Aerospace Daily July 07, 2003
Shuttle contractors likely to see increased oversight, analysts say
By Nick Jonson
Private contractors involved with the space shuttle program are likely to receive additional scrutiny from recently appointed NASA officials, according to space analysts.
The additional scrutiny, as well as several personnel changes announced July 2, are necessary if NASA is to change the way the shuttle program is managed following the Columbia shuttle disaster, said Charles Vick, senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org.
"We're dealing with an entire attitude through NASA and industry in the way this thing has been handled," Vick said.
Replacing senior program managers at NASA cannot be the only answer, Vick said. "They're going to have to bring in new personnel, and completely revise industry attitudes" about shuttle operations, he said.
That increased supervision probably will last only a short time, according to senior space analyst Marco Caceres of the Teal Group.
"There's going to be a natural tendency with NASA to favor close inspection. But after it gets half a dozen to a dozen successful shuttle missions under its belt, the natural tendency will be to go back to a system that was working pretty well before [the] Columbia [disaster]," he said.
Caceres said he believes there was widespread agreement before the Columbia disaster that United Space Alliance (USA), the contractor consortium running the shuttle program's operations, was doing a good job.
"USA worked well in cutting costs and improving efficiency," he said. "I don't get the sense from the debate that people think USA was at fault."
Rather than trying to maintain the increased oversight, NASA probably will begin to focus more on creating redundancy systems for the shuttle, such as escape capsules, he said.
Caceres also said he doesn't believe there will be a huge revamping of USA's management structure. "That management structure was put in place five, six, seven years ago. To change all that around now would almost compromise the safety of future missions," he said.
Personnel changes
The personnel changes NASA announced last week, the latest in a string of management changes announced in the wake of the shuttle loss, include that of Ralph Roe Jr., who was appointed to a newly created office at NASA Langley Research Center to implement new safety initiatives for the agency.
Roe currently is the manager of the Space Shuttle Vehicle Engineering Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
As manager of that office, Roe was responsible for overseeing a team of more than 2,000 government and contractor engineers working NASA's fleet of orbiters.
Final recommendations
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) investigating the Columbia shuttle disaster may release additional preliminary findings before issuing its final report at the end of the month.
"I can't give you a timeline, but there may be one or two more released," CAIB spokesman Air Force Lt. Col. Woody Woodyard said.
The board on July 1 released its fourth preliminary finding and recommendation. The board called for NASA to upgrade its imaging system to provide a minimum of three views of the space shuttle from liftoff to at least Solid Rocket Booster separation.
"The readiness of these assets should be included in the Launch Commit Criteria for future launches," the board said.
Despite the personnel changes at NASA, the board still plans to release its final report at the end of this month, Woodyard said.
"That's still the schedule. But it's being reviewed right now to determine whether we can still accomplish that," he said. "Subject to change, that's still the plan."
Copyright © 2003, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
