"[W]e deeply appreciate your intention to make available the products of NIMA assets on a routine basis, without specific tasking from NASA," O'Keefe wrote. "This will be very helpful as we continually assess the condition of the Shutlle during on-orbit operations. Siginficantly, your willingess to employ NIMA assets during targets of opportunity with specific tasking will be another useful source of information to help us assess the potential of on-orbit anomalies."

During Columbia's ill-fated 16-day research mission,a government agency -- pr esumably NIMA -- conveyed an offer to image the orbiter provided NASA submit a formal high priority request.

The offer came amid concerns that Columbia's left wing may have been damaged when it was struck during liftoff by insulating foam that broke away fromt the spacecraft's giant orange external fuel tank.

NASA rebuffed the initial offer, having already concluded that the debris strike did not constitute a so-called safety of flight risk. William Readdy, NASA's associate administrator for space flight, has since told reporters that he could not justify making an emergency or high priority support request given NASA's conclusion that Columbia was not in danger.

However, Readdy did agree to a subsequent offer to aquire imagery of Columbia in a way that would not interfere with the offering government agency's normal routines. By the time that would have been possible, Readdy said, Columbia's mission was over.

O'Keefe told reporters March 25 that he was not second-guessing Readdy's judgement. He also voiced doubt that anything the unidentied agency could have provided would have clearly shown problems with Columbia.

"The quality of what's out there and available isn't anything like what a Tom Clancy novel would have you believe," he said. "It's just not."
 
He said that while it will always remain a topic of debate whether the imagery --or "products" as he called them -- would have been of any use to NASA, the incident does illustrate that their was a fair amount of bureaucratic wrangling taking place.

He said by forging a standing agreement with NIMA, he hopes to prevent any future such wrangling and second guessing. 

O'Keefe said the essence of the agreement is straight forward: "If you are in range,take it and send it and we will figure out if its useful or not."

Some of the details -- such as who at NASA will be cleared to view the imagery -- must still be worked out, he said.

O'Keefe indicated that NASA is pursuing a similar agreement with the Air Force for use of the service's ground-based imaging assets during shuttle missions.

"We're working our way through it," he said. "This [NIMA] was the big one."