Lockheed Martin Corp. has extensive efforts underway to assist the investigation, said company spokesman Jeff Adams. Employees in Mississippi, multiple locations in Texas, Louisiana and New Jersey are spending all or part of their time on the investigation, Adams said, though he could not provide an exact number.
Lockheed has 1,800 employees at its Michaud, Miss., plant where the shuttle's external tank was produced. The Columbia board has stopped certain operations at the plant and impounded a $43-million external tank for various tests. NASA officials said they did not know how many of the roughly 1,700 shuttle employees are involved in the accident investigation.
Based on statements given by NASA officials since the crash, it would appear that hundreds of the agency's employees are involved in the inquiry at Johnson Space Center, Kennedy Space Center, Langley Flight Research Center, Ames Research Center and other NASA facilities.
Barr, the USC expert who has taught aviation investigators for 18 years, said he would be surprised if the cost remains under half a billion dollars. Included in this estimate would be FEMA's $302 million, the $50-million congressional appropriation and roughly $150 million in government and private contractor costs for employees involved in the investigation.
In the end, the Challenger disaster cost NASA an estimated $15 billion, according to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In addition to the costs of the investigation, the figure includes $2 billion spent on building a replacement, restructuring the agency's organization, research delays from the entire fleet being grounded for nearly three years, and safety upgrades made to the fleet.
"Because of public opinion you have to keep going until you find the cause. You just can't write it off," Barr said. "It has to do with our national pride. We want to find out what happened so it would never happen again, and if somebody screwed up we want justice for it."
