Former astronaut Charles Camarda says NASA has not learn its lesson in the 20 years after the Columbia shuttle disaster.
The board concluded that even though the technical causes of Challenger and Columbia were different, the real cause of the accidents was NASA’s toxic culture.The Space Shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after lifting off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.Columbia disintegrated after a large piece of foam came off the external tank and hit the orbiter vehicle carrying the crew, something that was never supposed to happen and a problem NASA never fully understood.
Then we saw two small pieces of felt called a gap filler sticking up between the protective tiles near the orbiter’s nose which could have disrupted air flow and led to catastrophe. People on the ground debated doing a spacewalk to fix it. The crew of STS-114 had an unprecedented agreement prior to launch; at the end of every day, we would talk privately with the head of the Astronaut Office and no one else. The environment was so toxic that I carried a contact list of key researchers in my crew notebook which I could use to bypass Mission Control and speak directly with researchers I trusted.
From space, I called a good friend and aerothermal expert at NASA Langley, Tom Horvath, to determine the criticality of the gap-filler problem. His team’s expertise and perseverance forced the informed decision for two of our crew to perform an unplanned, emergency spacewalk. This critical decision was later proven to have saved the life of our crew.
On the next shuttle flight, STS-121, I stood up at the readiness review as the new director of engineering and said “I don’t believe we are safe to fly.” There were other pieces of foam called ice frost ramps that needed to be removed. Others backed me up, but the NASA administrator insisted on going forward. I was fired from my position 10 days later.
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