Transcript: Columbia Accident Investigation Board Press Briefing June 12, 2003 (part 3)

MR. PAUL RECER: Paul Recer of the AP. Given what you know about this bolt escaping from the bolt catcher and traveling in a certain direction at a certain velocity, would it theoretically be capable of delivering enough force to the orbiter to cause a catastrophe?

MAJOR GENERAL BARRY: The answer quickly is yes. I mean, you talk about these bolts, you know, you could see the size of it. They’re massive, as well as just the ablator – if the ablator material and the aluminum on the top of the dome came off, you know, this has got more substance and density than alum – than foam does. So yes, it is a potential.

The question is, you know, do we have any indications of it hitting the wing? And there’s no indication in either the OEX data that we know about, or any of the telemetry that something hit the wing passed 120 seconds.

So, what we’re trying to couch here, is that it’s very important that we understand all potential debris. And as the Admiral mentioned, in closing out the fault trees, what we’re trying to do here – we’re not changing our working scenario. It’s still pretty evident that foam came off and hit the wing, and whether that exactly caused – we’ll make the final determination on the mishap. But we also have to take into consideration any other future debris elements that could be potentially catastrophic to the orbiter.

So, that’s where we’re trying to raise this as an issue. We’re listening. We’re trying to figure out – we have a responsibility, too, to provide NASA with indications of what we think that the next mishap could be, you know, where they need to pay attention. And this particular item has potential to be catastrophic.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Okay, Kathleen?

ADMIRAL GEHMAN: I think it’s worth saying that half of the bolt weighs 40 pounds.

MAJOR GENERAL BARRY: And the foam – the foam weighed 1.6 pounds, so that gives you a clue.

MS. KATHLEEN COKE: That was the direction my question was going. Kathleen Coke with CNN. I was trying to get a handle on the exact dimensions and size, weight of half of the bolt. And were there any anomalies in the half that was found with the SRB?

And again, in relation to this – I think you did say this earlier – the 126 seconds, that’s the point of SRB separation. At this radar event, you said you didn’t detect it hitting the wing. Was there any proof of it hitting the orbiter anywhere at all?

MAJOR GENERAL BARRY: No indication of that. A couple of questions there. It is 40 pounds half weight, you know, the size of it. You can see how large it was just standing by that man who was trying to install it. So, a long story short is, you know, this thing can cause some serious impact damage if, in fact, it was – no indication that this hit the orbiter that we’re aware of. Now, we’ve got to close this out as a potential issue for the fault tree the best we can.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Okay. Eric, Kathy, you guys get one question.

MR. EARL LANE: It’s Earl – Earl Lane with Newsday. Is there any historical record of similar radar hits around 126 seconds?

MAJOR GENERAL BARRY: Right now, we do have more than one radar hit on STS-107 at about the 130 to 230 second launch thing, but this is not uncommon. You know, this is things that will be – maybe there’s foam coming off, or there are pieces of ice coming off. So, it is not unusual to see radar hits on things coming off. The one that got our attention was, it was right around 120 seconds when the SRB bolt.

And then, when we started looking into this issue about the solid rocket bolt catcher, then we started raising some questions. And then, as you can see, we went to testing and then we found the – you know, we had some concerns about the manufacturing element of the dome and why it wasn’t tested correctly, and wasn’t tested with its actual flight hardware. So, it’s raised a lot of questions. I keep digging down, but it’s an example of how you need to go to a very thorough aspect of nailing something shut before you get off it.

DR. OSHEROFF: I have question for John?

MAJOR GENERAL BARRY: Do you get a question?

DR. OSHEROFF: I get a question. I haven’t used my question yet. And that is, can you actually see foam on radar?

MAJOR GENERAL BARRY: You don’t know what it is. You don’t know what it is and you know and that’s a -.

DR. OSHEROFF: – I – I – what I’m saying, is it at such a low density it’s not going to absorb or scatter much radar?

