spacetoday.net: Senators criticize NASA, O'Keefe

Posted: Thu, Sep 4, 2003, 9:48 AM ET (1348 GMT)
US Capitol

Members of a Senate committee that oversees NASA criticized the agency and administrator Sean O'Keefe in the first Congressional hearing since the release of the final report into the Columbia accident. Members of the Senate Commerce Committee, meeting Wednesday morning, pressed O'Keefe for answers on the future of the shuttle program, including the cost of the work needed to return the shuttle to flight, but got few definitive answers from O'Keefe. One senator, Ernest Hollings (D-SC), pressed O'Keefe specifically on the decision to reassign one shuttle manager Ralph Roe, to a new position to help run NASA's new safety office at the Langley Research Center. Another senator, Ron Wyden (D-OR), asked O'Keefe to undertake a "cost benefit analysis" of the manned spaceflight program within the next 60 days to six months; O'Keefe called the idea interesting but did not specifically commit to the idea. Senators also praised Harold Gehman, the head of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and the other witness at the Senate hearing, for his work on the investigation. The hearing is the first of several planned for this fall in Congress. The House Science Committee is holding the first in what it says could become a weekly series of hearings into the investigation on Thursday.