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NASA e-mails show worry over wing 'What-if' debate came late in flight By Gareth Cook and Anne Barnard, Globe Staff, 2/27/2003
The concerns, recorded in e-mails released by NASA yesterday, were never shared with NASA's top administrators. But the e-mails, part of a series released by the space agency in response to media requests under the Freedom of Information Act, show that there was a broader internal debate about the risks from debris striking Columbia's left wing during takeoff. ''It wasn't just an academic exercise,'' said John Tylko, a shuttle specialist who is a lecturer at MIT. ''It was being looked at by the people who would decide which of these contingencies would be followed in case of an emergency.''
The e-mails show a far-ranging discussion of what might go wrong as the shuttle reentered the earth's atmosphere on Feb. 1 and how controllers could handle the different scenarios, from ordering the crew to bail out, to attempting a landing without landing gear. At one point, R.K. ''Kevin'' McCluney, a shuttle mechanical engineer at Johnson Space Center, described the risks that could lead to ''LOCV'' - NASA shorthand for the loss of the crew and vehicle. But McCluney ultimately recommended to do nothing unless there was a ''wholesale loss of data'' from sensors in the left wing, in which case controllers would need to decide between a risky landing and directing the crew to bail out as the shuttle flew - itself very risky. Jeffrey V. Kling, a flight controller at Johnson Space Center's mission control, foresaw with haunting accuracy what might happen to Columbia if superheated air penetrated the wheel compartment. Just 23 hours before the disaster, he wrote that his engineering team's recommendation in such an event ''is going to be to set up for a bailout [assuming the wing doesn't burn off before we can get the crew out].'' The following day Kling watched as the fears became real, reporting a sudden, unexplained loss of data from the shuttle's sensors in the left wing. Just minutes later, before controllers could do anything, Columbia was transformed into a fiery jumble of debris, tumbling from the sky over Texas, killing the seven crew members. The e-mails poignantly illustrated the dilemmas ground engineers face: They identify a variety of nightmare scenarios, and in some cases, all they can do is hope they don't happen. ''Having been in the business myself ... you play every what-if game you can think of,'' said Gerry Griffin, a former director of the Johnson Space Center and a longtime shuttle flight controller. ''Sometimes it leads you up to a box canyon where there's no way out.'' Every shuttle flight generates worried e-mails, said Griffin. But the discussion revealed yesterday is significant because it shows that some at NASA were concerned about the precise threats that appeared to have taken down the craft and because these discussions seem to have come late in the flight. ''Why are we talking about this on the day before landing and not the day after launch?'' wrote William C. Anderson of United Space Alliance LLC, a NASA contractor, less than 24 hours before the shuttle broke apart. The discussion was prompted by fears raised by Robert Daugherty, a NASA senior research engineer at NASA's Langley Research Center, who was looking at the possible effects of foam insulation striking the wing during the launch on Jan. 16. He was mostly concerned about the safety of the shuttle landing with flat tires or wheels damaged if hot gasses penetrated the wheel well. After intense debate - occurring by phone and e-mails - the engineers, supervisors, and the head of the space agency's Langley research facility in Hampton, Va., decided against taking the matter to top NASA managers. The e-mails, which are available on the NASA website, portray a combination of stress, frustration, and hints of gallows humor - such as a reference to the possibility of ''a bad day'' - as engineers grappled with long odds of various scenarios that were difficult to quantify. They also include references that are strikingly prescient. In an e-mail, for example, McCluney refers to a scenario under which ''a limited stream of hot plasma'' from the heat of reentry made its way into the wheel well until the shuttle hit about 200,000 feet, the altitude at which the shuttle broke apart. Among the messages was one from Daugherty's boss at Langley, Mark J. Shuart, to another Langley supervisor, Doug Dwoyer, describing Daugherty as ''the kind of conservative, thorough engineer that NASA needs.'' Many of the e-mails NASA released yesterday were gathered at the direction of Ronald Dittemore, the shuttle's program manager at Johnson Space Center. In a message he wrote the day that news organizations first reported Daugherty's concerns, Dittemore asked for copies of the e-mails ''so that I can see the traffic and get a feel for the conversations.'' Daugherty's concerns and the ensuing debate among other engineers took place days after engineers from Boeing Co., another NASA contractor, had assured that Columbia could return safely despite possible damage to its left wing on liftoff from insulation peeling off its external fuel tank. In response to Dittemore's request for the e-mails, Robert C. Doremus, a NASA employee at Johnson, on Feb. 11 summarized the earlier exchanges and concluded that Daugherty and three other engineers, on the afternoon before the breakup, agreed ''we were doing a `what-if' discussion and that we all expected a safe entry.'' The e-mails also disclose that Dwoyer, a middle manager at Langley, wrote to the director of the research center, Del Freeman, and asked whether Freeman should contact William F. Readdy, NASA's associate administrator for space flight. NASA officials said yesterday that Freeman never contacted Readdy, and that Freeman considered the matter resolved after he discussed the problem with Langley engineers. Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. Gareth Cook can be reached at cook@globe.com.
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 2/27/2003.
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day before the Columbia disaster, senior NASA engineers expressed concerns that the fire of reentry could burn off the space shuttle's left wing and kill the crew, an eerie premonition of what many investigators now think happened.
