Focusing on safety at NASA

Miami Herald: The new report from NASA on the February 2003 Columbia disaster has produced 30 recommendations to keep astronauts safer in space. It also reveals in poignant detail how the seven astronauts aboard the spaceship died.

The report makes it clear that the crew could not have survived the cataclysm. Since NASA may extend shuttle flights past their 2010 retirement date, the report’s recommendations should be taken seriously. They may save lives in future shuttle missions.

Insulation foam

The Columbia was doomed after liftoff when a 1.67-pound chunk of insulation foam broke off an external fuel tank and struck the craft’s left wing, punching a hole in it and allowing superheated gases to puncture the wing’s interior. This destabilized the craft so that, during reentry, the shuttle spun out of control and began to disintegrate over Texas.

The crew had little warning before the shuttle disintegrated.

This tragedy could have been prevented if NASA’s managers had listened to their engineers, who begged them to examine the wing while the shuttle was in space. A report scathingly indicted NASA’s “broken safety culture,” which prompted an attitude adjustment at the agency and redesigns of the shuttles’ external fuel tank and the amount of insulation foam used. Shuttles now are inspected in space.

The new report found that the astronauts’ helmets weren’t well designed for protection. Seat restraints were too weak to contain astronauts in extreme turbulence. Improving these features are among the report’s recommendations.