should have been communicated to the top. But again, as I have stated, there was a fragmented safety program until place, and the fragmentation of that safety program also impeded those e-mails from going to the right place.

HARRIS: Randy, can you tell me how much of this you see as being -- I'm sorry, Miles. I just wanted to just jump in real quick and just get Randy's perspective on how much he sees as being possible to achieve in the short term. You're talking about development of a space plane, you're talking about development of another vehicle to run back and forth the shuttle missions, or actually some supply missions to the space station. Are we talking here about a situation where the fleet may be grounded for years to come, decades to come, while all these other things are being developed, or what? AVERA: That's an excellent question, Leon, because of the 27 recommendations, 15 are return to flight requirements. Of course, these are recommendations, all of them. But in order to achieve these recommendations, quite a bit of effort is going to have to be exhibited by NASA and supported all the way not only through the government organizations, but the public at large who funds this program.

HARRIS: Miles, any idea how the families of those of the survivors, you know, who lost loved ones on that Columbia mission, how their likely to take this report?

AVERA: Say that again.

HARRIS: I'm sorry, this is to Miles. I'm just wondering, I know Miles has been working on this story for so long, and I just wondered if you've had a chance to get some sort of a gauge of how the families of those who died on board Columbia are going to take this report.

O'BRIEN: Well, I talked to John Clark, who is the widower of Laura Clark, one of the Columbia's seven astronauts, who was at a briefing yesterday, an informal briefing. They didn't actually see this report, but briefed by three members of the independent board, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and were given the gist of it, and he said that many of the questions that the families asked of the board were as he put it very pointed, borderline angry. And not angry at the board, of course, but angry at NASA and the culture that allowed something like this to be missed, the fact that foam fell off those tanks from the early days of the program, and nobody thought to test that to see what its effects might be is a very bitter pill.

And as he said, while they were surprised, I don't know if pleasantly surprised is the word, but surprised at the scope of this report, how specific it was, how comprehensive, how blunt it is, and blunt by design, to get NASA's attention. While they're surprised by all of that, it's difficult to walk away from something like this feeling good about it.

AVERA: It will be a function of leadership that will take NASA and the American people into the future of space exploration, and it's important to realize again, Miles, that NASA is a research and development organization, the risk is always very high.

In fact, the board said that the risk will never go away. It's a matter of minimizing that risk and defining it and being accountable for it as we proceed forward.

HARRIS: There's a lot to talk about here, gentlemen.

There's a lot to talk about here gentlemen. I'm sorry.

O'BRIEN: There are many things that they have to look at, and hindsight is 20/20, and we'll leave it at that point -- Leon.

HARRIS: Exactly, a good point, Miles.

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






Aired August 26, 2003 - 10:01   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Houston, we have a problem. That's what we're likely to hear in the next hour, when investigators release an unflinching bare-knuckled report on the Columbia disaster, and the many problems within NASA that doomed the flight and the seven astronauts onboard.
Joining us now, CNN space correspondent Miles O'Brien and a CNN analyst who just finished an advance review of the report, Randy Avera.

Good morning, guys.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Leon.

We have the report in our hands. We're able to tell you a little bit about it. Randy Avera and some other people from CNN have been inside now in a special reading room for the past four hours trying to digest 250 pages of this report. We're told it is scathing in its indictment of NASA's culture. That's the headline.

Some specifics from Randy. First of all, would you agree with that characterization?

RANDY AVERA, CNN ANALYST: Well, I think that the report surely had issues that were addressed. It has stern recommendations, but I think they're appropriate recommendations based on the current events that have happened with Columbia, and the time that has passed since 1986 and the recommendations of the Rogers Commission Report.

So in summary, there are basically five points I'd like to share. First of all, the board recommends a national commitment to human flight that it's critical to the NASA future. Secondly, safety will be the core of the program and that the safety program, a new safety program will have accountability.

Now, the obvious question is, who would be accountable? The board recommends that the United States Congress and the president of the United States will be accountable for that safety program. And fourth, the use of spendable launch vehicles to supply the International Space Station to supplement the shuttle flights, and that the national direction will be to develop an orbital space plane to replace the space shuttle that we have today and that the core of the development of that space plane will be safety for the flight crew as opposed to performance of the vehicle.

And the fifth main item, overhaul of the NASA safety system, the management of that safety program, and the resources, including funding, to ensure the higher level of safety for this program.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about that last point for a minute because those first issues are issues, which are fairly clear cut. Overhauling safety, that's a difficult thing to get your hands around. Did it offer specific recommendations on what NASA isn't doing now that it should be doing?

AVERA: Well, the investigation revealed that basically there was no safety program within NASA, and the reason that they say that is because it was so fragmented and that the...

O'BRIEN: Say it again, though, no safety program?

AVERA: No safety program as a unique across the board program. What the board found was that will lower level management had been delegated to come up with their own recipe of what safety process to use and how they would document it and implement a safety program. So, so for the past many years, NASA has been operating under what would be a multiple safety program with very little continuity, which led to the upper management not realizing all the way to the administrator not realizing the problems at hand that were critical for safety of flight.

O'BRIEN: You are somebody who's involved in the investigation of the Challenger accident. To read this and hear those kinds of statements, it must be kind of haunting.

AVERA: It is haunting. It's as if we've gone backing to 1986 and are discussing the same issues. The point being that humans are not as reliable as we would like to be, and we need a system in place that's reliable and that that system would check itself to be more reliable than we are as human beings, and the board was very specific about leadership from the top, that the tone and the culture of NASA totally depends upon that leadership, and that employees would be not only willing to come forward with safety problems, but would be supported as heroes of the program by bringing this information forward and solutions for these technical problems.

O'BRIEN: So in these 250 pages it, offers really a blueprint for wholesale fundamental change for NASA. Do you think it's warranted?

AVERA: I think it's warranted, and I think that the aggressive programs that are slated for the future and the new programs that have come up having to do with the Earth and our solar systems and the programs beyond. We have to remember that there's public safety involved, as well as the NASA mission, and the charter of NASA certainly is in the doorway of being overhauled, starting with its safety program, and certainly the culture of the NASA program management and how the engineers interface to that management group will certainly be overhauled.

O'BRIEN: All right, Randy Avera who spent four hours in there reading. Why don't you put your earpiece in, because Leon Harris back in Atlanta has got to ask you a question.

(CROSSTALK) O'BRIEN: Go ahead, Leon.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Sure, Miles.

As a matter of fact, I want to ask both of you this question, specifically Randy, since he's had a chance to look at this report. It seems as though so much of the blame or at least a lot of the finger pointing is going at NASA's management. It sounds like a blockbuster of a report to me, if he's saying that there was no safety program. I want to know, Randy, if you saw anything in that report that indicated whether or not there was a budgeting problem and whether or not whether or not it's a money issue or whether it's a management cultural issue, because so much of what has been done decision wise with NASA has been based upon how much money or how little money they've had to work with. Some of the experts talked about the reason there were so many holes in the safety net, if you will, is because they had to make so many safety cutbacks along the way.

AVERA: Well, the board did address that directly. The board pointed out that it's not a matter of funding, it's not a matter of the fact that it was contracted out to the contractors, you know the shuttle program has been largely contracted out to United Space Alliance, but it said that that was not really a direct cause of all of this, but it was more a management procedural problem, a failure to get critical information to the top, to the decision-making levels, where changes could be implemented for safety.

O'BRIEN: What Randy is talking about, Leon, and I'll give him an opportunity to put his earpiece back in once again for another question. Specifically if you recall during the course of this mission, there were a series of e-mails, which showed some genuine concern on the part of lower-level engineers in the system about this foam strike which is the probable cause of the accident, having breached the heat shield of the Space Shuttle Columbia at the leading edge of the wing. Those sorts of e-mails did not filter up to the top, and I suspect that it addresses that issue of how that communication bubbles up.

AVERA: It clearly did. It addresses the breakdown in that communications, and the point that that information should have been communicated to the top. But again, as I have stated, there was a fragmented safety program until place, and the fragmentation of that safety program also impeded those e-mails from going to the right place.

HARRIS: Randy, can you tell me how much of this you see as being -- I'm sorry, Miles. I just wanted to just jump in real quick and just get Randy's perspective on how much he sees as being possible to achieve in the short term. You're talking about development of a space plane, you're talking about development of another vehicle to run back and forth the shuttle missions, or actually some supply missions to the space station. Are we talking here about a situation where the fleet may be grounded for years to come, decades to come, while all these other things are being developed, or what? AVERA: That's an excellent question, Leon, because of the 27 recommendations, 15 are return to flight requirements. Of course, these are recommendations, all of them. But in order to achieve these recommendations, quite a bit of effort is going to have to be exhibited by NASA and supported all the way not only through the government organizations, but the public at large who funds this program.

HARRIS: Miles, any idea how the families of those of the survivors, you know, who lost loved ones on that Columbia mission, how their likely to take this report?

AVERA: Say that again.

HARRIS: I'm sorry, this is to Miles. I'm just wondering, I know Miles has been working on this story for so long, and I just wondered if you've had a chance to get some sort of a gauge of how the families of those who died on board Columbia are going to take this report.

O'BRIEN: Well, I talked to John Clark, who is the widower of Laura Clark, one of the Columbia's seven astronauts, who was at a briefing yesterday, an informal briefing. They didn't actually see this report, but briefed by three members of the independent board, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and were given the gist of it, and he said that many of the questions that the families asked of the board were as he put it very pointed, borderline angry. And not angry at the board, of course, but angry at NASA and the culture that allowed something like this to be missed, the fact that foam fell off those tanks from the early days of the program, and nobody thought to test that to see what its effects might be is a very bitter pill.

And as he said, while they were surprised, I don't know if pleasantly surprised is the word, but surprised at the scope of this report, how specific it was, how comprehensive, how blunt it is, and blunt by design, to get NASA's attention. While they're surprised by all of that, it's difficult to walk away from something like this feeling good about it.

AVERA: It will be a function of leadership that will take NASA and the American people into the future of space exploration, and it's important to realize again, Miles, that NASA is a research and development organization, the risk is always very high.

In fact, the board said that the risk will never go away. It's a matter of minimizing that risk and defining it and being accountable for it as we proceed forward.

HARRIS: There's a lot to talk about here, gentlemen.

There's a lot to talk about here gentlemen. I'm sorry.

O'BRIEN: There are many things that they have to look at, and hindsight is 20/20, and we'll leave it at that point -- Leon.

HARRIS: Exactly, a good point, Miles.

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