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American Morning
Scathing Report Regarding Columbia Investigation Out
Aired August 27, 2003 - 07:32 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: A lot of fallout from yesterday regarding NASA. More on that right now, that scathing report regarding the Columbia investigation is out, saying there are fundamental flaws in the program of NASA. NASA, though, still has some plans to launch possibly another shuttle, hoping to do so by mid- March or early April. That would be only 13 months after the Columbia disaster.
Admiral Hal Gehman is the chairman of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which issued that 248 page report yesterday.
He's with us live this morning in D.C.
Admiral Gehman, good morning to you.
Thanks for your time here.
ADM. HAL GEHMAN, CHAIRMAN, COLUMBIA INVESTIGATION BOARD: Good morning.
HEMMER: You've heard about some of this talk about next spring, 13 minutes later, can NASA do it then?
GEHMAN: The board issued 15 recommendations that we call return to flight recommendations. These are things that NASA must fix before they consider flying again. None of the recommendations are particularly difficult and I don't see any reason why they couldn't resume flying in six to nine months from now. But I'm not in a position to put a specific date on it.
HEMMER: So you're saying next spring is possible, then?
GEHMAN: Next spring is possible as far as I know.
HEMMER: Some of the startling information that came out in this report takes us back to the Challenger explosion of 1986. We all watched that and we all watched what happened to Columbia in February this past year. In 1986, the O-ring was sending management signals that things were wrong, fix it.
The foam that was falling off the shuttle was sending NASA signals to go ahead and address that issue.
You're saying the lessons were not absorbed 17 years later. Why is that, Admiral, in the NASA structure today?
GEHMAN: The answer to that is fairly complex, but to make it as simple as I can, over the years, due to pressures from inside and outside NASA, pressures like budgetary pressures and pressures to launch on certain schedules and things like that, over the years the space shuttle program management scheme changed. It kind of morphed and it morphed into a process that emphasized cost and schedule and de-emphasized safety and basic engineering.
So these kinds of issues were not robustly chased down to understand -- to be understood.
HEMMER: Is that what contributed to what you phrase is the keep it flying thought and theory at NASA?
GEHMAN: Yes. That's correct. They focused on schedule, they focused on cost and they lost sight of some of the basic engineering that it takes to keep the thing operating safely.
HEMMER: Admiral, I want to pull just a sentence or two from your report. I want to read it to our viewers right now. You're indicating that "NASA does not provide effective checks and balances, does not have an independent safety program and has not demonstrated the characteristics of a learning organization."
You touched on this in your first answer. Go back to that again. How far is NASA from implementing things like you describe right here in this statement?
GEHMAN: It's going to take a lot of work. They have lost what we consider to be an effective set of checks and balances. They have lost it because of, like I said, pressures on them to reduce costs and reduce manpower. And so they kind of did away with that part of their organization on the false belief that the shuttle was a routine, reliable, predictable system. And they really thought that they were in kind of an enterprise that was like running a trucking line or something, where you are concerned about cost and schedule.
So that's going to take a lot of work. And -- but that does not need to be done prior to returning to flight.
HEMMER: You also talk about a next generation of space vehicles. In the short time we have left here, 10 years down the road, what does space flight look for this country?
GEHMAN: The nation needs to have a very, very vigorous debate about what it wants to do in space and how much it wants to pay for it. These are not NASA's decisions. These are the decisions of the public of the United States, as represented by the administration and the Congress. And we need to have a very, very serious debate about what it is that we want to do in space and how much we are willing to pay for it, because right now we are charging NASA to explore space on the cheap, and that is not a safe enterprise.
HEMMER: In a word, are you confident in NASA still?
GEHMAN: Absolutely. NASA is a wonderful organization with a lot of magnificent people doing very, very difficult tasks and they are fully capable of operating the shuttle safely, if they change their management scheme.
HEMMER: Thank you, Admiral.
Hal Gehman in D.C.
