Forgotten Lessons of Challenger Seen as Haunting NASA
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Ever since the shuttle accident, rocket engineer Jud Lovingood has spent difficult days wondering whether he could have prevented the tragic deaths of seven astronauts.
"When something bad happens, like killing a bunch of people, you just think: 'What could we have done that we didn't do?' " Lovingood said in a recent interview. "I was shocked. I was sick. I could never make an engineering decision that put a life at risk again."
Lovingood was not talking about the Columbia accident five months ago, but the Challenger disaster 17 years ago. For the people directly involved, it seems like yesterday.
Voices still crack when space officials recount their role. Investigators worry they failed in their mission to reform NASA. Blame is sharply debated. Anger flares at the mere mention of former colleagues who didn't accept a fair share of the responsibility.
Unencumbered by the powerful NASA public-relations machine, these forgotten engineers and investigators, now in their 60s and 70s, have plenty to say. For one thing, they believe that NASA's current managers are ducking responsibility for their mistakes and are bound to repeat them.
They have become astute analysts of the Columbia accident, watching hours of investigation hearings on the Internet. And they have a cautionary tale, both for those involved in the latest accident and for the future of the entire U.S. space program.
Nobody can predict how NASA managers of the ill-fated Columbia mission will feel in another generation, but their counterparts' experiences suggest the road ahead will be difficult. Engineers may understand the grave risks of launching humans into space at 17,000 mph but cannot anticipate the emotional turmoil that comes after an accident. In the case of the Challenger, they were never prepared for how long it would cast a cloud over their lives.
Although the decisions that led to the Challenger accident were, by all accounts, not his own, Lovingood was a witness to one of the great engineering miscalculations of history. A distinguished 23-year career in NASA and a doctorate in mathematics failed to prepare him for what developed after the accident.
"I don't think people realize how it feels when you are involved in something like this," he recalled. "I couldn't watch a shuttle launch. I couldn't watch those videotapes of the accident. It took many years to get over it."
