NASA Faces Intense Scrutiny

As contrails traced Columbia’s fiery fall from space, there was shock, then tears and words of grace. Almost as quickly, however, there was anger.

NASA can expect to bear the brunt of a nation’s second thoughts and recriminations, for no other agency so embodies America’s romance with exploration, its abiding faith in science and technology, or the failure to learn from its mistakes, several space analysts said.

Twice before, fatal spacecraft accidents have shaken the agency to its core and reshaped America’s drive into space.

Inevitably, the investigation of the Columbia accident and the death of its seven astronauts will become an inquest into NASA’s management of manned spaceflight. The probe comes in an era when NASA’s ambition has been curtailed by budget cuts, its expertise sapped by retirements and its will undermined by the lack of a coherent, overarching mission.

In the months to come, agency officials and their aerospace contractors may find their character and judgment on public trial, as review panels and congressional investigators try to understand the human engineering of an accident.

“The challenge is going to be to figure out what went wrong mechanically and then try to figure out what went wrong institutionally,� said space analyst John Pike, director of Golbalsecurity.org in Washington. The disaster is likely to have complicated causes, involving both mechanical and human errors.

At the heart of the national surge of emotion is a paradox of manned spaceflight that no doubt will color the investigations, expected to unfold in the months to come, experts said.

Pride in NASA’s accomplishments has been offset by indifference and neglect, analysts said, compounded by the bureaucratic struggle to contain costs without sacrificing safety. In constant dollars, NASA’s annual budget today is about half what it was 35 years ago.

The destruction of Columbia -- America’s first reusable spacecraft -- will immediately force a reevaluation of NASA’s goals for its manned spaceflight program.

The shuttles have been a symbol of the national dominance of space, constructed before most college students today were born and nursed with periodic transfusions of new technology.

It became a program, conceived as a bold steppingstone to the planets. But in recent years, the engineering measure of manned spaceflight has been its ability to absorb budgets cuts without jeopardizing flight safety, independent space analysts said.

“They have created a program that puts the managers under unbearable pressure to perform with inadequate resources,� said Duke University’s Alex Roland, a former space agency historian. “That pressure keeps affecting your judgment and each corner you cut is flirting with safety.�

In the few tragic moments that Columbia took to disintegrate over East Texas, however, manned spaceflight reappeared at the center of the national agenda.

Whatever reforms emerge from the investigations, no one expects the surviving shuttles to be permanently grounded or the space station that they are supposed to service be left as an orbiting derelict.

“It is a major setback to the future, but only a setback,� said John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. “We have gone too far with the space station to abandon it. The country has no interest in giving up space.�

As a first step, the government appointed an independent board Saturday to investigate the accident. Experts from the Air Force and Navy -- which provided five of the seven crew members -- will join officials from the Transportation Department and other federal agencies on the review panel, NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe said.

“Over the next week, there will be a start to the detailed technical analysis of the accident,� Logsdon said. “We can wish for a nice, clear, clean answer to what happened and what can be done to fix it.�

Congressional hearings, Logsdon said, are a certainty. No doubt, NASA’s way of doing things -- “faster, better and cheaper� -- will come under intense scrutiny.

Even before the loss of Columbia, the agency’s own safety advisory board warned of the dangers of budget pressures and deferred modifications that would improve safety margins.

“The boundary between safe and unsafe operations can seldom be quantitatively defined. Even the most well-meaning managers may not know when they cross it,� the board said in its most recent report to NASA managers. “Responding to budgetary pressures has forced the program to eliminate or defer many already planned and engineered improvements. Some of these would directly reduce flight risk.�

The accident comes at a time when the public rarely pays much attention to the theatrics of manned spaceflight or to the exacting construction of the international space station. Congress and the White House also have barely paid lip service, analysts said.

While the antics of robots on Mars have upstaged manned missions in recent years, , humans have strayed no farther than low Earth orbit since the Apollo moon program was abandoned almost 30 years ago.

“NASA has been an orphan for a very long time,� said New York University space historian William Burrows.

“The hypocrisy here is upsetting -- of saying we have a world-class space program, but the effect of the insidious eating-away and eroding of appropriations has pushed it the opposite way,� Burrows said. “They have forced NASA into trying to maintain a world-class program on a shrinking budget.�

In the aftermath of the Columbia accident, NASA again may be required to revise its ambitions. Earlier fatal accidents and mismanagement also shaped America’s fortunes in space.

NASA is an agency twice scarred by fatal launchpad disasters, first by the Apollo 1 fire in 1967, then by the Challenger accident in 1986. Each spawned congressional hearings, investigations and searing revelations of managerial mistakes that put the lives of astronauts at risk.

“There was a pattern,� Roland said. “Both of the accidents resulted from systematic, programmatic failures. The investigations quickly broadened in scope to the critiques of the programs in general.�

In the years immediately after the Challenger explosion, the agency spent billions of dollars on repairs, design improvements and new safety features for Columbia and the three other remaining shuttles. The upgrades have continued in the years since. Columbia had recently completed a $145-million refurbishment.

“NASA made safety its first priority after Challenger,� Logsdon said. “They fully realize the consequences of an accident. I think it is a safer system than in the pre-Challenger years.�

Today, it also is a very different shuttle program than the ambitious enterprise originally conceived a generation ago, with a drastically diminished role in national affairs, a reduced launch schedule and no true successor in sight.

It has been more than a decade since the shuttle was designated as the sole launch vehicle for military and national security payloads. Its operations increasingly are in private hands.

Yet, the national space effort depends as much as ever on its vintage space shuttles.

“We find ourselves in almost the identical plight as in 1986,� said Roland. “We put all our eggs in that one basket for civilian spaceflight. And still, after 16 years, the basket turns out to be just as risky as it was after Challenger.