NASA Casts Doubt on Foam Theory

Feb. 5, 2003 -- The leading theory of what began the tragic chain of events that destroyed the space shuttle Columbia — a piece of foam debris that struck the shuttle during liftoff — was cast into doubt by NASA this afternoon.

Initially, NASA investigators were pursuing a theory that a 20-inch, nearly 3-pound chunk of foam that broke off and struck the underside of the left wing of Columbia during its launch may have started the chain of events that led to its breakup after re-entering the Earth's orbit Saturday, killing all seven astronauts aboard. But today, space shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore told reporters at a press conference that investigators are "looking somewhere else" after conducting a study of the damage possible from the fall of a 20-inch chunk of foam insulation.

"It doesn't make sense to us that a piece of debris could bethe root cause of the loss of Columbia and its crew," Dittemoresaid. "There's got to be another reason."

Dittemore said investigators are looking for a "missing link" that could explain the sharp temperature rise on the left side of the craft before the shuttle broke up.

"Was there another event [sign of damage] that went undetected?" Dittemore asked."We're focusing on what we didn't see."

In recent days, there has been speculation that thechunk of foam was coated or infused with ice, which could haveincreased its weight and destructiveness. But Dittemore discounted that theory.

"I don't think it's ice. I don't think there's an embedded icequestion here," Dittemore said, adding that the foam iswater-resistant and that an inspection team found no ice conditionsthat day. "So it is something else."

Dittemore said investigators are focusing more closely on the desperate effort of Columbia's automatic control system to hold the speed of the spacecraft stabledespite an increasing level of wind resistance, or drag, on the left wing. Still, he added, investigators have many other areas and potential theories to pursue.

NASA engineers want to know exactly where the heat spike that occurred just before the shuttle disintegrated began, because it could give them the crucial clue to what went wrong. They are examining 32 seconds of computer data that came just before all communications with Columbia were lost and hoped to have some information from that data today.

But Dittemore said officials have had difficulty extracting information and that the process will take more time. The signal from the shuttle was so weak in those final seconds that sophisticated electronic processing was needed to decipher what was on it, NASA officials said.

NASA on Defensive

Dittemore's comments came as NASA officials said there was no effort to conceal the seriousness of the problem facing Columbia after the chunk of foam insulation struck the craft's wing.

Denying published reports that some NASA engineers felt that risk analyses following the takeoff were toned down, NASA Deputy Administrator Michael Kostelnik said at the Kennedy Space Center in Houston earlier today that every effort was made to ensure the safety of the crew.

"I am very comfortable that this team did as good as they could to understand what this anomaly was," Kostelnik said. "Perhaps there was a mistake there. We don't know that. We're looking at all the different opportunities that could have caused this."

He said that despite the tragic end that Columbia and the seven crew members met, none of the information that NASA had from the shuttle during the flight and from experience with earlier shuttle flights indicated that anything was drastically wrong.

"Based on our experience with debris contact that we've had in the past and based on information that we had from the 80-second point in the flight and the long-range videos we had and the other analyses conducted through the mass models, I believe that we made the right decision at that time," Kostelnik said.

After the Jan. 16 launch, NASA experts looked at the damage the severed piece of insulation foam and dismissed it as a possible cause of any potential problems. They even looked at the possibility that tiles could have been missing over an area as large as 7 inches by 30 inches, but on the shuttle's 12th day in space, engineers concluded that the damage would not be "sufficient to cause a catastrophic event," according to a NASA memo.

NASA was warned in a technical report published in 1994 about the danger to shuttle if tiles protecting critical portions of the undersides of the wings were damaged or dislodged, and engineers worked to reduce the risk of debris hitting the shuttle during takeoff and to improve the tiles themselves.

"We've had a lot of experience with that thermal protection system," Kostelnik said. "We've had good success with the tile system."

NASA will soon have to explain its findings and procedures before Congress. The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the House Science Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics announced today they will hold a joint hearing next Wednesday to examine Columbia disaster, and NASA Chief Administrator Sean O'Keefe is expected to be the sole witness.

Credit Card-Sized Clue?

Meanwhile, NASA investigators were on their way to California to look at a credit card-sized piece of debris a couple found in their driveway that could be a fragment of the space shuttle.

NASA officials said that as of this morning, they have only seen an e-mailed photograph of the piece found near the Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. The couple gave the fragment to the local sheriff, the officials said.

If it is from the shuttle, it could be the kind of scrap of evidence that engineers hope will tell them volumes about what happened to the shuttle.

"From the description, we're thinking they could be part of a wing and if so, that would obviously be very critical to the investigation," Kostelnik said.

Gathering Pieces from Texas and the West

In Texas and Louisiana, where most of the debris from the shuttle fell, several substantial pieces of the craft have already been found, including the nose cone, a section of one of the wings and part of the control panel.

Investigators are most interested in seeing the smaller pieces that may have fallen further West, possibly in Arizona and California, because those would have been the first pieces to have fallen from the shuttle.

Those pieces, because they are all coded to indicate which part of the shuttle they came from, could tell investigators where on the craft the trouble started.

Witnesses have reported to NASA investigators that parts of Columbia began falling off Saturday morning as it flew over California and Arizona — before the ship disintegrated over Texas. Early reports, officials said, indicate that the debris belongs to the shuttle's wing.

In the main debris field across Louisiana and Texas, crews were working today, racing the clock against bad weather moving into the area to recover the sections that have already been found, as searchers combed over an area as large as West Virginia hoping to find more.

Trees and underbrush were cleared away from where the nose cone was found to allow it to be lifted out of the ground by a helicopter, but the rains came too soon and plans were changed. Instead, the recovery crew hopes to clear a wide enough road to get a truck and crane to the site to hoist the nose cone out.

"It will eventually wind up at Barksdale Air Force Base [in Louisiana], where the other parts of the shuttle are being transported," Hemphill, Texas, County spokesman Mark Webb said.

ABCNEWS' Lisa Stark in Houston contributed to this report.