WASHINGTON (AP) -- NASA should be able to recover from the Columbia accident and safely return the shuttle fleet to space within ``six to nine months,'' the space agency administrator says.
In a meeting with reporters Tuesday, Sean O'Keefe said that most of the issues to be addressed in the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report are known and that NASA is already taking action.
"There is nothing that we have seen so far that will preclude'' a return to space ``in six to nine months,'' O'Keefe said.
NASA engineers already are studying ways to make repairs in orbit if the space shuttle is damaged during launch. O'Keefe said engineers are also redesigning part of the space shuttle external fuel tank to assure that a large chunk of insulation will not fly off and hit the shuttle during launch, an event that is thought have brought down Columbia.
Space shuttle Columbia came apart on Feb. 1 while returning to Earth. All seven astronauts on board were killed. The remaining three orbiters in the shuttle fleet have been grounded until the causes of the accident are determined and safety changes are made.
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board has announced that its ``working scenario'' on the cause of the accident is that a suitcase-sized piece of foam, used to insulate a bipod fixture on the external fuel tank, peeled off during launch and struck Columbia's left wing, punching a hole in the heat shield.
When Columbia later returned to Earth, the 3,000 degrees of re-entry heat entered and destroyed the wing. The spacecraft came apart, scattering pieces over East Texas and Louisiana.
"There will not be bipod insulation on the next shuttle that flies, or on the ones after that,'' O'Keefe said Tuesday. ``That is a guarantee.''
The bipod insulation was to prevent ice formation caused by the chill of the liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellant. O'Keefe said that bipod insulation will be replaced by heaters.
O'Keefe acknowledged that more than half of the CAIB report will deal with management changes needed at NASA.
He said an independent engineering safety center at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. will have safety experts who will evaluate problems with the space shuttle and other NASA spacecraft and determine when it is unsafe to fly.
The watchdogs will be separate from the engineers who are part of specific programs within NASA and will be ``removed'' from the schedule and launch pressures of those programs. Yet, the safety experts will actively participate in key management meetings where launch decisions are made, said O'Keefe.
"Having them there continuously assures we will have a removed, objective view on those activities,'' he said.
O'Keefe said that one of the problems uncovered in the Columbia investigation was that safety engineers were included as part of the space shuttle team and did not have the objectivity of distance from the program goals.
This can lead, he said, to engineers tending to accept the abnormal as normal, and prevent spotting problem trends that could lead to disaster.
For instance, space shuttle engineers had known for some time that foam insulation was peeling off the propellant tank during launch, but when nothing happened during the missions this abnormal event eventually was accepted as non-threatening.
To encourage engineers throughout NASA to raise safety concerns, O'Keefe said the new organization will receive e-mail comments from ``anybody who thinks something is off.''
The Columbia investigation has shown that many lower level engineers expressed concerns about the risks of heat shield damage on the space shuttle and about the need for the craft to be photographed by sharp-eyed satellites capable of spotting problems _ suggestions high-level agency officials never acted upon.
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