Houston NASA was warned nine years ago that a space shuttle could fail catastrophically if debris hit the vulnerable underside of its wings during liftoff–the very scenario that may have brought down Columbia.
After receiving the warning, NASA made changes in equipment and flight rules to lessen the risk of debris breaking loose, Paul Fischbeck, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who conducted the analysis, said Tuesday.
Meanwhile, outside the Space Center under sapphire blue skies, President Bush paid tribute Tuesday to the shuttle’s seven astronauts and rededicated the nation to space travel. “They go in peace for all mankind. And all mankind is in their debt,” he said.
The president joined at least 10,000 teary-eyed NASA workers, aging astronauts, political leaders and families of the fallen crew for a memorial service in a plaza outside Mission Control usually reserved for celebrations of space triumphs.
Fighting back tears, NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe declared, “Today, our grief is overwhelming.”
The underside of the shuttle’s left wing is where NASA is focusing its investigation into Saturday’s disaster.
Fischbeck and a colleague at Stanford University studied the damage caused by debris during the first 50 shuttle launches and concluded that on average, 25 thermal tiles were damaged per flight. In their 1994 report, they considered only damage that was at least one inch in size.
Fischbeck said NASA “took a lot of our advice to heart” and made improvements such as changing the foam insulation on the top of the booster rockets and allowing less ice to be present on the fuel tanks before liftoff.
The investigation into the Columbia disaster is focusing on the possibility that a 20-inch chunk of foam insulation from the shuttle’s external fuel tank fell off during liftoff and hit the left underside of the wing, causing damage to the thermal tiles that doomed the ship.
