HOUSTON — A vast army of as many as 10,000 investigators is trying to solve the puzzle of what destroyed the space shuttle Columbia, an effort that will cost as much as half a billion dollars, according to projections by government agencies involved in the inquiry and outside experts.
The estimated total would far exceed the roughly $175 million spent investigating the 1986 Challenger explosion, which involved a seven-month search-and-recovery mission in the Atlantic Ocean that cost $100 million by itself.
The investigative cost is separate from other financial fallout of the accident, including possible modifications to the orbiter fleet and institutional changes at NASA recommended by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.
Accident investigations of all types have grown steadily more ambitious in recent decades, as the public and Congress have come to expect definitive answers to disasters, said Bernard Loeb, former head of aviation safety at the National Transportation Safety Board.
"Far more is expected today than 10 years ago," Loeb said. "Once you have demonstrated what you can do, more is expected. There is an expectation that these investigations are going to go to the end of the world to determine what happened."
No fixed budget has been set for the Columbia investigation, which is continuing under a White House declaration that authorized the massive effort shortly after the Feb. 1 crash. It includes a dizzying assortment of federal offices, ranging from the Environmental Protection Agency to the U.S. Forest Service.
"In terms of cost and breadth this is going to be the largest aircraft accident investigation ever," said Michael Barr, director of University of Southern California's aviation safety program. "I just can't think of anything that will compare. It's just mind-boggling."
The costliest airplane accident investigation involved TWA Flight 800, in which a 747 exploded after takeoff from New York in 1996, said Ted Lopatkiewicz, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board. The official cost of that inquiry was $35 million, not including FBI efforts that ruled out terrorism as the cause.
Beyond the heightened public expectations, the Columbia investigation is driven by another imperative: NASA cannot afford to lose another space shuttle without shutting down the human spaceflight program for as much as a decade.
