Michael Leinbach - Bringing Columbia Home - The Untold Story of a Lost Space Shuttle and Her Crew

NASA liked the approach. On February 12, NASA and FEMA gave the Texas Forest Service the “Go” to contract for one hundred twenty-person fire crews, with their associated overhead and support personnel, and twenty-four helicopters from the US Forest Service. The US Forest Service agreed to have the helicopters begin air searches by February 14, with all ground crews searching in the field within two weeks. [5] NASA, Report CB-QMS-024 , 5. More than half of the Texas Forest Service’s employees had already been mobilized into leadership action for the Columbia search-and-recovery efforts. [6] James Hull email to all Texas Forest Service personnel, February 14, 2003.

KSC had no shortage of people eager to help out in the search for Columbia . In fact, the hardest part of staffing the operation from NASA’s perspective was turning down KSC personnel who wanted to help but who were not physically or emotionally up to the grueling conditions. “We didn’t want to run the risk of hurting more people,” said Dave King.

Assuming the US Forest Service’s resources were in place by the last week of February, FEMA estimated that search operations of the entire debris field could be wrapped up by April 15. That date was important for several reasons. First, it was critical to try to beat the spring “green up,” after which new foliage would render many of the wild areas nearly impassable and make it more difficult to spot debris on the ground. Second, NASA was under pressure to complete the investigation as soon as possible. Finally, the operation was expensive—the search effort would cost FEMA (and the US taxpayers) roughly $1 million per day. [7] Interviews with Dave King and Scott Wells.

How could it possibly be worth spending so much money to recover wreckage from a destroyed spaceship?

Public safety was the overarching concern. Federal and state governments wanted all potentially hazardous shuttle debris collected and removed as quickly as possible.

Next, NASA and the CAIB needed to find physical evidence that proved conclusively how and why Columbia broke up. None of the thousands of pieces recovered so far appeared to be the smoking gun. Where had the breach in Columbia ’s heatshield occurred that allowed hot plasma to penetrate the wing? Was there a hole in the wing’s leading edge? Had the landing wheel well somehow been compromised? Or had tiles on the wing’s underside burned through?

Was the Columbia accident a fluke, or did it point to a fatal flaw with hardware or procedures that could doom future flights? Unless we could prove with certainty what caused the accident, the rest of the shuttle fleet would remain grounded—perhaps permanently.

Without a shuttle fleet, the International Space Station could not be completed. Billions of dollars worth of space station modules were sitting in a processing facility at KSC, waiting to be launched. The United States would default on its commitments to its international partners, because the modules they had paid for and built could never get to the station without America’s space shuttle. The shuttle was a critical asset, and it was in the country’s interest to return the shuttle to flight.

FEMA, EPA, NASA, and the US and Texas Forest Services geared up for two months of an all-out push. By chance, the transition to the new search approach coincided with an unrelated need to move the joint command operations out of the Lufkin Civic Center. Lufkin wanted its prime community space back again, as a convention was scheduled in the coming week. Over the Valentine’s Day weekend, the incident command team moved its operations to a bank building with vacant office space eight blocks south of the Civic Center.

NASA also decided to consolidate its command structure. Having two command centers—one at Lufkin and one at Barksdale—contributed to confusion and occasional contradictory responses to questions from personnel in the field. By February 28, NASA made Lufkin its command headquarters for the recovery effort. Barksdale would only be a staging area for shipments to Kennedy. Jerry Ross and Dom Gorie took turns leading the debris recovery effort for NASA.

Searching the designated Columbia debris corridor in Texas was now solely the responsibility of the interagency management teams directed by the Texas Forest Service. Volunteer search operations in Hemphill wound down, and the commanders there prepared to transition the searches to the professional teams. Many of the volunteers were disappointed that they could not continue to assist in the search. [8] Interviews with Mike Alexander.

However, volunteers still aided the searches in areas outside of the main debris corridor. For example, many of the townspeople of Maypearl, Texas, turned out for a three-day community search effort that involved “four-wheelers, horses, and lots of free pizza.” [9] “Shuttle Probe Exhausting,” Florida Today , March 3, 2003, 3A. Much farther west, volunteers searched unsuccessfully for Columbia debris along the California coastline beaches over the weekend of March 1. [10] “More Debris to Arrive at KSC Today,” Florida Today , March 4, 2003, 2A.

The Texas Forest Service arranged for the incident management teams to set up camp at fairgrounds or rodeo arenas in towns along the shuttle’s ground track—Hemphill, Nacogdoches, Corsicana, and Palestine. These towns were close to the centerline of the debris field and were spaced roughly fifty miles apart. Each town’s camps could accommodate eight hundred to one thousand searchers. At any given time, five IMTs would be in Texas, and the IMTs and their fire crews would rotate out every two to three weeks. Twenty-one IMTs eventually participated in the search-and-recovery operations. [11] Keller, USDA Forest Service Role, 44.

The IMTs and their fire crews entered and departed East Texas through a staging and coordination center at Longview. Longview oriented incoming search crews on the conditions they could expect on the ground in Texas. No motels were available, so searchers needed to bring tents and sleeping bags. Temperatures could range from the mid-twenties at night to the mid-seventies in the daytime. Heavy rains could occur at any time. Searches would be in terrain that varied from open pastures to swamps to extremely dense vegetation. Ticks and chiggers were common, although the cool temperatures were likely to slow down any snakes and alligators in the area. Finally, searchers might encounter hazardous materials or human remains. [12] Texas Interagency Coordination Center, “Update—Space Shuttle Columbia Response,” internal memo, February 14, 2003.

The Southwest Texas Debriefing Team, a part of the Critical Incident Stress Management network, spoke with fire crews when they first arrived in Longview. Searchers received information on how to monitor themselves and their colleagues for signs of physical and emotional stress. The briefing team also reminded searchers how grateful NASA and the nation were for their efforts. [13] Southwest Texas Debriefing Team, “Space Shuttle Columbia Recovery Teams: A Grateful Nation Says ‘Thank You,’” pamphlet distributed to incoming fire crews at Longview, TX, February 2003.

Crews came from almost every state in the United States. Much to the surprise of the NASA staff, most of the crews from the Midwest and Western United States consisted of Native American firefighters, representing nearly every Native American Tribe and Nation in those states. In many areas or reservations, it can be hard for young adults to find jobs. Working on a fire crew both provides good temporary income for able-bodied persons and also helps protect tribal lands during fire season. The presence of people representing so many different tribes provided a multitude of lessons in cultural diversity.