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American Morning

Interview With Sean O'Keefe

Aired August 28, 2003 - 07:33   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: Turning now to NASA, some managers there say that they hope to launch a shuttle mission by the early spring, just 13 months after the Columbia disaster. Is that realistic, given the number of changes that NASA has been told it has to make by the Columbia investigation board?
Responding to this report yesterday, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said, "We get it." And he said that changes will be made without reservation.

He joins us this morning from Washington, D.C.

Nice to see you.

Thanks for joining us.

SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: You bet.

Good morning, Soledad.

How are you?

O'BRIEN: Good morning.

I'm well, thank you.

How are you, because you have said many times that you take full responsibility for what happened under your watch? Has anyone asked for your head, essentially, for you to step down?

O'KEEFE: Well, again, I serve at the pleasure of the president and I am prepared to serve as long as he would like or as short as he would like. That's his judgment and I will always follow his judgment in that regard, and in any respect.

But as it stands right now, we are moving ahead and we all accept responsibility here. I am personally accountable but I think that everyone in this agency feels like this is a real serious personal loss to all of us. And so we take it with that grain of seriousness, as well.

O'BRIEN: Are you still optimistic that NASA could be flying again by the spring?

O'KEEFE: We'll see. The approach we've really got to take here is a lot of the hardware corrections and fixes and so forth that come out of this report certainly are doable in that span of time. That's been the judgment or the view rendered by the accident investigation board.

But there's a number of very important management process, personal as well as overall community cultural changes they have referred to that we really need to adopt with enthusiasm. At the point in which we determine we are fit to fly, that's the point in which we ought to really conduct this. And we ought to set a very high bar for ourselves, higher than what the board has established here, in order to make sure we get this right.

O'BRIEN: Because some folks have said hoping for a spring launch is too optimistic and, in fact, essentially is at the core of some of the problems that NASA had and had been pointed out in this investigative report, that there was too much effort to move forward, even when people should have sat back and said let's stop the progress at this moment.

O'KEEFE: Sure. I mean, but then the objective always is we all, every human being lives with some schedule mark on the wall in terms of what we need to accomplish or move ahead with in everything we do in every single day. And that should never be more important than the safety objectives of always focused on how to do this as responsibly and with as much of the risk managed and mitigated as we possibly can, to pursue these important exploration objectives. There is no higher calling than to pursue that as safely as we know how.

O'BRIEN: I want to read you...

O'KEEFE: And that ought to be paramount.

O'BRIEN: I'm sorry for interrupting you there.

O'KEEFE: All right.

O'BRIEN: I wanted to read to you, though, a letter from a NASA official. And he writes, "Where management is weak, we will strengthen it. Where engineering or design or process needs improving, we will improve them. Where our internal communications are poor, we will see that they get better."

Now, that's from NASA administrator James Fletcher back in 1986. So my question is, if it couldn't be done with Challenger and if it couldn't be done after Apollo 1, what makes you think that you're going to be able to pull this off?

O'KEEFE: Well, it's a tall order, there's no question about it, and in my little over a year tenure here, certainly I've been very impressed with the professionalism of every person in this agency and the dedication to detail and attention to duty. And so we've really got to right that particular enthusiasm and commitment as we move forward here.

And so rather than looking at the past, we really need to look to the future as we will accomplish this, comply with these recommends, accept these findings, embrace this report and make sure that we make this a stronger agency in the time ahead.

O'BRIEN: NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

Nice to see you.

O'KEEFE: Thank you, Soledad.

I appreciate it.

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 28, 2003 - 07:33   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to NASA, some managers there say that they hope to launch a shuttle mission by the early spring, just 13 months after the Columbia disaster. Is that realistic, given the number of changes that NASA has been told it has to make by the Columbia investigation board?
Responding to this report yesterday, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said, "We get it." And he said that changes will be made without reservation.

He joins us this morning from Washington, D.C.

Nice to see you.

Thanks for joining us.

SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: You bet.

Good morning, Soledad.

How are you?

O'BRIEN: Good morning.

I'm well, thank you.

How are you, because you have said many times that you take full responsibility for what happened under your watch? Has anyone asked for your head, essentially, for you to step down?

O'KEEFE: Well, again, I serve at the pleasure of the president and I am prepared to serve as long as he would like or as short as he would like. That's his judgment and I will always follow his judgment in that regard, and in any respect.

But as it stands right now, we are moving ahead and we all accept responsibility here. I am personally accountable but I think that everyone in this agency feels like this is a real serious personal loss to all of us. And so we take it with that grain of seriousness, as well.

O'BRIEN: Are you still optimistic that NASA could be flying again by the spring?

O'KEEFE: We'll see. The approach we've really got to take here is a lot of the hardware corrections and fixes and so forth that come out of this report certainly are doable in that span of time. That's been the judgment or the view rendered by the accident investigation board.

But there's a number of very important management process, personal as well as overall community cultural changes they have referred to that we really need to adopt with enthusiasm. At the point in which we determine we are fit to fly, that's the point in which we ought to really conduct this. And we ought to set a very high bar for ourselves, higher than what the board has established here, in order to make sure we get this right.

O'BRIEN: Because some folks have said hoping for a spring launch is too optimistic and, in fact, essentially is at the core of some of the problems that NASA had and had been pointed out in this investigative report, that there was too much effort to move forward, even when people should have sat back and said let's stop the progress at this moment.

O'KEEFE: Sure. I mean, but then the objective always is we all, every human being lives with some schedule mark on the wall in terms of what we need to accomplish or move ahead with in everything we do in every single day. And that should never be more important than the safety objectives of always focused on how to do this as responsibly and with as much of the risk managed and mitigated as we possibly can, to pursue these important exploration objectives. There is no higher calling than to pursue that as safely as we know how.

O'BRIEN: I want to read you...

O'KEEFE: And that ought to be paramount.

O'BRIEN: I'm sorry for interrupting you there.

O'KEEFE: All right.

O'BRIEN: I wanted to read to you, though, a letter from a NASA official. And he writes, "Where management is weak, we will strengthen it. Where engineering or design or process needs improving, we will improve them. Where our internal communications are poor, we will see that they get better."

Now, that's from NASA administrator James Fletcher back in 1986. So my question is, if it couldn't be done with Challenger and if it couldn't be done after Apollo 1, what makes you think that you're going to be able to pull this off?

O'KEEFE: Well, it's a tall order, there's no question about it, and in my little over a year tenure here, certainly I've been very impressed with the professionalism of every person in this agency and the dedication to detail and attention to duty. And so we've really got to right that particular enthusiasm and commitment as we move forward here.

And so rather than looking at the past, we really need to look to the future as we will accomplish this, comply with these recommends, accept these findings, embrace this report and make sure that we make this a stronger agency in the time ahead.

O'BRIEN: NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

Nice to see you.

O'KEEFE: Thank you, Soledad.

I appreciate it.

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