MAJOR GENERAL BARRY: No – ice, foam, a number of different hits, so -. You can’t tell that it’s foam.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Okay. Kathy, sorry about the confusion.

MS. KATHY SAWYER: No problem. Kathy Sawyer, the Washington Post. For General Barry, but also anybody else who wants to jump in? You’ve had several instances today mentioned of NASA having data that did not come from actual experiments, but was from some other kind of force. And can you elaborate on why that is? Is it cost? Is it mindset? Is it something else?

MAJOR GENERAL BARRY: I alluded to the fact that we were – this hold down post cable (?) issue was actually brought to our attention by a public input, all right. We’ve announced that from the very beginning, you know, 800 numbers and e-mail, and this one came in. And you know, we looked at it for a while, as we looked at all of them, and then we started asking some serious questions, and that’s what brought us to the issue of trying to figure out, is this a potential catastrophic element that could cause a Challenger or a Columbia mishap?

So, this is a very valuable resource. We’ve got a lot of our information from the public, and we compliment all of the inputs that have been going, and we have thoroughly looked into all of them. So, this one was helpful and allowed us – nothing to do with 107, but it could fall in the category of findings of other significance.

MS. SAWYER: I was alluding more of NASA’s tendency to not do experiments, but instead to get their data from – I think you said it was a simulation or something – some other source than an actual experiment – a direct experiment.

ADMIRAL GEHMAN: Well, we have seen – you’re right, Kathy. We alluded to that several times today. Doug just alluded it, for example, that someone brought him a temperature time chart, which he kept on his desk for two weeks, and then we were several weeks into this when someone – we finally discovered that this wasn’t data. This was just an analysis and – and a – we continued to discover that over and over again. And I don’t know that I have any kind of conclusions about it.

You have heard – when you hear people, like our panel this morning, say you know that you’ve got to test like you’re going to fly, and you’ve got a – you’ve got a test everything, and you’ve got to be inquisitive, and you’ve got to be a – you’ve got to be a healthy skeptic. That’s – that’s kind of the attitude that we’re referring to, and those are little tiny specific examples. And so, I don’t know that I would make any big statements about that, but Sally, do you want to comment on that?

DR. RIDE: Yeah, I’d just – I’d just make a comment that it’s – I think it’s important to appreciate that a lot of the systems that we’re dealing with are very, very complicated systems, and they’re not necessarily well understood even at the time they’re designed. And that makes it all the more important to do tests to make sure that you do understand, you know, just physically how these things are working. Are they working the way that you intended them to work that you thought they would work when you – when you first designed them? And you know, that’s the value of testing, and you just – you shouldn’t shortchange that. I think we heard Tom Young describing that earlier this morning.

DR. LOGSDON: And let me add just another dimension to it. The reason we’re looking at these top level budget figures is to work down, and we haven’t done this yet, did the program have enough money to be able to do what it should do in things like testing and things like investment in crumbling infrastructure? We have to make that link if we’re going to have any causal relationship between budget decisions and the effective conduct of the program.

ADMIRAL GEHMAN: And we also – we also would like to consider from a management point of view whether or not this kind of testing should even be in the program. Because if it’s in the program, it competes with operational requirements and safety requirements and things like that. And therefore, testing for testing’s sake, or testing as Doug would say, testing to understand things will always compete with real world realities, and will almost always lose.

So, I would suggest that perhaps that the cost of doing human space flight, or the cost of exploring – part of the cost of exploration and part of the cost of human space flight, or part of the cost of being a center of excellence, is some overhead costs that you just have to kind of do that kind of research. You just have to bear that kind of price.

Now, by the way, don’t consider this to be an indictment of NASA. There are three partners who decide how much money you get and how much money you get for it. And there’s – there are three players here besides NASA – I mean, there are two other players besides NASA. Dr. Osheroff?

