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Interview With Jon Clark

Aired August 26, 2003 - 14:15   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.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: NASA has a long way to go before it can safely send another space shuttle into orbit. That's a consensus of a stinging report released today on the cause of the shuttle Columbia disaster. Space correspondent Miles O'Brien joins us now live from Washington with, of course, more reaction to that report. Hi, Miles.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Kyra. This report which comes from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board after six and a half month of seven-day-a-week work has 29 recommendations in all, 15 of these recommendations are recommendations the board believes NASA should implement prior to another flight of a space shuttle, again the space shuttle Atlantis being the next one to fly.

Currently NASA was thinking that a flight might happen as early as March but there is a big task that lies in this very voluminous report, a report that is very frank. Clinical is the term, that Admiral Hal Gehman, the head of the commission said. Blunt is another term which comes to mind, as well.

The person who mentioned that first to me is Jon Clark. He is the husband -- the widower of Laurel Clark who is one of the Columbia's seven astronauts. He joins us now from Houston.

Last night, Jon, you had an opportunity along with the other family members to get a briefing on this report. Just give us a sense of what that was like hearing that right from the members of the Gehman board and what your thoughts collectively were there.

JON CLARK, WIDOWER OF LAUREL CLARK: Well, Miles, yesterday afternoon we had an opportunity to meet with three of the board members who gave us a personal debrief to the spouses of the Columbia tragedy. It was very -- we very, very attentive. They very succinctly presented the context of the report, which is obviously a voluminous prescription for change.

We sat there and listened to the overview and asked a number of very poignant questions and then had the opportunity today to get the actual report itself and go over it in a little bit more detail.

Obviously, it's not nearly enough time to give you a thorough impression of it but I anticipated -- felt they did a very thorough and concise job.

O'BRIEN: Now we should point out that you view this from a dual role, as a surviving family member but also as an employee of NASA at the Johnson Space Center, a neurosurgeon. So you view this from a unique perspective, certainly.

When Admiral Gehman says this, that he was sure it was the foam striking the wing but also NASA's checks and balances failed, that has to sting quite a bit.

CLARK: Well it does. I think any time something adverse happens like this and you have a chance to really deeply introspectively assess it you come away with it saying, Wow, I learned a lot.

You know I think everybody that I know at NASA anticipates that we'll have some sweeping changes and change is good for an organization. It revitalizes it. We have a tremendously technologically risky endeavor ahead of us. If we don't adapt to those environments we won't survive.

O'BRIEN: Admiral Gehman said that his concern may not be necessarily the next shuttle to fly, whenever that is, Atlantis, but maybe a year later or even a year beyond that when, as he put it, the backsliding and the apathy creeps back in. How do you guard against that?

CLARK: Well, that's a very difficult issue to address. Any time you are in a success-driven organization, it's bound to happen that you become complacent. You focus on things that are problems and then you accept them as normal, the so-called normalization of deviance from expected and then you essentially lower your guard. It's a problem in aircraft and other high-risk operations like nuclear power industry, et cetera.

So complacency is something we have to guard against continuously. And we need those checks and balances like the board report recommends to carry on.

O'BRIEN: As you and the other family members delve into this report, and much of this is not news to you, of course, because you have all been following it so very closely, there has to be a tendency to head toward a bit of bitterness and anger toward NASA.

CLARK: Well, that's certainly an outcome that can result when you lost somebody dear to you. I look at anger as perhaps a wasted emotion. Anger is something you direct toward somebody who deliberately did something evil like the terrorist in the World Trade Center, for example.

I know for a fact because I know most of the people that were involved in these launch decisions and every one of them is deeply suffering from this.

So this is not a factor where somebody intentionally did the wrong thing or tried to cover up something. It was an inadvertent, systematic process failure across the organization. And all of us, every single one of us, from the top of the organization on down, I think, truly wants to change and make NASA a better organization.

O'BRIEN: When you hear members of the board saying they hear and see echoes of the Challenger disaster that has to be particularly poignant.

CLARK: Well I wasn't here during the Challenger disaster but I certainly talked to a lot of people who were. And yes, there were similarity, as Diane Vaughn pointed out earlier in her book on the Challenger launch decision. You could almost erase the O-ring problem and put in the tile shedding and put "Columbia" instead of "Challenger."

So I think we are really going to have to look very carefully at what lessons we didn't learn from Challenger and make sure we absolutely learn them this time.

O'BRIEN: If Laurel were here to see this report, what do you suppose they would say about it?

CLARK: Well I think she would say, You know, learn what you can, be as safe as you possibly can, but don't give up space exploration, especially human space exploration.

And I think that's my feeling as well. We have to carry on that legacy. And we have to do it as safely as reasonably achievable. But we don't just quit just because it's risky.

O'BRIEN: Jon Clark, thank you very much for your time on what has to be a very difficult day for you and all the families. And please accept our thoughts and prayers on behalf of all the families.

CLARK: Thank you very much.

