Still, the shuttle appeared to be proceeding as planned–and then everything went silent at Mission Control. At the same moment, residents in central and eastern Texas reported hearing a loud boom and then pieces of the shuttle started raining down from the sky. By late morning, NASA had lowered its flag to half-mast and confirmed that the space shuttle, and its seven crew members–a diverse group that included an African-American man, an Indian-born woman, and the first Israeli astronaut–were gone. NEWSWEEK’s Jennifer Barrett spoke to John M. Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and member of the NASA Advisory Council, about what might have caused the tragedy, and what it could mean for the future of the U.S. space program.
NEWSWEEK: What was your first reaction when you learned what had happened to the space shuttle Columbia?
John M. Logsdon: Sadness. It was like a kind of a hole in the pit of your stomach. You realize this is a big blow to the program and, obviously, a terrible tragedy to the people who were directly involved. It’s all around a really sad event.
In 42 years of U.S. space flights, there had never been a major problem during the descent to earth or the landing. From what we know so far, what might have caused this accident?
It seems rather clear now that something bad happened on the left wing. From the sounds of it, it was some excessive heating that caused, perhaps, structural failure and the wing coming off. At the speed they were going [about 12,500 miles per hour] and the altitude [207,000 feet], that’s it. There is no recourse if they have that kind of major structural failure at that point in the re-entry. It is unusual to have a problem during re-entry though. The last problem during descent that I’m aware of–and it turned out to be benign–was during John Glenn’s flight in 1962. There was an indicator light on the ground that had suggested the re-entry shield might not have worked, which meant he would have been incinerated upon re-entry. Fortunately, it was just a false indication.
Why is the shuttle debris considered so dangerous?
On board the shuttle, even when it gets down to earth, are a lot of highly toxic substances that have to do with the orbital control and maneuvering systems. If you have ever looked at a shuttle landing, the first thing that happens is a crew comes out and checks to make sure there are no toxic substances venting or leaking so the [shuttle] crew can get out safely.
What might happen if someone came in contact with such toxic debris on the ground? Could it be fatal?
We’re talking about things like hydrazine. That could burn the skin or, if it’s inhaled, it can be damaging or fatal. Whether it could survive intact this kind of entry is another question. But it’s best to stay clear of the debris. Besides, they [NASA investigators] don’t want anyone taking this into a garage as a souvenir. It’s part of the investigation.
How long might that investigation take?
Whether it will take days or weeks I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s going to take months. With the Challenger disaster, we knew the cause within a couple of days. There are sensors all over that piece of equipment that are sending data all the time down to the ground, so it’s not like recovering a black box. A lot of the data is already in the computers.
What effect could this accident have on NASA’s space program?
It’s going to be a setback, obviously. It will force more attention than has been given recently to why we are in space and why in particular we are putting humans in space. But I think the result of that attention will be revalidating that it’s a thing worth doing.
Are manned missions still necessary to accomplish our scientific goals in space?
Yes, is the short answer. The kind of science that was being planned for the space station and the kinds of things humans have done like repairing the Hubble space telescope require human presence.
How might this setback affect our work on the International Space station?
I think it will have a big impact over the short to medium term. The next 12 months was a sprint toward completing the assembly of the U.S. portion of this station, so there were five missions scheduled to bring up big pieces of the station and have the crew assemble them. Clearly, that won’t happen now until we are ready to certify the shuttle for flight again. The three crew members that are up there now have supplies through June and can leave station in 15 to 20 minutes so they are in no danger at all–well, other than day-by-day danger of being in hostile environment.
There have been questions raised about whether NASA has taken the correct safety precautions since the Challenger explosion. In 1996, John Pike, then director of the Federation of American Scientists’s Space Policy Project, said “It would be very surprising if there were not another big shuttle disaster over the next decade.” How would you respond to that?
It’s an easy thing to say because this is a risky thing to do. You can pull that out of archives and say look at how prescient he was. But if there hadn’t been any accidents, people would forget he ever said that. Statistically, the odds of a catastrophic accident were calculated as somewhere between 1 in 200 or 1 in 400. This was the 113th flight and the second accident, so the statistics don’t look very good. But this is a really hard thing to do. There is with each launch a finite chance of a major accident. One thing the country is reminded of is that reality. But I can’t conceive of a national decision to stop sending people into space, though I’m sure there will be some who call for it.
Do you think more people will call for an end to space travel now that we’ve had two major disasters in less than two decades?
Humans are going to travel into space. It’s part of the future. If you look back to early days of aviation along the way, it was a risky business then. We are a lot more advanced technologically, but going into space is a lot harder than flying airplanes. Yes, there were two tragic accidents, and there will be more accidents. None of this can be completely risk free.
How important do you think the space program is for America?
It is one of the symbols of U.S. pride. If you think about the things we use to symbolize the United States, there’s the flag, then the bald eagle, and the third image–at least before the September 11 attacks–is either a shuttle launch or an astronaut on the moon. It’s deeply part of this culture.
