Cuts Said No Major Risk to Shuttle

A White House-commissioned safety study of the nation’s space shuttles, due for release next week, has concluded that budget cuts, work-force reductions and the fleet’s advancing age have not demonstrably increased the risk of accidents.

Nonetheless, the report cautions the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that it faces a range of potential safety problems and urges it to exercise greater caution in maintaining oversight of the private contractors that are taking over shuttle operations.

The report offers as clean a bill of health for the shuttle as could be expected, given the serious concerns raised by a number of NASA executives who have left the agency in the last two years citing disagreements over safety issues.

The report makes 22 specific recommendations, covering such areas as maintaining a skilled work force, keeping the number of launches steady and sustaining open communications among NASA centers.

The safety report was ordered last June by President Clinton after experts raised concerns about the rapid management changes and work-force reductions in the shuttle program. The report was done by the Aerospace Advisory Safety Panel, an independent committee of outsiders that reviews NASA programs.

“Overall, we have concluded [that] efforts to streamline the shuttle have not inadvertently created flight or ground risks,” the report says. “We call your attention, however, to the multiple observations and recommendations in the report, which address the clear need for NASA to take steps to ensure the availability of a skilled and experienced work force in sufficient numbers to meet ongoing safety needs.”

NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin, who has insisted that he places top priority on safety in the shuttle program even as he has ordered drastic cutbacks in personnel, said that he is “very pleased” by the study’s conclusions and will fully implement all of its recommendations.

“I want to make sure that people at NASA don’t say we got a clean bill of health, so let’s let our guard down,” Goldin said. “Opening the space frontier will be risky. We cannot guarantee absolute safety.”

The safety report carried the potential for drastic damage to NASA, particularly if it had found reason to recommend a halt to launch operations.

But the findings now clear NASA to begin assembling the international space station next year, a complex task that will subject the orbiter fleet to hard and intensive use in coming years.

The first shuttle flew 15 years ago and NASA contemplates continuing to operate its fleet of four spacecraft for at least another 15 years--meaning that the shuttles will be as old in 2010 as the dowdy jets currently used by some discount airlines.

NASA has no choice, since Congress has shown no willingness to underwrite a new fleet of space vehicles for humans any time soon. An experimental program for a new launch system, underway at the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, would not lead to a shuttle replacement for more than a decade.

Engineers have said repeatedly, however, that the shuttle’s airframe is not wearing out and that its electronics systems can be upgraded with current technology.

Aside from the safety report’s recommendations, NASA also has started a four-phase program to upgrade shuttle equipment, including a number of key safety items, Goldin said. The entire safety management structure recently was overhauled and managers for upgrades were named both at Johnson and Kennedy space centers, he said.

Stuck with what has always been an exceptionally expensive system to operate, NASA is attempting to drastically cut shuttle launch costs by streamlining operations and turning over responsibility for day-to-day tasks to United Space Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. The two companies are soliciting commercial payloads that might require an increase in the number of launches as a means to spread out fixed costs and boost profit margins.

The report cautions NASA against allowing more launches until additional experience is gained in operating with private contractors. The report also recommends that NASA name an outside audit panel to conduct periodic reviews of the contractors to make sure they are maintaining safe procedures.

NASA operates on a schedule of seven launches a year with the capability for eight. The study warns against attempting to launch shuttles at a rate of eight a year, unless NASA increases the shuttle work force.

The report endorses NASA’s decision to give the Johnson Space Center the lead role in running the shuttle program, reversing reforms enacted after the explosion of the Challenger shuttle flight almost 11 years ago that placed central management of the program in Washington.

Former shuttle director Bryan O’Connor left his job earlier this year, saying that the reorganization had put flight safety in jeopardy and needlessly changed a system that had been effective ever since the Challenger accident.

But the safety panel said there is nothing wrong with having Johnson take the lead role, as long as NASA makes sure that future managers do not engage in bureaucratic rivalry that would undermine open communications among the centers.

While NASA has slashed nearly 10,000 shuttle jobs in four years and will further reduce the remaining 26,000 jobs, it has not risked program safety, according to the report. But the agency needs to be more careful about preserving critical skills in the future, the report recommended.

The report notes that legislative changes may be needed so that skilled workers taking buyouts could be brought back if the agency suddenly found itself short of talent.