CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A senior NASA official took exception Monday with recent criticism by a departing member of an independent safety oversight panel, saying the International Space Station is not "an accident waiting to happen."
But William Gerstenmaier, manager of NASA's space station program office, also reminded reporters the international outpost is a complex spacecraft flying in a hostile environment.
Consequently, station crews, ground controllers and project engineers must remain on constant vigil to ensure safety on the station as it circles some 250 miles above Earth.
"I do not consider the station an accident waiting to happen," Gerstenmaier said during a news briefing. "But as I stress, this is an extremely complicated machine we're operating in space. The attention to detail has to be huge on both sides -- both the Russian side and the U.S. side." Gerstenmaier's comments came a week after all nine members of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel resigned en masse. Columbia accident investigators and Congress both recently criticized the group for being ineffective.
One of the departing members told several news organizations, including Florida Today, that station safety was in jeopardy due to poor communications between American and Russian engineers.
Arthur Zygielbaum, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Nebraska and a former manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, cited three recent incidents that could have led to accidents on the outpost.
They included:
- Poor coordination earlier this month when thrusters on the Russian segment of the outpost were fired to keep the station properly oriented in orbit. The move could have ruined U.S. gyroscopes, which were still operating at the time. The gyroscopes are one way to control the position of the station.
- A lack of communications during an earlier shuttle mission to the station that resulted in the outpost momentarily drifting out of control.
- A similar communication lapse that led to the delivery of a Russian battery which U.S. engineers considered too dangerous to be onboard the station. Zygielbaum said station safety flaws are being ignored in much the same way that NASA dismissed longstanding problems with breakaway foam insulation from shuttle external tanks. The Feb. 1 Columbia accident was blamed on a piece of foam that hit the shuttle's left wing, opening up a breach that allowed hot gasses to tear apart the ship.
Gerstenmaier said NASA was looking into each of the incidents and acknowledged ground controllers had made inadvertent mistakes.
But he also noted the complexity of operating the station and said the incidents provided learning experiences for those involved in the $100 billion project.
"We learn from these small mistakes," he said. "Every close call we get is a tremendous opportunity for us to learn . . . (and) to prevent other future problems that might occur."
A new crew, meanwhile, will launch to the station next month.
NASA astronaut Michael Foale, Russian cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri and European Space Agency astronaut Pedro Duque will blast off Oct. 18 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Duque will return to Earth Oct. 27 with the station's current crew, U.S. astronaut Ed Lu and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko.
Foale and Kaleri plan to conduct more than 30 science experiments during a 192-day station at the station. Three Russian cargo carriers will ferry supplies to the outpost during that time, and the two men also plan to perform a spacewalk.
Set for Feb. 26, the spacewalk will involve setting up radiation monitoring equipment, a Japanese science experiment and gear needed to help dock a new European cargo carrier at the outpost in fall 2004.
It will mark the first time a spacewalk has been conducted without a crewmate overseeing operations from inside the outpost.
Foale and Kaleri are to return to Earth on April 29 aboard their Soyuz spacecraft.
Published under license from FLORIDA TODAY. Copyright © 2003 FLORIDA TODAY. No portion of this material may be reproduced in any way without the written consent of FLORIDA TODAY.
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