Engineer Sounded Warnings for Columbia

July 7 -- — As NASA engineers scrambled to assess the damage to the space shuttle Columbia after its launch this January, Rodney Rocha knew what should be done: get better pictures.

The Jan. 16 launch had seemed "picture-perfect," in the words of senior shuttle manager Linda Ham, but the next day a routine review of the launch tapes had revealed a 20-inch piece of hardened insulation foam breaking off the huge main fuel tank and hitting the shuttle's left wing.

The problem was the shots of the incident were either blurry or taken from a bad angle, so the engineers could not assess the danger to the orbiting shuttle and its seven-member crew.

Rocha, the chief structural engineer at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, was on a team of engineers assigned to assess the damage. The team wanted to see if the military could get some better pictures from one of its satellites as it passed by the shuttle.

Read Rocha's e-mail asking for better images.

So Rocha sent an e-mail to engineering management to initiate the photo appeal. Knowing he'd need permission from the top shuttle managers to request the use of secret military hardware, he put one line in bold face: "Can we petition [beg] for outside agency assistance?"

He sent a follow-up the next day — seven days into the shuttle's 16-day mission — and received a reply 26 minutes later. To his astonishment, he learned that shuttle managers were not taking steps to photograph Columbia.

Read Rocha's e-mail in which he "begs" for outside agency assistance.

"I was flabbergasted," Rocha says. "I was stunned." He remembers thinking, "Why? It doesn't say why."

After more consultations and an official report compiled by Boeing, one of NASA's primary contractors, the shuttle managers concluded the foam hit posed no "safety of flight" concerns and the Columbia should continue its mission.

Eight days later, Columbia disintegrated as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, scattering debris over hundreds of miles. Click here to see a minute-by-minute map of Columbia's path.

Largest Foam Chunk Ever

NASA engineers routinely scrutinize every aspect of a shuttle launch to determine whether there is any potential risk to the safety of the mission. So when image analysts at the Kennedy and Johnson centers spotted the foam hit the day after the Columbia launch, they immediately alerted the engineers.