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American Morning
Independent Board Hold Public Hearings on Challenger Disaster
Aired March 06, 2003 - 07:19 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: The independent board investigating the shuttle disaster holds its first public hearing today, and the head of that program will be among those in the spotlight.
Miles O'Brien has talked with the head of the investigation, and Miles joins us now live in Houston today with a preview of that hearing.
Good morning -- Miles.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.
These public hearings here at the University of Houston, not far from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, put this investigation into a new phase.
Yesterday, I had an exclusive opportunity to talk with the head of the investigation. He says he wants the pace to begin quickening. We talked with Admiral Hal Gehman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN (voice-over): Thirty-one days after he first got the call that put him in charge of the Columbia accident investigation, Hal Gehman is growing impatient.
(on camera): Did you really expect to know it by now?
ADM. HAL GEHMAN, COLUMBIA INVESTIGATION CHAIRMAN: I expected to know more after 30 days than we do know, and...
O'BRIEN: And why don't we know more, do you think?
GEHMAN: Well, because it's a real puzzle. We don't have any good -- we don't have that golden nugget.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): The elusive golden nugget, that piece of debris that might unlock the deadly riddle of what happened to the shuttle, may lie somewhere in a remote canyon in Nevada or Utah.
(on camera): Do you feel confident they're on the ground?
GEHMAN: Yes, we tracked them all the way to the ground.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): But Gehman and his 13-member board are not simply waiting for a lucky break. They're carefully assembling the pieces of the puzzle that they already have, generating a second-by- second timeline of the minutes before Columbia disintegrated, killing her crew of seven. They are certain the left wing failed, probably because more than one heat-shielding tile was damaged. They just don't know how.
In their ward of offices just outside the gates of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the board and its staff of 50, some of the world's finest crash investigators, are still learning shuttle basics, while devising ways to test theories.
GEHMAN: These are experts. These are metallurgical experts right now that are -- what we're attempting to do right now is decide what tests we are going to order NASA to do.
O'BRIEN: They will do some testing of their own as well, hiring a private firm to see what happens when foam from the shuttle's external fuel tank strikes tiles at 500 miles an hour, as it did 82 seconds after the launch of Columbia.
Gehman is walking a tightrope between the need to remain independent of NASA while tapping its expertise. But he freely admits that could change as the board delves deeper into the way the shuttle program was managed.
GEHMAN: It's possible that we could -- it could get a little more -- a little more less friendly when we get to that point, but I haven't seen it yet.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: At the hearings here today, we'll hear from the shuttle program manger, Ron Dittemore -- you saw a lot of him in the immediate aftermath of the accident -- the head of the Johnson Space Center, and an expert from the Boeing Corporation on the subject of that insulating foam.
Three new members of the board announced yesterday they won't be here just yet, haven't had time to get here. One of them you will probably recognize her name, the first U.S. woman to fly in space, Sally Ride, who, Bill, is the only person who has had direct experience in this. She was on the independent board investigating the Challenger tragedy 17 years ago.
HEMMER: So many questions. Miles O'Brien, an exclusive interview again in Houston, Texas -- thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Disaster>
Aired March 6, 2003 - 07:19 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The independent board investigating the shuttle disaster holds its first public hearing today, and the head of that program will be among those in the spotlight.
Miles O'Brien has talked with the head of the investigation, and Miles joins us now live in Houston today with a preview of that hearing.
Good morning -- Miles.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.
These public hearings here at the University of Houston, not far from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, put this investigation into a new phase.
Yesterday, I had an exclusive opportunity to talk with the head of the investigation. He says he wants the pace to begin quickening. We talked with Admiral Hal Gehman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN (voice-over): Thirty-one days after he first got the call that put him in charge of the Columbia accident investigation, Hal Gehman is growing impatient.
(on camera): Did you really expect to know it by now?
ADM. HAL GEHMAN, COLUMBIA INVESTIGATION CHAIRMAN: I expected to know more after 30 days than we do know, and...
O'BRIEN: And why don't we know more, do you think?
GEHMAN: Well, because it's a real puzzle. We don't have any good -- we don't have that golden nugget.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): The elusive golden nugget, that piece of debris that might unlock the deadly riddle of what happened to the shuttle, may lie somewhere in a remote canyon in Nevada or Utah.
(on camera): Do you feel confident they're on the ground?
GEHMAN: Yes, we tracked them all the way to the ground.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): But Gehman and his 13-member board are not simply waiting for a lucky break. They're carefully assembling the pieces of the puzzle that they already have, generating a second-by- second timeline of the minutes before Columbia disintegrated, killing her crew of seven. They are certain the left wing failed, probably because more than one heat-shielding tile was damaged. They just don't know how.
In their ward of offices just outside the gates of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the board and its staff of 50, some of the world's finest crash investigators, are still learning shuttle basics, while devising ways to test theories.
GEHMAN: These are experts. These are metallurgical experts right now that are -- what we're attempting to do right now is decide what tests we are going to order NASA to do.
O'BRIEN: They will do some testing of their own as well, hiring a private firm to see what happens when foam from the shuttle's external fuel tank strikes tiles at 500 miles an hour, as it did 82 seconds after the launch of Columbia.
Gehman is walking a tightrope between the need to remain independent of NASA while tapping its expertise. But he freely admits that could change as the board delves deeper into the way the shuttle program was managed.
GEHMAN: It's possible that we could -- it could get a little more -- a little more less friendly when we get to that point, but I haven't seen it yet.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: At the hearings here today, we'll hear from the shuttle program manger, Ron Dittemore -- you saw a lot of him in the immediate aftermath of the accident -- the head of the Johnson Space Center, and an expert from the Boeing Corporation on the subject of that insulating foam.
Three new members of the board announced yesterday they won't be here just yet, haven't had time to get here. One of them you will probably recognize her name, the first U.S. woman to fly in space, Sally Ride, who, Bill, is the only person who has had direct experience in this. She was on the independent board investigating the Challenger tragedy 17 years ago.
HEMMER: So many questions. Miles O'Brien, an exclusive interview again in Houston, Texas -- thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Disaster>
