MER-A WEB COVERAGE SCHEDULE (all times are EDT and subject to change)
 
L-1 Day - Saturday, June 7
Approx. 2:15 p.m.       NASA Direct! program: Preparing for Launch
http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/nasadirect/elv/mera/event1.htm
 
L-0 Days - Launch Day, Sunday, June 8
Approx. 12:15 p.m.      Live countdown coverage begins    
http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/elvnew/mera/vlcc.htm
 
Approx. 5:15 p.m.       NASA Direct! program: MER Mission Overview
http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/nasadirect/elv/mera/event2.htm

NASA Hoping to Fly Shuttle as Early as December
By MATTHEW L. WALD with JOHN SCHWARTZ
 
 
WASHINGTON, June 23 — Even before the independent panel issues its report on the disaster that claimed the space shuttle Columbia and its crew of seven, NASA has apparently concluded that no enormously time-consuming changes will be required before the shuttle fleet returns to space, perhaps as early as December.
 
The report by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board is tentatively scheduled for release in a month, and NASA officials say it might include problems they are not yet aware of. But they say that with fixes to the shuttle hardware, they should be able to resume missions to the International Space Station. They are also shuffling the management of the manned spaceflight program.
 
An interim recommendation that NASA should work to fix the problems with falling foam, develop techniques to repair shuttle damage in orbit and develop rescue strategies could be issued by the board as early as Tuesday. None of those recommendations will present insurmountable obstacles to returning to the skies, a board official said.
 
Robert Jacobs, a spokesman at the agency's headquarters here, said: "There's an idea of what the technical issues are. The board's been very open about discussion of all of those."
 
Gen. Michael Kostelnik, NASA's associate administrator for the International Space Station and the space shuttle, said last week it was his "gut feeling" that the shuttle could be launched again by the end of March, though the program is tentatively aiming for December.
 
While the report could have surprises, Mr. Jacobs said, "the idea is not to have a lot of smoking guns in the report itself."  
 
The chairman of the investigation board, Adm. Harold W. Gehman Jr., has said repeatedly that the board would make recommendations as soon as it could agree on them. It has made only two but has openly discussed other problems it has found.
 
According to members of the board and officials at NASA, those include: fixing the bi-pod ramp so it does not shed foam, and possibly fixing other foam as well, fixing the cameras trained on the vehicle during launching so they spot any debris strikes, fixing the bolt catchers that protect the external tank and the orbiter from the explosive bolts used to separate the solid rocket boosters, taking pictures of the shuttle when it reaches the space station and, between flights, performing closer examinations of the leading edge panels and other components.
 
NASA will also need to retrain some members of the mission management team.
 
These issues are "the elephants in the room," Mr. Jacobs said.
 
None of them will mean a lengthy delay in returning to flight, NASA officials say. They have adopted a motto, "Find it, fix it and fly it."
 
But not everyone is happy with that idea.
 
"They're only talking about technical stuff, and they may be denying they have organizational problems," said an aide to the House Science Committee, who spoke on condition that he not be more closely identified.
 
And there are hints from the board that its report might present NASA with complicated problems. One board investigator said that on the hardware side, NASA's accident investigation team report and the board's conclusions would be "90 percent or more in agreement," but that the board report would provide much more "scrutiny of the institution," meaning its management.
 
The idea of a relatively prompt return to flight did not appear to disturb Admiral Gehman, who has repeatedly noted that the existence of the space station — which was not a factor after the Challenger disaster — creates an incentive to fly quickly. He has raised the idea that some changes might have to be made before the first post-accident flight, while others — still important for the balance of the shuttle's operating life — might wait a bit longer. Other improvements might wait until the successor to the shuttle, he said.
 
Changes in the management of the shuttle program have also been taking place, beginning with the April departure of the program manager, Ron D. Dittemore. He will be replaced by William Parsons, director of the John C. Stennis Space Center. Arthur G. Stephenson, who had been director of the Marshall Space Flight Center for five years, announced in May that he would step down. The center manages the external tank that has been implicated in the Columbia accident.  
 
And this month, Sean O'Keefe, the NASA administrator, moved Gen. Roy D. Bridges from his job as director of the Kennedy Space Center to run NASA's Langley Research Center, replacing the director of that center, Delma C. Freeman Jr. Engineers at Langley who were consulted during the flight had argued strenuously for closer attention to the possibility that the shuttle might have been mortally wounded at launching. Mr. Freeman will now head NASA's new Aerospace Transportation Technology Office, which will work to develop future space vehicles.
 
"Obviously, it comes as a surprise to you all," Mr. Bridges said in a statement to employees at the time. "It certainly was to me."  
 
Also, Courtney Stadd, the NASA chief of staff and White House liaison, announced that he would step down, as has Jeremiah F. Creedon, the associate administrator for aerospace technology and a former director of Langley.
 
Not all of the moves are directly related to Columbia. Mr. Dittemore had made his intention to leave the shuttle program known before the launching in January. A Marshall spokesman, Jerry Berg, said Mr. Stephenson had said that he felt it was time to move on after five years in the job and that in discussion with officials, "they agreed it would be better to do it now before the return to flight," rather than leaving in the middle of the process.  
 
A NASA spokesman denied that the job changes and retirements were a result of the Columbia accident or investigation.  
 
"People move within an organization," said Robert Mirelson, a spokesman at NASA headquarters, and make those decisions because of business opportunities and other reasons that "stand on their own."  
 
Mr. O'Keefe, Mr. Mirelson said, is making personnel changes "thoughtfully, as the opportunities open — he's placing people who are going to put us into an extremely strong position for return to flight."
 
He added, "I wouldn't read anything more into that."
 
An investigator with the independent board looking into the Columbia disaster said that the board had not asked for the management changes at NASA.
 
Despite NASA's statements to the contrary, Howard McCurdy, an outside expert on NASA, said that the job moves within the shuttle program and the loss of Columbia were "definitely associated." Mr. McCurdy, who is the chairman of the department of public administration at American University, said that such moves are common after accidents and reflect a "desire for a fresh start."
 
But he warned that management changes, like quick hardware changes, can mask underlying issues. "The real danger is people will think you've fixed the problem just because somebody has thrown a shield up on the foam, or you've changed a few people."
 
Mr. McCurdy noted that there were some 750 parts of the shuttle that could cause the loss of vehicle and crew if they failed. He said that Admiral Gehman and his colleagues understood that NASA had to become more vigorous in seeking information that would help the agency spot and fix problems before they caused another disaster. Moving managers around, he said, is "just the first step, it's not the last step" to upgrading that safety culture.
 
Yet blame and punishment tend to blind lawmakers, he said. "Certainly in Washington, D.C., the way that reputations are made and destroyed, people will associate the removal of an individual with the solution of a problem."