Ex-engineer tried to warn of disaster
NASA veteran campaigned hard for escape system
BY JOE MOZINGO, RONNIE GREENE AND PHIL LONG
jmozingo@herald.com
Less than two months ago, the White House rejected the warnings of a retired NASA engineer who urged the government to halt all space shuttle launches ''to prevent another catastrophic shuttle accident,'' records show.
Don Nelson, a longtime NASA supervisor and mission planner going back to the first lunar missions, said he left the agency four years ago because of grave concerns about its safety program.
Ever since, he has devoted himself to persuading government officials that a disaster was imminent if NASA did not install an escape module that would allow the crew to eject from the spacecraft.
He wrote to President Bush in August, saying it was his ``duty to inform you that our space shuttle astronauts are in eminent [sic] danger. Your intervention is required to prevent another catastrophic shuttle accident.''
Nelson's concerns were based on a litany of routine malfunctions that have occurred in recent years, including hydrogen leaks, dented fuel lines, major wiring problems and computer failures.
OFFICIAL RESPONSE
The White House responded two months ago. John Marburger III, director of the Office of Science and Technology, wrote Dec. 4 that he had met with NASA officials to discuss Nelson's concerns.
''NASA places a high priority on safety and has instituted a program of developing and implementing safety upgrades to reduce the risk to Space Shuttle crews,'' Marburger wrote.
``Based on these discussions, I do not think that it is appropriate for the President to issue a moratorium on Space Shuttle launches at this time.''
Marburger, the president's science advisor, said there was no reason to shut the program down.
''We spoke with the NASA people about the issues [that Nelson] raised,'' he said. ``We convinced ourselves that NASA was taking these issues seriously and had a good program. Given the same information, I would have made the same call again.''
On Dec. 21, Nelson sent one final letter back to the White House, citing a recent ``propellant leak on the space shuttle.''
SOME ASSUMPTIONS
''I assume that you are aware that there has never been a launch vehicle that has not had multiple catastrophic failures,'' Nelson wrote, to Marburger again.
``I assume you have informed the president that the request for a moratorium has been denied and his administration is accepting the responsibility for the fate of the space shuttle crews.''
He has not heard back since.
''They wouldn't listen to me,'' Nelson, 67, said in a telephone interview.
'I thought if I retired, I could do something about this whole thing. One of my engineering buddies at Johnson said, `Don, the only way this is going to happen is if there is a catastrophe.' ''
Marburger said NASA does listen and that many of the safety issues that Nelson pointed out, like a hydrogen leak on Columbia in 1999, were discovered precisely because NASA's maintenance program is thorough.
''These systems are so complicated that they must always be evaluated,'' Marburger said. ``These things are the things that pop up when you're looking for them.''
Also, in previous correspondence, NASA officials told Nelson that the escape module didn't make sense and was too heavy to add to the shuttle without ``extensive redesign.''
`WE DON'T AGREE'
''The reality is that true assured crew escape for all phases of flight will require extensive redesign of the existing vehicle,'' Bill Readdy, NASA's associate administrator for space flight, wrote June 3, 1999.
``In short, we don't agree that NASA's commitments for the next two decades of human space flight can be met with your proposed approach.''
Readdy was one of the officials who spoke at the press conference Saturday.
Nelson, who quit NASA after 36 years, listened to the press conference and was pleased the agency had some solid leads on what might have happened.
''It really shows a smoking gun as far as failure,'' Nelson said.
He said the sensors that went out on and around the left wing indicate there must have been a breach in the thermal protection system, the insulation tiles that protect the shuttle during the searing-hot reentry into the atmosphere.
Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat and former shuttle astronaut, said he hopes investigators will find debris that hit the left wing on takeoff. But he added that losing one or two tiles should not have been a problem.
''Unless there was a domino effect, a ripping off of several of the tiles,'' he said.
SAFETY UPGRADES
The senator, no relation to the retired engineer, said he has seen no evidence that the tragedy was related to any delay in safety upgrades to the shuttle.
''I have been one of the sharpest critics on Capitol Hill on the delay of safety upgrades that have not been made,'' the senator said.
``There is no evidence that there is any link between this tragedy and the slowing down of safety upgrades. To the contrary, I think it has nothing to do with the safety upgrades.''
To deal with this and other emergencies, NASA did launch an extensive, $5 million study of the escape systems in 2000, according to news reports. Don Nelson said the agency never implemented any new ejection systems.
He says NASA must do something to minimize the number of human casualties because there are so many potential glitches and failures, human and technological, that the crews need a reliable means to escape.
''I feel like we failed these guys again,'' he said. ``This was so avoidable. A systems failure, we knew we were going to have sometime. This was a management failure. That is why I'm so upset.''
Herald staff writers Curtis Morgan and Jason Grotto contributed to this report.
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