Columbia shuttle report 'pulls no punches'

Today’s report into the decisions that led to Nasa’s Columbia shuttle disaster will not pull any punches, officials warned.

The US space agency is braced for a storm of criticism over the February 1 accident, when all seven astronauts on board the shuttle died when it broke up in flames over Texas as it flew home.

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) has spent seven months probing the tragedy and interviewing scores of engineers and other space workers in a bid to find out where to lay the blame.

“The language is frank and direct and there may be some surprises,” John Logsdon, a CAIB board member, said of the report, which is released today.

Sean O’Keefe, head of Nasa, warned staff earlier this summer that they should prepare for a report that will be “really ugly”, outlining flawed engineering decisions that led to Columbia’s destruction as it returned to Earth.

O’Keefe said yesterday that the report “is going to have no fuzz on it, no gloves. It is going to be straightforward.”

To boost morale, the Nasa administrator said he was telling staff “we need to not be defensive about that and try to not take it as a personal affront.”

Retired Navy Adm Harold Gehman, the CAIB chairman, said about half of the report would deal with management and engineering decisions that failed to prevent the accident. Included was an analysis of flaws in Nasa traditions and processes that might have contributed, Logsdon said.

Most of the work of the board has been in the open, with members conducting frequent public hearings. Gehman followed his plan of releasing information as it became known and the board weeks ago announced its “working scenario” of the physical facts of Columbia’s loss.

The board concluded that Columbia came apart because there was a break in a heat shield panel on the craft’s left wing. The friction heat of re-entry, soaring to 3,000 F (1,650 C), penetrated the wing and shattered the craft.

Tests suggested that the heat shield was broken by a lightweight chunk of foam insulation that ripped off the shuttle’s external fuel tank and smashed the wing at high speed during launch.