DR. OSHEROFF: I just wanted to say that you’re exactly right, that if you do a simulation and you haven’t gotten the physics right, or you haven’t gotten all of the inputs into your model – for instance, I very much doubt that they considered frictional heating that might result from the stresses that the orbiter transmitted to the bipod structure after launch. I mean I very much doubt that was in there, but those are the sorts of things that I think, you know, you engineers do – do these simulations all the time and it’s extremely important for them to do that, but you can’t – shouldn’t get confused with what you’ve got.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Okay. Houston Chronicle, one question.

MR. MARK CARREAU: Mark Carreau from the Houston Chronicle, and mine’s for General Barry. Could you, on the bolt catcher issue, could you discuss what the normal quality analysis process is for that component, and why did they change vendors?

MAJOR GENERAL BARRY: It’s not unusual to compete different vendors. Let me answer that second question, so you know, that’s the normal process on how we do things. The quality element is just one more issue that we’re spending a lot of time on in trying to make sure that we’ve examined the process and the people and the qualifications of the folks doing it. But really, this came down to an issue of not following through exactly on all of the levels of testing, all of the NB, all of the possible subcomponent testing that could be done that would allow you to arrive at a position where you could say this is definitely a quality product and we’re ready to fly with it.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Bill? Excuse me, the second row. Oh well, yeah, go ahead.

UNKNOWN MALE: (Inaudible).

ADMIRAL GEHMAN: The question was, if you couldn’t hear it, the comment on the foam impact testing at Southwest Research and how it contributes to our body of – our body of knowledge. As I have indicated before, it’s very important to fill in some gaps in our – in what is known about the impact and the strength and resiliency of various components, acreage tile (?), but most important is the leading edge system for which there was precious little or no strength-at-impact data available whatsoever. So, we are, essentially, learning as we go along.

What we have determined so far, of course, is that foam of the size that we saw in this incident, traveling at the speed that we saw in this incident, can indeed damage the RCC, which has always been considered to be too tough to be – to be damaged.

So, we’re – we’re essentially filling in blanks in our knowledge. Now, after we leave here, I’m going to have my foam experts stay behind and bring it to your knees on how much you want to know about foam.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Okay, right there in the second row.

MR. KEITH COWING: Keith Cowing, NASAWatch.com, a question for Dr. Logsdon. There’s a lot of discussion about NASA’s budget and how it was formulated. And I believe at least twice today you’ve said that you have not had access to OMB/White House interactions with NASA. I was wondering how you could possibly formulate a complete picture of NASA’s budget, if you don’t have access. Specifically, have you asked NASA, or the White House, for access to OMB pass back information under Dan Goldin’s administration and Sean O’Keefe’s?

DR. LOGSDON: Have we asked NASA? Yes. And then we entered into a discussion of the broader issue of Executive Privilege, which is something that cuts across all federal agencies for all time and is a well-established principle, that the interactions between agencies and the White House during the budget process are protected by Executive Privilege, and we are respecting that.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Ricardo?

MR. RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR: Yeah, for General Barry, back to the bolt catcher for a second. My name is Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar with the L.A. Times. And so, what you’re saying is, that you found another problem that could be potentially catastrophic. But you also seem to be saying that you think it’s more of a concern for future flights. Are you going to be able to rule it out as a cause of the Columbia disaster?

MAJOR GENERAL BARRY: In the fault tree that we’ve gone through, and NASA is very specifically and – I mean down to the umpteenth diligent levels – there are going to be elements that are not going to be able to be closed, okay. And this may be one of those. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, of the top fault tree, there are right now, today, 17 potentially permanent open items. And they fall in the category of RCC failure at impact, RCC failure to do loss of an RCC panel, substrate failure due to a mission cycle, substrate failure due to the ground cycles, as examples.

And then there are two potentially contributing factors that fall in the category of manufacturing material defect and panel improper installation. Some of these still may be closed out. They are in the process of working that. In fact, the Admiral’s communicated that the close-out of the fault tree to the max extent possible is a return flight issue. Now, if you want to comment on that?

