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KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AP) -- A new team will look into NASA's internal communications, including e-mails and management directives, as part of the investigation into what caused the breakup of the space shuttle Columbia last month.
Maj. Gen. Kenneth Hess, an aviation mishap expert stationed at Kirtland, said Friday the team will aid three groups already investigating the structural design, operations and technical aspects of the shuttle.
The shuttle was returning from 16 days in space when it broke up over Texas on Feb. 1, killing all seven astronauts aboard. Investigators have theorized that foam or other debris that broke off the shuttle's big external fuel tank during liftoff Jan. 16 damaged the left wing and allowed hot gases to penetrate and destroy the shuttle.
Hess, who belongs to NASA's 13-member Columbia accident investigation board, said the investigation is focusing on the left wing, but has not ruled out other possibilities.
"With the evidence we have collected so far, we've created four or five different hypotheses,'' Hess said. He would not elaborate, but said metal debris is of particular interest to investigators.
"Metal is the true witness to what happened," he said. "Certain metal burns at a certain rate and temperature, and that information can tell us quite a bit about the situation.''
The debris field is extensive, with 24,000 pieces found as of Friday.
Board spokeswoman Laura Brown said the fourth team will "look into NASA culture and some of the issues'' raised during Thursday's public hearing in Houston by former NASA official Henry McDonald.
McDonald, who headed a shuttle study three years ago, told the board he and his panel found that top-level managers were not told of all potential problems or the rate at which they were occurring. He blamed archaic database systems and said his recommendations for a more modern consolidated method _ and better risk assessments _ were not implemented.
McDonald noted that the same type of communication breakdown he warned about seems to have hindered engineers who evaluated damage to Columbia's wing and concluded the shuttle and its astronauts were safe.
In late January, while Columbia was still in orbit, flight controllers and other engineers discussed the potential for severe damage to the wing but did not share their e-mails with top managers. The flurry of e-mails came after a formal engineering analysis by others concluded any damage by the debris posed no safety concern.
Brown said the new team will include Nobel Prize-winning physicist Douglas Osheroff of Stanford University and the director of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute, John Logsdon.
Former astronaut Sally Ride, the third person named to the board this week, will join the working group that is focused on operations. She became the first American woman in space in 1983.
AP Aerospace Writer Marcia Dunn in Houston contributed to this report.
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