WEEKEND MEMOS

'Weekend memos' give our editorial writers a chance to express their own opinions, comment on topics they have been writing about, or take a lighter approach. The opinions in 'Memos' do not always follow the Enquirer's editorial positions.

Preventing future shuttle disasters isn't likely to be some hardware fix. Safer flights will depend much more on changing NASA's "culture."

The board investigating Columbia's breakup on Feb. 1 seems close to settling on the cause - a piece of hard foam insulation striking the leading edge of the left wing during liftoff on Jan. 16. On the second day in orbit, material thought to be part of a T-seal securing the wing's heat shields was seen floating away. On atmospheric reentry, that fatal breach is believed to have let in super-hot gases that destroyed the shuttle and killed seven astronauts.

The board's preliminary recommendations prompted NASA to seek high-tech inspections and photographing of shuttle flights. Incredibly, NASA inspected heat shields by sight and touch rather than high-frequency sound, infrared or laser. Program managers also neglected to use spy satellites to monitor shuttle flights. NASA will equip astronauts for repairs on future flights.

Program managers felt Columbia's insulation hit wasn't serious and that rescue wasn't feasible anyway. NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe disagrees, and cites the repair that engineers improvised to save Apollo 13. During Columbia's flight, NASA engineers exchanged e-mails about possible damage at liftoff but didn't pursue it because they lacked proof. Engineers aren't big on hunches.

Recurring problems came to look familiar, routine. Officials missed that such patterns signal higher risk. With an aging fleet, NASA needs to be super-sensitized to changing degrees of risk. Pieces of foam broke away on at least four previous shuttle flights. Lab tests since have found serious defects in foam on shuttle external fuel tanks.

Flight experts told the board that shuttles were never designed to withstand any debris hits, certainly not the 3-pound mass that hit Columbia at 700 feet per second. Some charged that NASA didn't learn lessons from the Challenger shuttle disaster 17 years ago. O'Keefe agreed.

The next threat won't be O-rings or foam debris. But prevention will require seeing beyond "familiar" problems to recognize increased risk.

Tony Lang