WASHINGTON -- The sudden resignation of all nine members of NASAs Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) this week caught NASA off guard and garnered national headlines.
But sources here said the panels fate was sealed once the Columbia Accident Investigation Board had publicly labeled the part-time safety watchdogs as ineffective.
"When all you have is a bully pulpit, once you are labeled as ineffective, you are ineffective," said one congressional source.
The ASAP was chartered in the wake of the 1967 Apollo 1 launch pad fire that killed three NASA astronauts.
The statutory language establishing the panel is fairly broad, empowering the group to review safety studies and operational plans and report its concerns to the NASA administrator.
ASAP members, mostly retirees, are reimbursed for travel expenses and paid $100 for each day they are actually engaged in official duties of the panel.
The ASAPs roughly $500,000 annual budget covers travel and administrative expenses and the cost of publishing its glossy annual report on the state of safety within NASA.
The group does not have the budget for the kind of engineering sleuthing undertaken by the Columbia board in the wake of the Feb. 1 space shuttle accident.
The panels sudden resignation spawned speculation in Washington that members had been asked by NASA to step aside to give the agency more latitude in reforming its safety and oversight functions. NASA spokesman Robert Jacobs said the agency did not seek the resignations and Nathan Lindsay, a consultant to the ASAP since January, concurred. Lindsay said panel members reached the decision on their own and felt resigning as a group was the best way to put NASA on the spot to make the changes urged in the CAIB's final report, which was released Aug. 26.
"I think it probably warranted some open action that was not just writing letters or meeting one on one with people," Lindsay said. "I think the folks felt very concerned that something more significant than that was needed. There was no chest beating or anything of that nature. It was an attempt to bring awareness across the agency and to the new management in particular."
If awareness and attention was what ASAP members were going for, the mass resignation was a success.
The action was widely reported in the media, garnering mention on national news broadcasts. NASA Administrator Sean OKeefe put out a statement the following day accepting the resignations and pledging "to take this opportunity to explore how the original concept for an Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel needs to evolve to best meet the future needs of the agency."
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