The head of America`s space program predicted Sunday that ”it won`t take a very long time” to correct whatever caused Challenger to explode, and sources here indicated another shuttle launch might be technically possible as early as June.
Citing 24 successful shuttle launches prior to last week, NASA acting administrator William Graham said, ”The overall configuration and design we believe to be fundamentally sound, and we believe it won`t take a very long time to get this problem corrected.
”We don`t think there`s a major reconfiguration problem here,” Graham said on ABC`s ”This Week” program. ”We think there`s an engineering problem somewhere that has to be taken care of.”
Although Graham said he couldn`t predict how soon the shuttle program might resume, it was the first public discussion by NASA of new launches since last Tuesday`s destruction of Challenger.
However, an aide to Rep. Terry Bruce (D., Ill.), a member of the House Science and Technology Committee, said speculation about an early resumption of shuttle flight struck him as ”extremely optimistic.”
Graham also said the shuttle`s rocket boosters, considered a possible cause of the fatal blast, were thought to be so reliable that they were ”not susceptible to failure” or closely monitored by sensors.
Search teams on Sunday continued sonar and underwater-camera investigations of what were described as three large submerged objects. Two were together near shore, while another was in deep water. There has been speculation that Challenger`s well-constructed crew cabin might have remained intact after its plunge into the ocean.
Meanwhile, a NASA-appointed interim investigating team met behind closed doors at Marshall Space Center in Huntsville, Ala., Sunday. A statement was expected Monday.
Asked about Graham`s comments on how soon the next shuttle mission might come, a NASA source said, ”It is not pie-in-the-sky to expect a launch within five months.”
As precedent, he cited a two-month delay to the shuttle program in August, 1983, after damage to a shuttle booster rocket attached to the same Challenger orbiter. The following mission, scheduled for September, was delayed until Nov. 28, 1983.
The 1983 malfunction, ”of course, did not take lives or destroy the shuttle,” the source said. ”But, as a technical problem, it was viewed as seriously at the time as what happened last Tuesday is now. Then, as now, we said we weren`t going to fly again until we knew what went wrong.”
Technical factors aside, neither Graham nor the NASA source discussed whether administration and congressional leaders would be enthusiastic about attempting a launch just a few months after the deaths of seven crewmembers including high school teacher Christa McAuliffe.
Larry Clinton, an aide to Bruce, said Sunday he was ”surprised” by suggestions of resuming launches in the near future. ”I found it a very optimistic assessment,” Clinton said.
Bruce on Saturday said the Science and Technology Committee planned its own inquiry into the Challenger explosion. Clinton said that information presented so far by NASA to congressional staff members was ”a great deal more tenuous” than that which might justify a launch any time soon.
Clinton said that ”my understanding is that the committee will still want to review” all the evidence in the Challenger disaster.
”It is one thing to find a problem,” Clinton said. ”It is another thing to make sure you`ve got the solution.”
He said it is his understanding that the House committee wants a
”standard scientific replication” of the shuttle`s malfunction before
”rushing ahead to get more people back up there.”
Graham appeared on three network news-interview programs Sunday and defended NASA against questions whether safety might have been compromised to make shuttles lighter and less costly.
The agency late Saturday had released film of what it described as ”an unusual plume” of flame in the lower part of Challenger`s right solid rocket booster. Without identifying it as the cause of the explosion, Graham gave this narration of film footage prior to the blast:
”What you see is a second plume showing up above the normal plume at the exit cone of the solid rocket booster which is strapped to the side of the expendable tank on the shuttle stack.”
He called the second plume ”an anomalous situation which we have never seen on a launch of a shuttle before.
”The second plume appears to grow and grow at the area where it`s occurring until finally, it goes to the explosion point. We don`t know at this point what all the data indicates concerning that.”
One NASA source said, ”It (the plume) is a major clue. It gives you a specific point in time and a specific physical point on which to focus, instead of looking at a sea of figures with no reference point.”
The makers of the solid boosters, Morton-Thiokol, said the just-released NASA films left it unclear whether a booster caused the explosion.
The boosters were such a primary part of the shuttle structure, Graham said, that it was deemed not necessary to monitor them during flight with sensors. He said they were not susceptible to failure, ”or we thought them not susceptible.”
Strong currents Sunday forced NASA recovery ship Liberty Star to abandon, at least until Monday, efforts to find a large object detected by sonar 40 miles off Daytona Beach, and determine if it is Challenger`s crew cabin.
Liberty Star left the area to join other debris-search vessels about 16 miles out, where sonar detected two other large objects.
Meanwhile, a Coast Guard ship brought ashore what appeared to be the frustum of a solid rocket booster, a part located just below the nose cone. It was recovered off the coast of Savannah, Ga., Saturday.
The other booster`s frustum was brought in Friday night.
Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. James Simpson said that 15 tons of debris had been brought ashore by Sunday.
