Mon, Sep 15, 2003
Getting The Shuttles Aloft May Simply Be Too Dangerous
Is it worth it? Almost
eight months after the Columbia tragedy, some members of
Congress say the space program lacks direction, the budget is too
tight and the space agency has a culture that simply isn't
thoughtful enough about safety.
"We're putting American men and women at great risk for their
lives, flying orbiters that are 30 years old that cannot be made
safe," Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) told NASA chief Sean O'Keefe at a
congressional hearing. "My proposal is ... to use these orbiters in
an unmanned capacity, build a new space plane or space orbiter
that's just for people."
But O'Keefe faced perhaps the most poignant question from Sen.
Sam Brownback (R-KS): "Are we throwing good money after bad?"
Picking up the pieces and analyzing what went wrong in the February
1st Columbia crash has so far cost about the same as a
single shuttle launch -- $400 million. That doesn't include
implementation of the 29 recommendations made by the organization
that investigated and reported on the accident, the
Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB).
Ironically, lawmakers at hearings last week criticized NASA for
its "skimpy" budgets, as if those very lawmakers weren't
instrumental in implementing cuts that have hobbled the space
program for years. Yet, there seems to be little disagreement that
the US "wants to retain a continuing capability to send people into
space, whether to Earth orbit or beyond."
If there can be said to be a positive result from so tragic an
event, it seems to be a renewed interest in moving both the
technology and the agenda for space travel forward. NASA's O'Keefe
put it this way: "What we're dealing with is a much more widespread
... equally frightening ... terrorist campaign that has to be
countered in very different ways than the way we took on the Cold
War."
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