Washington, Sept 12: The investigation and cleanup of the space shuttle Columbia accident has cost the US government almost dollar 400 million, officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have said. The space agency spent $ 18.7 million on direct costs of the Columbia accident investigation board, the 13-member panel of outside experts who analysed the February 1 tragedy. That spending included transportation, the hiring of consultants and administrative costs such as printing of the 248-page report. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration spent $ 112.6 million in supporting the board's investigation. This included the elaborate foam-shooting experiments at the southwest research center in San Antonio. The tests involved firing chunks of lightweight insulation at a high rate of speed from a gas cannon at a mock-up of the shuttle wing and heat shield.

The experiments showed that even flimsy insulation, if travelling fast enough and hitting just the right place, can break the reinforced carbon panels on the shuttle wing. One investigator said the experiment was the ``smoking gun'' of the board's search for the cause of the Columbia accident. Nasa spent $ 21.1 million to help in the collection and assembly of some 84,000 pieces of Columbia recovered from the forests of east Texas and Louisiana. The federal emergency management administration spent at least an additional $ 235 million, Nasa administrator Sean o'keefe said yesterday.

The combined costs for the two federal agencies were at least $ 387 million.
Bureau Report