Some NASA officials said Sunday the space agency was in a ”state of confusion” over a directive from a presidential commission that removes top launch managers from the agency`s internal inquiry into the shuttle Challenger disaster.
”We have an entire agency of civil servants in a state of confusion,”
said Charles Redmond, a senior NASA spokesman in Washington. ”There is an awful lot of mistrust growing among the various players–mistrust between NASA and the commission, NASA and (acting administrator William) Graham, NASA and the White House.”
The presidential commission probing Challenger`s explosion said the decision to launch the shuttle ”may have been flawed,” indicating a focus on human error and not merely hardware failure. The blast shortly after launch on Jan. 28 killed all seven crew members.
Over the weekend, Graham changed the responsibilities of Philip Culbertson, the top-ranking professional approved by the White House as general manager of NASA, Shirley Green, director of public affairs for NASA, said Sunday night.
Green said Graham held a meeting Saturday morning, during which he announced that, in light of the changed circumstances at the agency and the need for rapid decision-making because of the Challenger disaster, he was asking program managers to report directly to him. Under a two-tiered management system approved in November, Culbertson had been the go-between, with associate NASA administrators reporting to him and he in turn reporting to Graham, Green said.
”This is not a summary execution,” Green said, adding that Graham did not dismiss Culbertson and that Culbertson would have continuing
responsibilities for special assignments.
Meanwhile Sunday, salvage crews located what may be remains of Challenger`s suspect right booster rocket 1,200 feet beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean 45 miles northeast of Cape Canaveral, Fla. The crews will be joined Tuesday by the NR-1, a nuclear-powered submarine equipped for deep- sea underwater recovery.
Positive identification of the parts will not be made until Monday, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman said, and recovery efforts could be difficult because of murky waters and strong currents.
Investigators have focused on the right solid rocket booster in the Challenger accident because film of the launch shows a flame shooting from the rocket shortly before the explosion.
Although testimony before the commission has focused on joints separating segments of the steel booster rocket and the effects of unusually cold weather on the seals at those joints, commission spokesmen and NASA officials insisted that the precise cause of the accident has not been determined. They said they are looking at other parts of the shuttle besides the right booster in their search for answers.
Sunday`s potential breakthrough in the booster search came as NASA officials huddled privately in centers around the country trying to sort out the meaning of a Saturday edict by the presidential commission.
Former Secretary of State William Rogers, chairman of the commission, issued the statement that the decision to launch the doomed space shuttle
”may have been flawed” and asked that NASA bar any of the officials who participated in the launch decision from taking part in the internal space agency investigation.
Graham assured Rogers Saturday that the space agency will comply with the decision.
Although NASA has declined to say officially how many workers will be barred from the internal investigation, presidential commission member Eugene Covert said Sunday the number was in the ”tens, but not the thousands.”
Richard D. Smith, director of the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, said that neither Graham nor Rogers had informed him of the committee`s decision. Smith said that while he assumes he will be barred from
participation in NASA`s internal investigation, he is not certain. ”No one has contacted me,” he said.
Graham on Sunday was in the process of reviewing senior management at the space agency to determine who should be removed from direct involvement in NASA`s internal investigation, Green said.
Covert, a professor of aeronautics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said managers for all major shuttle components–including the solid rocket boosters, the solid rocket motor, the orbiter and the external tank–were covered by the commission`s directive.
He said the managers were being put in the ”difficult position” of investigating themselves and that the commission wanted to remove any appearance of impropriety.
”We would like for this thing to come out without a lot of loose ends in the future,” Covert said. ”But there is no reason to think they are not being absolutely forthright.
”You can`t ask a guy to judge himself, not with the hard eye of history. If there is going to be some fingerpointing . . . it`s hard to point the finger at yourself.”
Another NASA official said of the launch managers, ”It looks like they`re no longer investigators. They`re investigatees.”
Officials were also trying to determine whether the Rogers announcement was triggered by a single discovery during the commission`s visit to Cape Canaveral or the accumulation of information that led commission members to conclude that NASA should alter its inquiry procedure.
A source close to the presidential commission said that commission members as well as ”most high-level people at NASA” believed that the launch managers should not be in the position of investigating themselves. The directive came after closed hearings Thursday and Friday at the Kennedy Space Center.
One commission member complained last week that NASA officials had given him inaccurate answers during initial hearings in Washington. Others were reportedly impatient with NASA for not immediately making available the shuttle operations engineers who had more first-hand knowledge of the mechanics of the launch.
Redmond expressed concern Sunday that, if the directive were too broad,
”you suddenly have excluded all the people who know something about the launch.”
But there is no reason to think those people excluded from NASA`s internal investigation will be similarly banned from talking to other investigative bodies.
For instance, Jesse Moore, NASA`s associate administrator for space flight, is scheduled to testify Tuesday before a Senate subcommittee investigating the Challenger explosion. Moore presumably would be among those asked not to participate in NASA`s internal investigation.
Also scheduled to testify are Rogers, commission member Neil Armstrong and Graham.
The Senate Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Slade Gorton (R., Wash.) will conduct a ”procedural” session designed to determine how NASA and the commission are progressing in the Challenger investigation.
