Lawmakers Back NASA Probe : Plan Reviews but Decide Not to Seek Separate Inquiry

No independent probe of the explosion of the shuttle Challenger is needed because the National Aeronautics and Space Administration seems to be properly handling the investigation, several congressmen and critics of the shuttle program agreed Thursday.

At the same time, the House and Senate announced moves to closely monitor the investigation by NASA, which said Thursday that it will soon appoint a formal board of investigation to probe the explosion that killed all seven shuttle crew members Tuesday.

Reflecting a general reluctance to criticize the space agency in the wake of its worst accident ever, Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Merced) said it was “premature” to speculate on whether NASA should be investigating itself. But, he added, once that probe is complete, “it is incumbent on us to review it.”

Desire to Avoid ‘Meddling’

Similarly, Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Riverside), a member of the House Science and Technology subcommittee on space science and applications, said there is “a very strong desire not to appear to be meddling for publicity purposes.”

One space shuttle critic, Edward P. Ney of the University of Minnesota, recalled that a NASA-appointed board “did a reasonable job” in its 1967 investigation of a fire that killed three astronauts aboard an Apollo spacecraft on the ground.

That board, in its 2,375-page report, cited “many deficiencies in design and engineering, manufacture and quality control” of the Apollo program, declaring that they created “an unnecessarily hazardous condition,” he said.

“I don’t think they tried to cover anything up,” said Ney, a physics and astronomy professor who called the shuttle’s contribution to science “close to zero.”

Task Force Will Review

Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, announced Thursday that he will hold hearings on the Challenger disaster. In the House, Rep. Don Fuqua (D-Fla.), chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, appointed a six-member task force to review NASA’s findings and to determine whether Congress should make a further inquiry of its own.

Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad), a member of the House committee and the task force, said that “one of our roles will be to have an oversight and monitoring responsibility” during the NASA investigation.

Meanwhile, Brown said William G. Graham, acting administrator of NASA, has offered to attend an unusual Saturday meeting in Washington to brief members of the congressional space panel.

Public Support at Issue

The offer was seen as an example of NASA’s effort to prevent the shuttle explosion from draining public support from the space program--support that the agency has worked hard to build in recent years.

However, the fact that the Challenger crew members became the first Americans to die in space clearly has provided a new forum for debating the value of the nation’s shuttle program. Yet, amid that debate, both supporters and detractors of the program agree that an outside review panel probably would not prove productive.

Thomas Gold, a professor of astronomy at Cornell University who has harshly criticized the manned space shuttle program, said: “The amount of evidence (an outside panel) could gather might be zero.”

John M. Logsdon, director of the science policy program at George Washington University and a supporter of the shuttle program, agreed. Such a panel would be “totally dependent on NASA for the data” it would need, he said.