ADMIRAL GEHMAN: No, we have made – some of – some of the thousands and thousands of elements in the fault tree will not be closed out before the Board finishes its work. And the work will go on after we’re – after we’re done, and we – we are going to advise NASA that finishing that work is an RTF requirement. Now, some of the elements cannot be – they physically can’t be closed out. I mean some of these things, you have to get the shuttle back in order to determine whether or not, you know, you could close it out, whether or not it contributed, but the number is very, very small.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Okay. Question?

MR. DAVID KESTENBAUM: David Kestenbaum, with National Public Radio. Dr. Osheroff, you talked about a sort of blowtorch test. Could you talk about it in a little more detail on what conclusions you might draw from it?

DR. OSHEROFF: Right. I think these started – these were at JSC, I believe. These started with an effort to understand how long it would take for the hot gases flowing into the left wing of the orbiter to slice through these large copper cables that carried the signals from all of the sensors. And they tried using an acetylene torch, and it was a very slow process.

And so, then they got this arc jet, which really super heated air; 8,000 degrees. So hot, that in fact the oxygen molecules are split into individual atoms. That makes them much more highly reactive, and that’s – that’s what they were dealing with, and it was just very impressive to see how quickly that kind of an atmosphere simulating as best they could the conditions on re-entry would slice through aluminum, in particular, was just absolutely amazing.

MR. KESTENBAUM: (Inaudible).

DR. OSHEROFF: Well, they started with hole of one inch, and oh – oh – you’re talking about the crack – the hole in the RCC. They’re the size of the – the orifice that they had – that the gas had to pass through the aluminum and then hit the copper was it started at one inch and went up to six inches in diameter. Those are certainly of this – I mean one inch is much smaller than what we believe would have been necessary in order to have brought down the orbiter, but six inches is probably pretty comparable to most of the things, the cross-sectional areas is about right.

ADMIRAL GEHMAN: I have a question of Dr. Osheroff.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Okay. Right there.

MS. DEBORAH ZABARENKO: I’m Deborah Zabarenko. I work for Reuters. I don’t want to put too fine a point on – and I know others have asked this question. I just want to be clear that we’re not thrown off the scent. This bolt issue doesn’t seem to be detracting from the main theory that you’ve had almost from the beginning. And that is, that it’s falling foam that’s caused the problem. This is an interesting issue that may never be resolved, but it’s still all about foam, right?

MAJOR GENERAL BARRY: The opening point when we brought this up is, this has not changed our working scenario. Our working scenario still is foam coming off of the bipod hitting the left wing, all indications there. We have no – the only thing we’ve got that started us on this track was, we saw a radar hit at 126 seconds. We started asking questions about bolt catchers. Then, we started finding problems with process and issues of testing, and that’s lead us to another issue that we want to listen. We want to make sure that we drill it down to its finest level, and we can take it off on the fault tree as best we can.

DR. OSHEROFF: If I may comment on that? It’s very – what we’ve done with the foam in addition to actually seeing it, they’ve modeled the path aeronautically that the foam should have traveled, and they’ve isolated the RCC panels that it’s very likely to have hit. We haven’t done anything like that yet with either the bolt, or the bolt catcher, or the ablator, and I dare say that those things are actually off to the side. But I would guess that given the explosive charge, there will always be much more uncertainty in that, because it will come off of there with a very substantial velocity to begin with.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Okay, more questions over here? Okay, Frank?

MR. FRANK MORRING: Frank Morring with Aviation Week for Dr. Osheroff.

Have you determined where the duct tape that was found in the foam came from and any impact it might have on this pumping mechanism you were describing?

