WASHINGTON - Lawmakers and safety experts have been warning for years that budget and personnel cuts at NASA could lead to a catastrophic shuttle loss.
Last year, the warnings reached a peak when the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel told the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, “the current and proposed budgets are not sufficient to improve or even maintain the safety risk level of operating the space shuttle (fleet).”
Richard Blomberg, the former chairman of the panel, told the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics last April he had never been more concerned with shuttle safety.
``That concern is not for the present flight or the next or perhaps the one after that,'' according to his prepared testimony. ``In fact, one of the roots of my concern is that nobody will know for sure when the safety margin has been eroded too far. All of my instincts, however, suggest that the current approach is planting the seeds for future danger.''
There is no evidence or suggestion yet that funding or personnel cuts contributed to the destruction of the shuttle Columbia on Saturday.
NASA and Congress have not ignored warnings about shuttle safety, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Science Committee, said Saturday in a conference call with reporters.
Boehlert acknowledged the warnings his committee received and defended the panel’s actions.
“We always take warnings seriously,” Boehlert said. “We’ve been talking repeatedly with NASA about the shuttle (safety) upgrade program. The shuttle upgrade program has not ceased.”
Boehlert’s committee will hold hearings and participate in a likely congressional inquiry into the Columbia explosion.
“We don’t know if what happened to the shuttle is related to concerns about safety upgrades,” said David Goldston, the Science Committee’s chief of staff.
In a separate interview, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, indicated she believes “draconian” cuts to NASA’s budget may have compromised safety. Hutchison represents Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
An audit released last July by NASA's Inspector General claimed safety upgrades had been adequately funded but noted NASA’s reduced shuttle budget. The audit concluded NASA had continued to work on high-priority safety upgrades, but it also said the space agency would have to increase funding on projects that had been reduced, delayed or canceled in order to lower the risk of a catastrophe.
The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, reported in August 2000 that work force reductions at NASA could jeopardize shuttle safety. A follow-up report in September 2001 found NASA had made progress on improving the shuttle work force but still faced major challenges.
The Office of Management and Budget, meanwhile, faulted NASA last year for large cost overruns and delays in its shuttle safety work.
In recent years, shuttle costs have been reduced as a private consortium, United Space Alliance, took over much of the work previously performed by government workers at Kennedy Space Center. At the same time, the shuttles were improved in ways that dramatically increased launch capabilities and safety, Bill Readdy, NASA's deputy associate administrator for space flight told Boehlert’s panel last year.
A House Science Committee budget analysis showed NASA asked for $1.2 billion for shuttle safety upgrades in the fiscal year that began last October, a 34 percent decrease from the previous year. Four months into the current fiscal year, Congress has yet to finish work on the appropriations bill for NASA.