O'BRIEN: Thanks for your time.

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 - 14:15   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: NASA has a long way to go before it can safely send another space shuttle into orbit. That's a consensus of a stinging report released today on the cause of the shuttle Columbia disaster. Space correspondent Miles O'Brien joins us now live from Washington with, of course, more reaction to that report. Hi, Miles.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Kyra. This report which comes from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board after six and a half month of seven-day-a-week work has 29 recommendations in all, 15 of these recommendations are recommendations the board believes NASA should implement prior to another flight of a space shuttle, again the space shuttle Atlantis being the next one to fly.

Currently NASA was thinking that a flight might happen as early as March but there is a big task that lies in this very voluminous report, a report that is very frank. Clinical is the term, that Admiral Hal Gehman, the head of the commission said. Blunt is another term which comes to mind, as well.

The person who mentioned that first to me is Jon Clark. He is the husband -- the widower of Laurel Clark who is one of the Columbia's seven astronauts. He joins us now from Houston.

Last night, Jon, you had an opportunity along with the other family members to get a briefing on this report. Just give us a sense of what that was like hearing that right from the members of the Gehman board and what your thoughts collectively were there.

JON CLARK, WIDOWER OF LAUREL CLARK: Well, Miles, yesterday afternoon we had an opportunity to meet with three of the board members who gave us a personal debrief to the spouses of the Columbia tragedy. It was very -- we very, very attentive. They very succinctly presented the context of the report, which is obviously a voluminous prescription for change.

We sat there and listened to the overview and asked a number of very poignant questions and then had the opportunity today to get the actual report itself and go over it in a little bit more detail.

Obviously, it's not nearly enough time to give you a thorough impression of it but I anticipated -- felt they did a very thorough and concise job.

O'BRIEN: Now we should point out that you view this from a dual role, as a surviving family member but also as an employee of NASA at the Johnson Space Center, a neurosurgeon. So you view this from a unique perspective, certainly.

When Admiral Gehman says this, that he was sure it was the foam striking the wing but also NASA's checks and balances failed, that has to sting quite a bit.

CLARK: Well it does. I think any time something adverse happens like this and you have a chance to really deeply introspectively assess it you come away with it saying, Wow, I learned a lot.

You know I think everybody that I know at NASA anticipates that we'll have some sweeping changes and change is good for an organization. It revitalizes it. We have a tremendously technologically risky endeavor ahead of us. If we don't adapt to those environments we won't survive.

O'BRIEN: Admiral Gehman said that his concern may not be necessarily the next shuttle to fly, whenever that is, Atlantis, but maybe a year later or even a year beyond that when, as he put it, the backsliding and the apathy creeps back in. How do you guard against that?

CLARK: Well, that's a very difficult issue to address. Any time you are in a success-driven organization, it's bound to happen that you become complacent. You focus on things that are problems and then you accept them as normal, the so-called normalization of deviance from expected and then you essentially lower your guard. It's a problem in aircraft and other high-risk operations like nuclear power industry, et cetera.

So complacency is something we have to guard against continuously. And we need those checks and balances like the board report recommends to carry on.

O'BRIEN: As you and the other family members delve into this report, and much of this is not news to you, of course, because you have all been following it so very closely, there has to be a tendency to head toward a bit of bitterness and anger toward NASA.

CLARK: Well, that's certainly an outcome that can result when you lost somebody dear to you. I look at anger as perhaps a wasted emotion. Anger is something you direct toward somebody who deliberately did something evil like the terrorist in the World Trade Center, for example.

I know for a fact because I know most of the people that were involved in these launch decisions and every one of them is deeply suffering from this.

So this is not a factor where somebody intentionally did the wrong thing or tried to cover up something. It was an inadvertent, systematic process failure across the organization. And all of us, every single one of us, from the top of the organization on down, I think, truly wants to change and make NASA a better organization.

O'BRIEN: When you hear members of the board saying they hear and see echoes of the Challenger disaster that has to be particularly poignant.

CLARK: Well I wasn't here during the Challenger disaster but I certainly talked to a lot of people who were. And yes, there were similarity, as Diane Vaughn pointed out earlier in her book on the Challenger launch decision. You could almost erase the O-ring problem and put in the tile shedding and put "Columbia" instead of "Challenger."

So I think we are really going to have to look very carefully at what lessons we didn't learn from Challenger and make sure we absolutely learn them this time.

O'BRIEN: If Laurel were here to see this report, what do you suppose they would say about it?

CLARK: Well I think she would say, You know, learn what you can, be as safe as you possibly can, but don't give up space exploration, especially human space exploration.

And I think that's my feeling as well. We have to carry on that legacy. And we have to do it as safely as reasonably achievable. But we don't just quit just because it's risky.

O'BRIEN: Jon Clark, thank you very much for your time on what has to be a very difficult day for you and all the families. And please accept our thoughts and prayers on behalf of all the families.

CLARK: Thank you very much.

O'BRIEN: Thanks for your time.

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