spacetoday.net: Email message shows shuttle engineer's concern

Posted: Tue, Apr 1, 2003, 2:24 PM ET (1924 GMT)
STS-107 patch (NASA)

NASA released Monday a library of email messages and other documents related to the Columbia accident investigation, including one from an engineer who called the decision not to photograph the shuttle in orbit "bordering on irresponsible." The email message, by engineer Alan "Rodney" Rocha, expressed his concern that he and his colleagues did not have enough information to conclude that any foam impact on the shuttle during launch would not have caused a "safety of flight" issue. "Remember the NASA safety posters everywhere around site stating, 'If it's not safe, say so'? Yes, it's that serious," he wrote. The message was drafted but never actually sent, although printouts of the message were reportedly shown to several supervisors. The archive of documents was released the same day that investigators, continuing their analysis of data on a tape recorder recovered last month, reported that anomalous heating within Columbia's wing started even sooner than reported over the weekend. The data now show that the first temperature increase was recorded five minutes after the shuttle passed through the "reentry interface" and two minutes earlier than what had been reported during a quick review of the data over the weekend. The new data suggests that one or more panels were likely missing from the leading edge of the left wing before reentry, since the forces that on the shuttle that early into reentry would not be strong enough to pry away even a damaged panel.