Texas, Sept 09: NASA who hopes to begin relaunching shuttles in the spring, says safety is primary concern. NASA on Monday (September 8, 2003) set a March launch date for the first space shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster, but added that safety, not schedule requirements, would decide when the shuttle goes into space. The national space agency, in a 78-page blueprint for its return to flight, also vowed to redesign the shuttle to make it safer and to change its own culture to improve communication and encourage dissenting views. "We will be safety driven and not schedule driven. We will be milestone driven and not schedule driven," NASA associate administrator William Readdy said in a news conference at the Johnson Space Center. The proposed March launch, with a launch window extending from March 11 to April 6, was primarily a planning target, Readdy admitted, timed for a hookup with the International Space Station and a daytime takeoff to give NASA engineers a good look at the shuttle as it hurtles toward space.


The independent Columbia Accident Investigation Board appointed to find the tragedy`s cause said in a report released two weeks ago the shuttle was doomed by loose insulation foam that struck its wing shortly after takeoff and blamed a NASA culture that, in its haste to get shuttles into space, ignored the problem despite warnings from its own people.


The foam damaged the wing`s heat shield which allowed the intense heat of re-entry into earth`s atmosphere to penetrate the shuttle and break it apart more than 40 miles (64 km) above northern Texas.


Bureau Report