Agency Criticized For Lagging Progress

Nearly a year after the Columbia disaster, NASA is only beginning to implement the sweeping changes recommended as conditions for the space shuttles' return to flight, an independent task group reported on Tuesday.

The independent panel, called the Return to Flight Task Group, was charged with monitoring NASA's progress in complying with recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which probed the shuttle's fatal Feb. 1, 2003, break-up over Texas.

The task group, headed by former shuttle commander Richard Covey and Apollo mission commander Thomas Stafford, reported that NASA's plan to create a central authority responsible for safety was "missing critical elements" and its implementation was "under way, but incomplete."

Among other things, the board recommended that the NASA change the way it monitors safety if the three grounded space shuttles are to fly again. The report also found that schedule pressure had become a "destructive force" at NASA, and that plans to correct this were "in development."

"Detailed plans for many of the recommendations have not been forthcoming," the group said in an interim report.

"NASA has not been timely in some of their responses to task group requests for information."

It is interesting to note the Return to Flight Task Group released its findings less than a week after President Bush announced plans to send humans back to the moon by 2020 and eventually to Mars.

In the wake of this announcement, NASA reorganized some of its top management to focus on this exploration initiative, but the interim report found this plan "undeveloped."

FMI: http://returntoflight.org