Statement After CAIB Members Visit Debris Hangar

Adm. Harold Gehman (USN, ret.), head of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, says America's space shuttles will fly again.

"At this stage, the board has not come across any show stoppers that in our mind would prevent the shuttle from returning to flight," Gehman said as looked over - perhaps for the last time before making their report - the Columbia wreckage that has been gathered at the Kennedy Space Center. He was quoted in a copyright story by The Houston Chronicle.

Columbia was lost with seven astronauts on board Feb. 1. The remaining three space planes - Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour, have been grounded ever since.

Return To Flight "Manageable"

For Gehman, it was perhaps the most positive statement to date regarding the future of the shuttle program. But you can't call Gehman a pollyanna. "Now, how high is the stack of return-to-flight items when we get finished? I can't tell you now," Gehman said to The Chronicle . "It depends on how vigorously NASA implements the recommendations. But right now, it looks manageable."

Gehman and five fellow CAIB members picked over the pieces of Columbia in a hangar at the space center over the weekend. But Gehman clearly indicated they have found nothing new. "The analysis of what was done here at KSC with the debris turned out to be more significant to our conclusions than we would have guessed at the beginning," he told The New York Times.

The CAIB team Saturday sifted through 85,000 pounds of shuttle debris in the hangar. They also looked over a 3-D mock-up of Columbia. "We get briefings continuously on what the debris and the metallurgy tells us. Many of us felt it was our duty to come down to see it for ourselves," Gehman was quoted as saying in the Chronicle. "We saw the things today which we believe are compelling pieces of evidence that tell us how the heat got into the vehicle and where the flaw started."

Leading Theory Modified

Although the CAIB won't start writing its report for another couple of weeks or so, investigators seem to be more and more certain that damage to Columbia's left wing led to a "melt-through" during the shuttle's re-entry, causing the horrific break-up. That specific area of the wing was hit by debris on Jan. 16, as Columbia lifted off for what would be its final, tragic mission. The debris, insulating foam, broke away from an older-model external fuel tank used to send STS-107.

What's left of Columbia's flight data recorder indicates, however, that the debris didn't impact the underside of the left wing, near the landing gear door. Instead, the investigators are zeroing in on damage to the leading edge of the wing. That's where, in the 3-D mock-up, telltale signs of intense heat - as high as 2500F - burned through the wing. The CAIB has reportedly modified its theory accordingly, believing the burn-through started a series of events that led to Columbia's disastrous break-up, 60,000 feet above Texas.

FMI: www.caib.us