NASA Stands By Its Launch Decision

Senior NASA officials on Wednesday defended their decision to launch astronauts to the international space station despite safety concerns. The agency’s handling of its liftoff decision drew a mild rebuke from the head of the panel that investigated the Columbia space shuttle disaster.

NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe and Associate Administrator William F. Readdy said during separate Senate hearings that the three astronauts -- American Michael Foale, Spaniard Pedro Duque and Russian Alexander Kaleri -- never were in immediate danger, but malfunctioning devices on the station at the center of the dispute could affect future missions if they are not fixed.

Lawmakers raised the subject repeatedly during a rare series of three congressional hearings on NASA, eager to investigate whether the Oct. 18 launch decision reflected a lapse in judgment by NASA. Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) sharply accused O’Keefe of being “long on vision but short on the safety of space.”

The astronauts, forced to take temporary refuge in a service module Wednesday because of unusual solar radiation, launched aboard a Soyuz capsule from Russia despite objections by some mid-level physicians and scientists over malfunctioning air- and water-monitoring devices and other equipment.

Readdy told lawmakers he had commended two officials who raised some of the most strident warnings. Formal meetings before Oct. 18 about the risks led NASA managers to determine the launch was safe.

The malfunctioning devices test for the concentration of tiny contaminants that can get into the air and water and possibly poison crew members. They stopped working during the last two months.

Retired Navy Adm. Harold Gehman Jr., who led the investigation into the Columbia disaster that killed seven astronauts in February, told senators he was comfortable that NASA had apparently shifted its focus to demonstrating that space missions are safe, rather than asking engineers to prove a flight might be risky.

But at a House hearing later in the day -- without O’Keefe next to him -- Gehman said he was discouraged that the concerns weren’t evaluated adequately until NASA managers intervened.

“The system didn’t take care of the problem by itself,” Gehman said. “It took the active intervention of management to bring this issue up to the proper level. It ought to come up automatically.”

Readdy also promised to keep lawmakers informed about future safety debates.

“Now that we know there is obviously more of a spotlight on the agency ... we’ll obviously be more proactive about providing the information here on the Hill,” he said.

Some senators also urged NASA to continue developing a space plane to ferry astronauts into orbit -- over objections by House lawmakers. Members of the House Science Committee have urged NASA to defer developing the spacecraft because of concerns about cost and its potential benefit.

O’Keefe said NASA was considering plans to accelerate work on the space plane, the agency’s most ambitious effort in decades. The space plane would carry astronauts, but not heavy equipment, to the space station.

The House members, Reps. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) and Ralph M. Hall (D-Texas), had warned O’Keefe it was “too soon to know whether [the space plane] will significantly increase crew safety for missions to low-Earth orbit, and we believe that any crewed replacement vehicle will be judged by the extent to which it significantly improves safety.”

O’Keefe said NASA needed a better understanding of why astronauts quickly lose muscle and bone mass in outer space and must further study questions over generating power and propulsion in space.

“I guess we better get on the matter of developing a space plane,” said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.). “It looks like the House of Representatives is beginning to give you some heartburn.”

O’Keefe responded: “I keep Rolaids handy all the time, as well as Advil.” He acknowledged that Boehlert’s and Hall’s concerns were legitimate, but told Nelson, “We are exploring the option to accelerate” development of the space plane.

For NASA, the orbital space plane would supplement the space shuttle. The agency envisions using the shuttle and its cargo capacity as a “space truck” to haul construction equipment to the space station.

O’Keefe said NASA might fly these shuttle missions without astronauts aboard.

“This is one option, an approach that could be used,” O’Keefe said.