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Columbia investigators` final report delayed until August end
Cape Canaveral, July 10: The board investigating the Columbia disaster will not issue its final report until the end of August, a full month later than planned, in order to allow enough time for editing the massive document.
Cape Canaveral, July 10: The board investigating the Columbia disaster will not issue its final report until the end of August, a full month later than planned, in order
to allow enough time for editing the massive document.
"It's editing all the material and trying to do a
thorough job, rather than trying to rush to the finish line,"
Columbia accident investigation board spokeswoman Laura Brown
said yesterday.
The board's chairman, Retired Navy Adm. Harold Gehman Jr., had intended to release the report by the end of July to beat the August Congressional recess. He wanted lawmakers to look over the 100-plus-page report while on vacation, to give them a jump-start when they returned to work in September and a slew of hearings on Nasa. But Gehman repeatedly stressed over the weeks: "We'd rather get it right than get it in a hurry."
Gehman notified key members of Congress about the need for more time, brown said.
The board has accumulated a considerable amount of material for the report, brown said, "and we have to decide where it goes, whether there's overlap with some of the chapters, some of the subject areas." Then it will be a matter of laying out the pages and compiling the graphics, she said. She expects it to be released in Washington the last week in August.
At least half the report will deal with Nasa management and cultural issues, according to Gehman. The rest will deal with the technical matters that led to Columbia's destruction over Texas on February 1.
Bureau Report
The board's chairman, Retired Navy Adm. Harold Gehman Jr., had intended to release the report by the end of July to beat the August Congressional recess. He wanted lawmakers to look over the 100-plus-page report while on vacation, to give them a jump-start when they returned to work in September and a slew of hearings on Nasa. But Gehman repeatedly stressed over the weeks: "We'd rather get it right than get it in a hurry."
Gehman notified key members of Congress about the need for more time, brown said.
The board has accumulated a considerable amount of material for the report, brown said, "and we have to decide where it goes, whether there's overlap with some of the chapters, some of the subject areas." Then it will be a matter of laying out the pages and compiling the graphics, she said. She expects it to be released in Washington the last week in August.
At least half the report will deal with Nasa management and cultural issues, according to Gehman. The rest will deal with the technical matters that led to Columbia's destruction over Texas on February 1.
Bureau Report