Nice to talk to you.
GEHMAN: Thank you.
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 27, 2003 - 07:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: A lot of fallout from yesterday regarding NASA. More on that right now, that scathing report regarding the Columbia investigation is out, saying there are fundamental flaws in the program of NASA. NASA, though, still has some plans to launch possibly another shuttle, hoping to do so by mid- March or early April. That would be only 13 months after the Columbia disaster.
Admiral Hal Gehman is the chairman of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which issued that 248 page report yesterday.
He's with us live this morning in D.C.
Admiral Gehman, good morning to you.
Thanks for your time here.
ADM. HAL GEHMAN, CHAIRMAN, COLUMBIA INVESTIGATION BOARD: Good morning.
HEMMER: You've heard about some of this talk about next spring, 13 minutes later, can NASA do it then?
GEHMAN: The board issued 15 recommendations that we call return to flight recommendations. These are things that NASA must fix before they consider flying again. None of the recommendations are particularly difficult and I don't see any reason why they couldn't resume flying in six to nine months from now. But I'm not in a position to put a specific date on it.
HEMMER: So you're saying next spring is possible, then?
GEHMAN: Next spring is possible as far as I know.
HEMMER: Some of the startling information that came out in this report takes us back to the Challenger explosion of 1986. We all watched that and we all watched what happened to Columbia in February this past year. In 1986, the O-ring was sending management signals that things were wrong, fix it.
The foam that was falling off the shuttle was sending NASA signals to go ahead and address that issue.
You're saying the lessons were not absorbed 17 years later. Why is that, Admiral, in the NASA structure today?
GEHMAN: The answer to that is fairly complex, but to make it as simple as I can, over the years, due to pressures from inside and outside NASA, pressures like budgetary pressures and pressures to launch on certain schedules and things like that, over the years the space shuttle program management scheme changed. It kind of morphed and it morphed into a process that emphasized cost and schedule and de-emphasized safety and basic engineering.
So these kinds of issues were not robustly chased down to understand -- to be understood.
HEMMER: Is that what contributed to what you phrase is the keep it flying thought and theory at NASA?
GEHMAN: Yes. That's correct. They focused on schedule, they focused on cost and they lost sight of some of the basic engineering that it takes to keep the thing operating safely.
HEMMER: Admiral, I want to pull just a sentence or two from your report. I want to read it to our viewers right now. You're indicating that "NASA does not provide effective checks and balances, does not have an independent safety program and has not demonstrated the characteristics of a learning organization."
You touched on this in your first answer. Go back to that again. How far is NASA from implementing things like you describe right here in this statement?
GEHMAN: It's going to take a lot of work. They have lost what we consider to be an effective set of checks and balances. They have lost it because of, like I said, pressures on them to reduce costs and reduce manpower. And so they kind of did away with that part of their organization on the false belief that the shuttle was a routine, reliable, predictable system. And they really thought that they were in kind of an enterprise that was like running a trucking line or something, where you are concerned about cost and schedule.
So that's going to take a lot of work. And -- but that does not need to be done prior to returning to flight.
HEMMER: You also talk about a next generation of space vehicles. In the short time we have left here, 10 years down the road, what does space flight look for this country?
GEHMAN: The nation needs to have a very, very vigorous debate about what it wants to do in space and how much it wants to pay for it. These are not NASA's decisions. These are the decisions of the public of the United States, as represented by the administration and the Congress. And we need to have a very, very serious debate about what it is that we want to do in space and how much we are willing to pay for it, because right now we are charging NASA to explore space on the cheap, and that is not a safe enterprise.
HEMMER: In a word, are you confident in NASA still?
GEHMAN: Absolutely. NASA is a wonderful organization with a lot of magnificent people doing very, very difficult tasks and they are fully capable of operating the shuttle safely, if they change their management scheme.
HEMMER: Thank you, Admiral.
Hal Gehman in D.C.
Nice to talk to you.
GEHMAN: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
