One year after the shuttle Columbia tragedy, life at NASA's Johnson Space Center appears to have returned to normal -- or at least for what passes as normal during an anniversary week in which America's biggest sporting event is to take place a few miles north of here.
Still, reminders of the STS-107 mission and crew are everywhere you look -- on posters, pictures and pins.
"You don't ever get over it," said Mike McCulley, a former astronaut who is now president of United Space Alliance, the company responsible for preparing the space shuttle for flight.
"I'm not sure we ever want to get over it," McCulley adds. "You learn from it and, as we work through these technical issues, folks are asking questions today that they might not have asked before."
Communication problems among engineers and managers was cited by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board as a contributing factor to the Feb. 1, 2003 loss of Columbia and its seven astronauts.
The technical cause of the accident was a breach in the shuttle's left wing that allowed hot gases to get inside and trigger the disaster. The hole was caused by a chunk of insulating foam falling from the external tank during launch.
After an exhaustive investigation the Columbia board made 29 findings and recommendations of which 15 are required for NASA to return to flight. The agency's response plan, already in its second revision with a third due out this week, could allow the shuttle to fly again as early as Sept. 12.
So, one year after the tragedy, how are things going on returning the shuttle to flight? After talking to several program officials within NASA and its contractor community, the response from senior shuttle manager Wayne Hale summed it up best.
"We are extremely busy and people are working very, very hard. We have got a big mountain yet to climb, and some days I feel optimistic and some days it looks like we'll never get to the top," Hale said.
One of the most respected and experienced shuttle flight directors, Hale is overseeing the reorganization of the Mission Management Team (MMT) that is responsible for giving flight control teams guidance on mission priorities and support to deal with technical problems.
The Columbia board's scathing indictment of NASA's culture was the direct result of problems they discovered in how the MMT operated and members failing to speak up if they thought a problem should be handled differently.
"One thing I will guarantee you is that after having gone through this experience there isn't a soul in this workforce that will allow us to go if it isn't safe," Hale said.
Returning the shuttle to flight is a key first step in the new vision for NASA that was announced by President Bush during January, officials said.
The vision calls for returning humans to the Moon between 2015 and 2020. Along the way NASA is to develop Constellation, a new crew exploration vehicle that will replace the shuttle's role of ferrying humans into and out of Earth orbit.
Constellation is to fly with people on board by 2014, four years after the shuttle is targeted to be retired in 2010. That means the agency still has at least six full years to operate the shuttle -- a fact seen as both positive and negative by area officials.
"I think picking a date is the best thing that ever happened," said Mike Mott, Boeing's top manager in Houston. "You cannot work your plan until you figure out the day you're going to retire the vehicle. And we now have a date -- 2010."
Mott agreed that news of the shuttle's retirement by then isn't being handled well by some.
"I think the workforce is going to be concerned. I have to laugh a little bit. Anybody that's been around aerospace knows six years is a lifetime," Mott said.
Steve Oswald, a former astronaut who now works for Mott as a Boeing shuttle manager, agrees.
"This announcement energized anybody who is a part of the space program. So there is excitement out there," Oswald said.
"Now there's also, with some folks, some anxiety because the president's goal shuts down the space shuttle program in 2010. There's a lot of folks who have spent most of their career working on the space shuttle program, so there's naturally some anxiety in that, but frankly, a lot less than I would have figured."
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