spacetoday.net: NASA to change shuttle management structure

Posted: Wed, Jul 2, 2003, 10:35 AM ET (1435 GMT)
NASA

NASA is expected to announce as early as Wednesday a series of personnel changes in the space shuttle program, including the appointment of a manager for a new safety division, two newspapers reported. The Houston Chronicle reported that "several key management changes" will be announced by NASA in the next future, possibly as early as Wednesday. The extent of those changes was not reported, although the article noted that other changes in the works include new training programs to prepare astronauts for the possibility of on-orbit shuttle repairs as well as obtaining top-secret clearances for some shuttle employees so they can work with classified Defense Department satellite images of the shuttle taken while in orbit. The Orlando Sentinel reported that Ralph Roe, shuttle program chief engineer at the Johnson Space Center, will be appointed to head a new safety and engineering office that NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe announced last month he planned to establish. That office will be based at the Langley Research Center in Virginia.