CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Space shuttle program manager Bill Parsons announced Wednesday the new team of NASA officials that will help him lead the agency's orbiter fleet back to flight.

"They are here to help me pull this program together and decide what direction this program needs to go in the future," Parsons told reporters during a telecon briefing.

The direction will greatly depend on the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) and other panels formed to help NASA determine what it will take to resume flying, Parsons said.

One of the management team's first goals will be to restore confidence among a workforce that in many ways still is recovering from the Feb. 1 loss of Columbia and crew. And by returning to flight, Parsons said, confidence from the general public will follow.

But there's still a long way to go before that happens.

"One of the questions that we're going to be asking is how could we have prevented things like this and how many other things are out there like that that we need to be paying attention to," Parsons said.

Answering those questions, again with the help from the CAIB and others, will dictate when the next launch will take place.

In the meantime, improving communications across the shuttle program and everyone associated with it is critical to future success. Parsons would like to avoid situations in which engineers outside the program might have helpful information that is missed.

To that end, Parsons -- who took over from Ron Dittemore in June -- has held several all hands meetings in Texas and Florida to stress the point that he is open to all forms of communications.

"I think there will need to be better communications and we're going to try to do everything we can to make ensure that people have an open forum," Parsons said.

"One of the short fallings we've come across is maybe we have not shown people how they need to get into the formal loop of the program decision making process. Sometimes the e-mails that were going around weren't really getting into the formal loop of how we make decisions."

Parsons acknowledged he and none of the managers named Wednesday come from the astronaut office.

"I break a mold that had been a long line of former astronauts and mission operations and flight directors and things like that," Parsons said. "I come from a different management background with a more diverse background across the agency, and that in itself I think sets us on a different path."

One of the recommendations of the 1986 commission that investigated the Challenger disaster was that more astronauts be included in senior management positions because they had first-hand experience in the vehicle being managed.

"What I was asked to do was come over and take over the shuttle program, assess where I thought we were and determine what kind of leadership team I needed to put in place to help us be the best that we could be for return to flight," Parsons said.

The new managers, all of whom will be based at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, include: