Using Columbia to Advance

On August 28, CAIB released its report on the Columbia disaster. It found that the immediate, technical cause of the shuttle accident was a chunk of foam that had been jarred loose during takeoff and hit a vulnerable part of the shuttle with sufficient force to cause a rupture. On entering Earth’s atmosphere, the enormous heat that built up penetrated the shuttle and caused it to disintegrate. CAIB went beyond the technical explanation to score NASA on numerous or­ganizational fronts, all of which revealed the agency to be less vigilant than it should have been. Finally, it went beyond even NASA to criticize the “failure of national leadership” in space policy. National leaders had not had the will to replace the aging shuttle or provide the vision and money a robust human space program required. CAIB wanted a national policy response—a new vision for the space program. CAIB urged the president and Congress to give NASA a higher purpose for risking human lives, one that was greater than sending people around and around in near-Earth orbit.

Following the publication of the CAIB report, Congress held hearings, mak­ing its own inquiry about what had gone wrong and what specifically NASA was doing to improve the safety situation. The congressional hearing showed that many lawmakers wanted NASA to have a bolder goal and grander “vision” than it had. Exactly what that might be was undecided, however.27

In his first year, O’Keefe had not wanted to talk about destinations. After Columbia, and particularly the new pressures for a bold and clear vision, he was open to possibilities. He understood that that vision would ultimately have to come from the president.

Prior to Columbia, Bush had shown little interest in space. After Columbia, he said “our journey into space will go on.” But what did that mean? O’Keefe, using the leverage he had owing to his connections with Vice President Cheney, organized a small but high-level interagency group of White House and cabinet officials to recommend an answer to that question. The chair of the group was Steve Hadley, deputy director of the National Security Council.28 It was delib­erately a “trans-NASA” body, an attribute that would potentially help it make a recommendation with a more “national policy” base.

The group met periodically behind closed doors in the summer and well into the fall. It considered a range of possibilities. O’Keefe wanted a big decision, but also one that was affordable. Over time, the group decided that a return to the Moon made sense technically and financially. Bush, informed of the committee’s

preliminary thinking, indicated that the Moon was not exciting enough. He wanted to add Mars, much as his father had, in his aborted Moon-Mars initia­tive. The culmination of the planning effort came on December 19. O’Keefe, Cheney, Hadley, presidential science advisor John Marburger, top political advi­sor Karl Rove, and others gathered in the Oval Office with Bush. After looking at decision papers and budget numbers, Bush noted that the decision stressed return to the Moon. “This is more than just about the Moon, isn’t it?” he asked. With some prompting from Cheney, the group responded with “yes.” “Well,” said the president, “let’s do it!” He told Hadley to work out the time and place for the official announcement.29