NASA Cloaks

HoustonChronicle.com - NASA limits shuttle viewing areas due to public risk

By MARK CARREAU
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

RESOURCES
PUBLIC SAFETY POLICY

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board urged NASA to take a look at its public safety policy as a result of the Feb. 1, 2003, breakup of the shuttle Columbia that killed seven astronauts.

• Potentially worse: Columbia disintegrated over East Texas and Louisiana, but nobody was hurt on the ground by the 84,000 pounds of debris and toxic rocket propellants.

• Grim odds: Investigators estimate the chance of at least one serious public injury at between 9 percent and 24 percent.

NASA has adopted new safety measures intended to lower the risk to the public during launch and landing of the space shuttle when missions resume in mid-May, agency officials said Tuesday.

One of the changes, still being worked out, will restrict public access to the closest viewing sites at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Also under the revision, a shuttle with critical damage or an impaired flight control system would be diverted to an emergency runway at White Sands, N.M. The Florida facility will continue to serve as the shuttle's primary landing site.

"Philosophically, what we are trying to do is ensure we do not add significantly to the overall risk the public already accepts in their daily lives," said Bryan O'Connor, the agency's chief of safety and mission assurance.

In 113 previous flights of the shuttle that date back to 1981, White Sands has served as a landing site only once, in 1982.

Mission Control intends to rely on Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., as its primary backup to Kennedy and would look to a landing at the West Coast site if a shuttle crew faced weather hazards in Florida and was running low on air, food and water.

But the space agency believes the remote New Mexico site would pose the lowest public risk in an emergency.

Already used as a test range by the military for other hazardous activities, White Sands is much less populous than the Los Angeles basin adjacent to Edwards and the Central Florida region near Kennedy.

O'Connor and the other officials who joined him were less certain of how the new policy would affect spectators who like to gather in Florida to witness shuttle launches.

"I wouldn't characterize it as drastic," Allard Beutel, a space agency spokesman said after the briefing.

O'Connor said NASA estimates it can accommodate 20,000 to 25,000 spectators on the sprawling Florida launch complex.

However, those allowed within three miles of the launch pad, the closest public viewing site, likely will be restricted.

Experts will complete safety plans in a few weeks.

Shuttle Discovery and a crew of seven is to lift off on the first post-Columbia mission on May 15.

Bill Parsons, NASA's shuttle program manager, said the agency may be a month away from determining whether the May 15 launch target is achievable.

If Discovery cannot lift off by June 3, shuttle managers will reschedule the mission for a July 12 launch.