DR. OSHEROFF: Well, I think that – I believe the tape was a pretty small piece, and so, I think it’s unlikely – if it was – again, if it became comparable to the thickness of the foam or something like that, then I think it would have been a real problem. I mean I’ve watched those guys doing mock bipod ramps. I don’t understand where the tape would have come from, frankly. But I don’t regard it as anymore of a problem than the voids that they found in it.

MAJOR GENERAL BARRY: That was a quality issue that we found in ET-120. Now, ET-120 was cut into first as a test article. That’s when we started filing these voids, and lo and behold we found a piece of tape. So, that’s a quality assurance issue that we were concerned about. We didn’t find anymore tape in any of the other ones we cut into.

DR. OSHEROFF: There’s another interesting issue, and that is that if you actually – when I was in the chute I looked at – they’d done a bunch of sectioning and there was, in fact, one of these knit lines, which essentially, you know, kind of come apart in a very strange manner. And that would give you a rather large area. That actually, I mean, that’s something that I’m much more concerned about.

MS. LAURA BROWN: I’m going to take a couple of quick questions from the phone bridge, and then we need to move on to the next briefing, so we can continue to enthrall you. Peter, are you there on the phone bridge? Okay, Irene?

MR. RALPH VARTABEDIAN: I’m here.

MS. IRENE BROWN: Yes, I’m here, too.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Okay, Peter.

MR. VARTABEDIAN: This is Ralph Vartabedian -.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Okay, Ralph, you don’t get a question, because Ricardo asked your question. But, Irene?

MS. IRENE BROWN: Yes, thank you. This is Irene Brown with the Discovery Channel. I just wanted to clarify, I think that you’d already said this, but you have not done a trajectory analysis to determine if the bolt or the bolt catcher could have impacted the left wing?

MAJOR GENERAL BARRY: That is correct. That’s ongoing and that will be the next step.

MS. IRENE BROWN: Thank you.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Okay.

MR. PHIL CHEN: Phil Chen here.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Okay, go ahead. One question, Phil, only one.

MR. CHEN: I file this one question, although I wish Dr. Osheroff could ask it for me – ask the question. For Dr. Logsdon, during the congressional hearings, which I believe you attended last month, there was a comment from John McCain about the entitlement spending, which NASA had not asked for. Is this something you’re planning on addressing in the report, and what do you think about his comments?

DR. LOGSDON: Well, so-called earmarks as seen by one member of Congress are important projects as seen by other members of Congress. If you wish, STS-107 was an earmark. It was a mission undertaken at the direction of Congress to satisfy the demands of the research community to fly a science mission while the station was being assembled. So, are we going to start listing earmarks as earmarks, no? Are we going to indicate which congressional directives with respect to the shuttle program move resources around, yes? So, our focus is on the shuttle program and not the overall NASA budget.

ADMIRAL GEHMAN: Even though – this is Admiral Gehman. I’ll interject that Senator McCain has asked us to do something specific and we probably will – we will respond to him. It may not be in the report, but we might write him a letter or something like that.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Okay.

MR. PETER KING: Laura?

MS. LAURA BROWN: Yeah?

MR. KING: Laura, it’s Peter King.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Okay, Peter, one question.

MR. KING: Sorry about that, I was listening off the Web and got mixed up there. And my apologies for beating a dead horse. Peter King at CBS News Radio. But, I guess for General Barry, are you feeling – I’m real sorry about this, but are you feeling that the bolt issue is going to be a return to flight issue in all – in all likelihood?

MAJOR GENERAL BARRY: I think what we’ll probably end up doing is list that as a return to flight. My opinion only, and we’ll have to get the Board’s consensus on that, but it does have certain potential to be catastrophic in the future. So, with that qualification, that qualification alone, I think it’s certainly something that we have to pay attention to.

MS. LAURA BROWN: Okay, I think that’s it today, and I think we’re going to have – not have our usual access to the Board members afterwards. I think we’re going to have to move on to Scott Hubbard’s briefing. So, if you guys – if you guys all hang in there for a minute, we will do the transfer of power here.

END