Shuttle Probe Faults NASA For Relying on Contractors
Although a collision with a piece of foam led to the breakup of the space shuttle Columbia, NASA and the complex bureaucracy of contractors that runs much of its day-to-day activities must share responsibility for the loss of the orbiter and its crew, an independent investigation board concluded.
A final report by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board raised fundamental questions about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's increasing dependence on Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp. and a handful of other contractors. The board said that while NASA streamlined the space program during a push toward privatization that began in the mid-1990s, it abdicated much of its responsibilities for overseeing the safety of manned space flight.
After reviewing 30,000 documents and conducting more than 200 formal interviews since the Feb. 1 crash, the board criticized NASA for doing little since the 1986 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger to foster an environment in which safety concerns flowed freely from low-level engineers to top NASA managers. Federal spending cuts and mounting pressures to complete the already-overdue International Space Station also contributed to a shift in emphasis to schedules rather than safety.
"The two causes of the accident were the foam and the loss within NASA of its system of checks and balances," said retired Adm. Harold Gehman Jr., who headed the 13-member committee that investigated the accident.
Columbia, the oldest in the nation's fleet of shuttles, disintegrated during re-entry after superheated gases melted away its left wing. All seven crew members on board were killed, and debris was scattered over hundreds of miles. The three remaining shuttles have been grounded since.
The 248-page report was unapologetic in its assessment that top NASA officials bungled the analysis of whether foam that peeled away from the orbiter's external fuel tank was capable of causing serious damage. The report also noted that Boeing, which was responsible for studying the potential damage caused by the foam, used an outdated software program operated by a team of largely inexperienced engineers who failed to seek assistance from senior colleagues.
Boeing has defended its analysis, saying it was done by a team of people that included senior engineers. Both Boeing and Lockheed issued statements saying the companies are working with NASA to respond to the board's recommendations. NASA and the companies already are working on a new software-analysis tool to replace the Crater system that failed to accurately determine the damage inflicted by the foam. They also are looking at ways to insulate the fuel tanks without such foam panels.
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe described the situation as a "seminal moment." He said the Columbia report "should serve as a blueprint, a road map" for the agency to "fix its problems." While noting that the board had been upfront in the months leading up to the report's issue in detailing the problems, he said the agency already is drafting plans to address each of the recommendations, particularly those that stand in the way of future launches.
Adm. Gehman, who also headed the 2001 investigation of the terrorist attack in Yemen on the USS Cole, noted that the space shuttle itself "is not inherently unsafe." But the board issued 29 safety recommendations, several of which must be completed before the shuttle's next flight. NASA officials had discussed a flight as soon as March or April, but space experts say that's probably too ambitious, given the changes required.
The accident board called into question the original analysis that led NASA to outsource day-to-day activities to private companies. The board said a 1995 report by a top NASA official endorsing privatization of the nation's shuttle fleet was "flawed." That report described the shuttles as a "a mature and reliable system ... about as safe as today's technology will provide."
But James Logsdon , a member of the investigation board and a professor at George Washington University, said that report was used to justify awarding a November 1995 contract to United Space Alliance, known as USA, for a host of shuttle activities. "We believe that was a mistake," he said. Going forward, "there needs to be stronger technical oversight by civil servants and government employees."
United Space Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed, is the prime contractor for NASA's shuttle program, performing everything from flight operations to astronaut training. The venture has 10,000 employees, many of whom used to work at the individual companies or NASA itself. In addition, NASA contracts with each company for specific tasks. Lockheed, for example, makes the external tanks and applied the thermal-protection foam that hit the shuttle.
About 85% of NASA's total budget in fiscal 2002, or about $13.3 billion, went to private contractors. The contract with United Space Alliance, which was initially touted as a way to save NASA $1 billion a year, has actually saved only $1 billion over its first six years, largely because NASA did not completely privatize the shuttle program.
While the report didn't call for a radical change in the structure of USA's relationship with NASA, the board did call on NASA to have greater "insight" into operations to avoid being completely reliant on others to make critical decisions. In particular, the board chided NASA "for not having the training necessary to evaluate" Boeing's Crater analysis, based on a piece of debris that was 1/400th the size of the piece that actually hit the shuttle.
Board members said they consider "brain drain" to be the biggest downside of NASA's reliance on contractors. Many of the agency's most experienced employees have fled for higher salaries and better benefits in private industry. Over the next five years, record numbers of aerospace engineers throughout the industry are expected to retire.
The board "challenged" Congress and the White House to hold "a vigorous public policy debate" about where the manned space program goes from here. Among the issues that need to be resolved, said Adm. Gehman, is whether the government is willing to spend the money to pursue space exploration properly, and a decision on the balance between manned flights and robotic ones, such as the Voyager missions.
With the Cold War over, NASA in the 1990s was increasingly forced to do more with less. The agency lost 40% of its work force, and its budget was under "constant pressure to reduce or at least freeze operating costs," while keeping to tight schedules, the report said. The board said that the shuttle program was operating "too close to too many margins," and that the "little pieces of risk add up" until managers "are, in fact, gambling."
Many within the space community had been bracing for what Mr. O'Keefe had warned would be an "ugly" assessment of NASA's shortcomings. Apollo 11 astronaut Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, who attended many of the shuttle board's meetings and is a proponent of aggressive space exploration, said he believed the board did its job. "Now it's up to NASA, Congress and the voting public to decide whether they want to pay the costs to do this thing the right way."
