CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Five additional volumes of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report were released to the public Tuesday, offering additional insight into the panel's requirements for return to flight and repeating warnings about shuttle systems that need attention to avoid future disasters.

Nothing in the hundreds of pages that make up the supplemental volumes, however, disputes the bottom line of the first volume released Aug. 26: a chunk of insulating foam punched a hole in Columbia's left wing and triggered the Feb. 1 disaster, a technical failure that was compounded by a management breakdown inherent in NASA's culture.

Unceremoniously released on the Internet by the CAIB, and moments later on NASA's Web site, the 372Mb of PDF files completes the picture drawn by the investigation board, providing the full context of technical reports and background information that the first volume's 29 findings and recommendations were based on.

In some cases the new volumes includes reports written by NASA or other organizations -- unedited by the CAIB -- and include findings and recommendations ultimately not officially adopted by the board. Other offerings in the volumes were produced as working documents by the CAIB and also include suggestions not ultimately approved for inclusion in the final report.

"The other conclusions and proposed recommendations drawn in Volumes 2-6 do not necessarily reflect the views of the CAIB but are included for the record. When there is conflict, Volume 1 takes precedence. It alone is the CAIB's official statement," the CAIB said last week in a statement announcing the release of the material.

There was no official comment from the CAIB or media briefing about the new volumes planned, said board spokeswoman Laura Brown, who noted that chairman Harold Gehman was scheduled to appear Wednesday before the House Science Committee on Capitol Hill and likely would be asked to discuss the report.

NASA was equally quiet about the new volumes.

"We're going to take some time to go over this new material and see how we can incorporate it into our return to flight plans," NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said Tuesday.

Background information

As promised, Volume 2 included a supplemental report authored by Air Force Brig. Gen. Duane Deal, a CAIB member, who is concerned that NASA will not follow through on taking care of some specific recommendations that were not listed as "required" before return to flight.

"History shows that NASA often ignores strong recommendations; without a culture change, it is overly optimistic to believe NASA will tackle something relegated to an 'observation' when it has a record of ignoring recommendations," Deal wrote.

Many of those observations concern shuttle hardware that has either failed in the past or shows signs of causing trouble, and which if not corrected could turn out to be the root cause of the next -- and likely last -- shuttle disaster.

Those concerns include corrosion of shuttle hardware exposed to the harsh Florida coastal environment, the rings that attach the solid rocket boosters to the external tank, security at several NASA facilities, the quality assurance program at Kennedy Space Center, as well as hardware that deals with the explosive bolts.

"This supplement is not written to refute any portion of that report," Deal wrote in the supplement. "The Board report contains data, analysis, and conclusions which combine to write a prescription for NASA to recover not only in returning the space shuttle safely to the vacuum of space, but also to address NASA's sporadic organizational morass."

"If NASA will accept this prescription and take the 'medicine' prescribed, we may be optimistic regarding the program's future; if, however, NASA settles back into its previous mindset of saying, 'Thanks for your contribution to human space flight,' summarily ignoring what it chooses to ignore, the outlook is bleak for the future of the program."

Lengthy reading

The vast majority of the new volumes are fairly dry reading, with detailed engineering and technical discussions covering dozens of pages for a topic summarized as a single sentence in the final report in Volume 1.

Yet within the mountains of data are interesting detailed timelines of what happened during Columbia's launch and re-entry, possible causes of the disaster that couldn't be discounted but are unlikely, transcripts of all the public hearings and detailed summaries of past major reports such as the 1986 Rogers Commission that investigated the Challenger disaster and previous Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel reports.

More inviting is the inclusion of the full report, commissioned by the CAIB and previously discussed but never officially released, of potential rescue scenarios NASA might have employed to save Columbia's seven astronauts, if not the shuttle itself.

While compelling to read and contemplate in a tabloid, poor man's "Apollo 13" sort of way, even the CAIB points out in its introduction of the rescue ideas that any such feat wasn't actually doable -- especially given NASA's culture at the time.

"The scenarios were to assume that a decision to repair or rescue the Columbia crew would be made quickly, with no regard to risk. These ground rules were not necessarily 'real world,' but allowed the analysis to proceed without regard to political or managerial considerations," the report said.

Final moments

One other area of interest, buried toward the end of Volume 5, is the most frank discussion yet of what the Columbia astronauts likely experienced during the final moments of their lives.

The information is included, the report says, in hopes that future vehicle designs can take into consideration what was learned in Columbia's break up and improve the odds of crew survivability.

Written by Dr. James Bagian, a veteran NASA astronaut, and Air Force Lt. Col. Donald White, the chapter describes how Columbia's crew compartment likely separated from the forward fuselage roughly intact, and then broke up due to re-entry heat weakening the structural integrity of the compartment.

"This failure subjected the crew to lethal environmental factors that included windblast, low atmospheric pressure and entry heating," the report said.

Death of the astronauts occurred after 9:00:19 a.m. EST (1400.19 GMT) and "was due to blunt trauma and hypoxia with no evidence of lethal injury from thermal effects." At the time, the cabin likely was falling through 148,800 feet over Texas and took about 24 seconds to break up.

Based on evidence recovered from the ground, the report concludes that three of the crewmembers were not wearing their gloves at the time of the mishap and that one of the seven was not wearing a helmet at the time.

All of the volumes can be downloaded by visiting either http://www.caib.us or http://www.nasa.gov. Printed copies can be ordered from the Government Printing Office at http://www.gpo.gov.

Shining stars

In an unintentional but nevertheless poignant coincidence, the new report volumes were released online Tuesday morning to the public at the same time a ceremony was being held at the Kennedy Space Center to unveil the names of the Columbia crew on the official national memorial to fallen astronauts.

Carved into slabs of polished black granite taken from India, the birthplace of Columbia astronaut Kalpana Chawla, the names of the crew are lit from behind and appear to the visitor to be reflected in the sky.

Family members and dignitaries gathered at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to see the Columbia names added to the Space Mirror that already honors the names of those lost through the years, including the Apollo 1 and Challenger crews. The memorial now honors 24 astronauts who have died in the line of duty.

The names of Rick Husband, Willie McCool, David Brown, Mike Anderson, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla and Ilan Ramon will shine bright forever.

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