Bob Lowry, 334/844-9999

AU SPACE HISTORIAN'S JOURNAL ON COLUMBIA ACCIDENT

(Editor's Note: James R. Hansen, professor of history at Auburn University, is working on the first authorized biography of astronaut Neil A. Armstrong. This week he is conducting research and oral history interviews in and around the Johnson Space Center in Houston. While there, he is keeping a journal of his thoughts and observations pertaining to the Columbia tragedy specifically and to the American space program in general. He has agreed to share his journal. Hansen has been writing about aerospace history for the past 22 years. His Armstrong biography is scheduled to appear in late 2004.)

* Newspaper editors: Please note this material may be suitable for an op-ed page.

Saturday, Feb 1.

8 a.m., CST: Accelerating onto Interstate 85 out of Auburn. I'm heading to Atlanta for an afternoon interview with former astronaut Dave Scott (Gemini VIII, Apollo 9 and 15), the seventh man to walk on the Moon. It's the first leg of a two-week-research trip for my Armstrong biography. On Sunday, I fly to Houston. Listening to CDs rather than the radio, I am oblivious to the fact that NASA has just lost all communication with Space Shuttle Columbia.

1 p.m., EST: Checking in at a hotel where my wife and I are staying the night. A television in the lobby says something about another national tragedy. I ask the desk clerk what has happened and she tells me, "Another Shuttle has blown up." It's been four hours since it happened and I have heard nothing about it. It's amazing what you don't hear walking around a crowded shopping mall for two hours. Talk about killing time. I turn on my cell phone to see if Scott has called, perhaps to cancel, but he hasn't. It dawns on me that the end of January has been the worst of times for America's space program (Apollo fire, Jan. 27, 1967; Challenger explosion, 28 Jan. 1986). Now this.

2 p.m., EST. Starbucks coffee shop, Emory University campus. I'm supposed to meet Scott here at 3 p.m., so I'm an hour early. What to do but drink a large cappuccino? At the counter I see a hand-printed sign telling customers about the breakup of the Shuttle. The place is crowded with college students, but no one seems to be talking about the Shuttle, just hitting the books. Most of these kids would have been pre-schoolers when we lost Challenger.

3 p.m., EST: Starbucks. Dave Scott, 70 years old but looking 55, enters with his daughter Nancy, an Emory sociology professor. Dave lives in London (divorced) and is visiting with Nancy and her husband for a few days. We exchange comments about it being a sad day for our meeting. A selfish thought crosses my mind, which I don't express: in my interviews it may be impossible to get normal reactions and perspectives because of what has happened to Columbia. I'll be facing that all week in Houston.

3:10-5:45 p.m., EST: Emory Sociology Department seminar room. Despite the tragedy, it's a great interview. Dave and Neil could very easily have died when a thruster on their Gemini VIII spacecraft got stuck open in March 1966. In the rapid spinning, they nearly lost consciousness. If that had happened, they would have both died, becoming the first American space casualties (the Russians had already lost a few). Ten months later, the Apollo fire at the Cape killed their buddies Grissom, Chaffee, and White (Neil's next door neighbor in Houston). If Gemini VIII had earlier resulted in tragedy, Washington might very well have pulled the plug on Apollo and we'd never have gotten to the Moon.

6 p.m., EST: Dropped off at my car by Dave and his daughter in front of Starbucks. Wonderful people. Before saying goodbye, Dave and I talk about the problems of reentry from space and the fragility of the Shuttle's thermal protection system. Like most intelligent engineers, Dave is wary of speculating about what caused the accident. It's way too early to tell and the first impression (in this case, about the piece of insulation that fell off the main fuel tank during launch that many of the early pundits were saying might have damaged the Shuttle's left wing) is usually wrong.

All evening EST: In front of the TV, mostly CNN. It is hard to believe that it's all happening again. Back in 1986, I was researching another book, and was working at NASA Langley in Virginia when Challenge exploded. At least this time it doesn't seem that NASA as an organization as an organization will come up the same attack, Hopefully, President Bush will not create another presidential commission; I think that would be a mistake. At midnight, I turn the TV off. But I can't stop myself from juicing up the laptop and seeing if there's any new email. Perhaps some of the Houston guys are advising me to postpone the trip. Nope, but a friend of mine from NASA, a very bold and iconoclastic thinker, sends me the following message: "Consider this tragedy's symbolism, both inherent and coincidental, on the eve of President George W. Bush's preemptive Middle East war. The shuttle, symbol of American preeminence, disintegrates over the president's home state -- in part over a town called Palestine (I wonder how Texans pronounce that?). Among the lost: Israel's first astronaut, a veteran of Israel's preemptive 1981 strike on Iraq's nuclear reactor. National confidence being an extra-rational thing, those coincidences can only make the president's leadership job harder. I hope he's made of the right stuff." Now how can I go to sleep after that email? The TV goes back on, and it's still on when I wake up five hours later. (If you're wondering about my wife and the TV, she's learned to sleep through anything.)
Sunday, Feb. 2

6:30 a.m., EST: Approaching Hartsfield. A contrail off to the south of the airport looks familiar to Challenger's plume back in 1986. If I were taking a Rorschach test, I'd probably see all sorts of awful things this morning.