NASA难逃“哥伦比亚”失事之咎
虽然“哥伦比亚”号航天飞机在返航途中解体的直接原因是升空时左翼同泡沫绝缘材料发生了撞击，但美国国家航空航天局(NASA)及负责NASA主要日常运营的外包商的复杂的官僚机制对也负有不可推卸的责任，这是一个独立委员会调查得出的结论。
“哥伦比亚”号事故调查委员会(Columbia Accident Investigation Board)在其递交的最终报告中，就NASA对波音(Boeing Co.)、洛克希德马丁(Lockheed Martin Corp.)等数家国防业务外包商越来越强的依赖程度提出根本性的质疑。该委员会指出，NASA自20世纪90年代中期开始不断精简航天项目，推进该机构的私有化过程，但同时，它在很大程度上忽视了对载人航天飞行计划的安全监督责任。
2月1日“哥伦比亚”号失事以后，这个独立委员会共审阅了3万多份文件，进行了200多次正式访谈。根据所搜集的资料，该委员会批评NASA没有吸取1986年“挑战者”号航天飞机爆炸事故的教训，未能形成一个开放的沟通环境，使级别较低的工程师能够将他们对安全问题的担忧及时传达给高层主管。另一方面，政府削减联邦开支，已经逾期建设的“国际空间站”面临的完工压力也越来越大，这些都促使NASA将关注焦点更多地转向项目进度，而忽略了安全问题。
已退休的管理人士小哈诺?德格曼(Harold Gehman Jr.)是这个13人委员会的负责人。他认为，造成“哥伦比亚”号惨剧的两大原因一是撞击左翼的泡沫绝缘材料，二是NASA未能有效控制检测和平衡系统。
“哥伦比亚”号是美国服役时间最长的航天飞机。它在返航途中进入大气层时，因超高温空气进入机体造成左翼熔化，导致航天飞机解体。七名宇航员全部遇难，飞机残骸散落在方圆数百英里的地区。事故发生后，另外3架航天飞机的发射计划都被暂时搁置。
这份长达248页的报告认为，在分析机身外部燃料箱上脱落的泡沫绝缘材料是否足以造成严重损害时，NASA的高层人士贻误了时机。该报告还指出，波音公司当时负责研究泡沫绝缘材料对航天飞机可能造成的损害，但该公司负责这项研究的工程师大多缺乏经验，他们没有请求资深工程师予以协助，所使用的软件程序也已经过时。
波音对其分析结果加以辩护，称当时负责这项研究的小组中包括资深工程师。波音和洛克希德均发表声明称，公司正在配合NASA，对“哥伦比亚”号事故调查委员会的建议作出回应。目前，NASA已经在同这两家公司共同研发一种新的软件分析工具，用以取代此次未能准确评估泡沫绝缘材料造成的损害程度的旧程序Crater。此外，他们还著手研究不采用泡沫绝缘板隔离燃料箱的方式。
NASA管理人士西恩?欧克费(Sean O'Keefe)认为，这是一个“开创性的时刻”。他说，“哥伦比亚”号事故的调查报告应当成为NASA解决自身问题的“一个蓝图，一个路线图”。欧克费指出，调查委员会过去几个月一直步步领先，将报告中的问题一一具体化，但NASA也没有浪费时间，目前已经针对委员会的各项建议制定出计划，并将著重清除那些阻碍未来航天发射任务的障碍。
委员会负责人德格曼表示，航天飞机本身并不存在安全隐患。但在该委员会提出的29条安全建议中，NASA必须首先完成其中的7条，才能实施下一项航天飞行任务。NASA管理人士曾考虑明年三四月份安排下一次航天飞行，但专家认为，鉴于需要满足的条件，这个日程表未免过于乐观了。
事故调查委员会对当初促使NASA将日常运营业务外包给私人公司的原始分析提出质疑。该委员会称，NASA一名支持航天飞机业务私有化的高层人士在1995年发表的一份报告中存在“瑕疵”。那份报告将航天飞机描述为“一个成熟而可靠的系统......其安全性几乎可达到当今科技所能提供的最高水平。”
但委员会的另一名成员－－乔治华盛顿大学(George Washington University)教授詹姆斯?罗格斯登(James Logsdon)认为，上述报告旨在让1995年11月一份主持航天飞机活动的合同合理地授予联合宇航联盟(United Space Alliance)。
联合宇航联盟是波音和洛克希德的一个合资公司，也是NASA航天飞机项目的主要承包商，这家公司负责从航天飞机飞行到宇航员训练等方方面面的工作。它旗下有1万名员工，很多人曾经在这两家公司工作或在NASA工作。此外，NASA给每个公司的合同都是针对特定任务的。比方说，洛克希德负责航天飞机的外壳以及并对撞击到“哥伦比亚”左翼的泡沫材料实施热保护。
NASA 2002财政年度总计大约133亿美元预算中有85%被私人承包商拿走了。给联合宇航联盟的合同最初号称是要为NASA每年节约10亿美元的，但在过去6年中实际上仅仅节约了10亿美元，这主要是因为NASA没有将航天飞机项目完全私有化。
虽然这一报告没有要求对联合宇航联盟和NASA的关系在结构上进行重大调整，但该委员会要求NASA更深入地洞悉其运营，以避免在做一些重要决策时完全依赖别人。
