spacetoday.net: Board to recommend shuttle be considered experimental vehicle

Posted: Mon, Jun 30, 2003, 2:14 PM ET (1814 GMT)
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) is expected to recommend that NASA treat the space shuttle as an experimental vehicle with additional testing and monitoring, the Washington Post reported Monday. The report said that the CAIB will recommend that NASA improve the photography of the shuttle during launches to be better able to look for any problems. That recommendation is part of an overall belief that NASA should treat the shuttle as an experimental, rather than operational, vehicle, and subject it to additional testing and study for the remainder of its flights. NASA considered the shuttle operational after just four flights in 1981 and 1982; commercial aircraft, on the other hand, often require hundreds of test flights before being certified by the FAA, the report noted. A decision by NASA to consider the shuttle an experimental vehicle again could also affect efforts to commercialize and privatize the shuttle and space station, a Congressional staffer told the Post.