7:30 a.m. EST: On the way to Gate B-13. Putting my shoes back on after passing through security (I don't know what it is about that pair of shoes), I head for my concourse thinking that the airplane to Houston will probably be full this morning. Arriving at the gate, I look carefully around, halfway expecting to see bereaved relatives, NASA consultants, and other travelers who are somehow connected to yesterday's tragedy. But I'm not sure there were any such folks. The plane was also only about a third full. It's just not a great time to be visiting Houston.

11 a.m., CST: Somewhere over western Louisiana. Why at 35,000 feet do the worst possible kinds of questions come to my mind? What would have happened to an airliner in just about this position yesterday morning if it had been hit by a large piece -- maybe even a small piece -- of Columbia debris? Could the fuselage have been pierced? Could a wing have gotten shorn off? I think I know the answer but resolve to ask the pilot as I exit the airplane. What he tells me is "You don't really want to know."

11:40 a.m., CST: Taxiing to the terminal at George W. Bush Intercontinental Airport. Looking out the window, things look pretty bleak. An overcast day, lots of construction at the airport. I can only imagine how much bleaker it all looked to the families of the Columbia crew as they arrived back in Houston, never to see their loved ones again.

12:30 a.m., CST: On the Houston freeways. From low Earth orbit, a number of man-made objects can actually be spotted with the naked eye. Seeing Houston shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'm talking about the traffic congestion not the big buildings. The jam I was in south of downtown could have been seen from the Moon!

1:30 PM CST: Turn-off on to NASA Road One -- finally! "All our love goes out to the Columbia family." "We will never forget you." Marquees up and down the busy road running south of Johnson Space Center express the community's (nay, the nation's) affection for the Columbia crew and its concern for families and friends. In front of JSC's main gate, there is a large crowd of people -- I estimate about 300 -- leaving flowers and other tokens of respect. They started coming minutes after the news of the tragedy, and will probably be keeping vigil for days to come. I see a sign that has the names of the seven dead astronauts. The name of the mission commander, Rick Husband, finally rings a bell. In early November I had gone to Cape Canaveral to see the launch of STS-113, and taken along my sister and one of her friends. When we got into the IMAX theatre for a briefing before heading out to the viewing stands, we got the word that the mission had been scrubbed (a leaky oxygen hose into the orbiter) -- which made me three for three in terms of trying unsuccessfully to see a launch. Our consolation prize was viewing a video documenting the progress of the International Space Station. The very articulate and personable astronaut that narrated the video was Rick Husband. Why hadn't I remembered that name earlier?

2 p.m. CST: Motel check-in. Once in the room, I fire up the laptop. I'm anxious to get an email off to Armstrong to learn what he's been thinking about Columbia. Neil served as vice-chair of the presidential commission that investigated the Challenger accident and I am guessing that he might be asked to serve in this investigation, too.

4 p.m., CST: In front of the laptop. A message comes in from Armstrong. He tells me that he has not, as yet, been asked to serve and he doubts that he will: "I think they will avoid us 'super-seniors.'" (Neil is 72 years old). I'm not so sure. If President Bush appoints his own blue-ribbon commission, how can he not ask Armstrong? I also learn that Neil has granted a rare interview to his hometown paper, the Cincinnati Enquirer. His words to the reporter are strikingly similar to those that his Gemini VIII mate Dave Scott expressed to me the day before in Atlanta. It took four months to investigate the Challenger explosion, so Neil says don't expect any instant answers about the Columbia disaster.

All evening CST: Still in front of the laptop. I've been keeping one eye on TV coverage of the tragedy. NBC's Tim Russert interviews Buzz Aldrin, John Glenn, Bill Nelson, and others, and is seeing what his guests think about the idea of President Bush making another John F. Kennedy-like commitment, perhaps to a manned Mars mission. Bad idea. I'm all for a vigorous, on-going space program, but that isn't the way to do it. Kennedy's motive was purely political and what he inspired lasted to the first Moon landing and that's about it. Then what happened? A president should lead, but there are other ways to do it. It will be interesting to see what Mr. Bush says at the memorial service here at Johnson Space Center on Tuesday. If he does wish to make some major new commitment to space, that wouldn't be the right sort of event at which to do it, anyway.

Click here for Part II.

feb03:AU-columbia

CONTACT: James Hansen.