Australian astronaut Andy Thomas has given the thumbs up to NASA's efforts to improve the safety of space flight despite a new report lambasting the agency's failure to detect potentially catastrophic flaws in its space shuttle fleet.
In an interview with smh.com.au, Dr Thomas said that while he was "disappointed and surprised" that a chunk of foam fell from the shuttle during take-off, he believed the agency was taking positive steps to sort out the safety problem.
The 53-year-old, who returned from space last week aboard space shuttle Discovery, also talked about the most magical moments of the mission and revealed his thoughts about the existence of life in other parts of the universe.
Overnight, seven members of a 25-person safety monitoring team, which was established in the wake of the Columbia disaster, issued a stinging rebuke of NASA's management.
"[NASA managers] lack the crucial ability to accurately evaluate how much or how little risk is associated with their decisions," they wrote in a minority report attached the monitoring team's final report.
"[NASA managers and officials] must break this cycle of smugness substituting for knowledge," the minority group, which included a former astronaut, said.
Dr Thomas said that while the Columbia accident was linked "as much to management failure as it was a technical failure," the agency had since implemented many positive changes.
"A couple of years ago there was a sense that if you were to speak up and express an unpopular opinion that you might incur the wrath of certain managers at headquarters," he told smh.com.au from Houston today.
"Now people are encouraged to express dissenting views ... people are listening to them and I think it's a very healthy change that's slowly coming across the agency.
"But it's taking time and perhaps what's expressed by that minority group is the fact that this is a slow process that takes time," he said.
Dr Thomas, who has been on four space missions, said he was "disappointed and surprised" that despite more than two years of research, a large chunk of foam fell off the shuttle's fuel tank during its "bone-jarring, teeth-chattering" lift off - just as it had during Columbia's fateful mission.
In hindsight Discovery should not have been given the all-clear to travel to space, he said.
"I think if we had known ahead of time that there was going to be a large piece of foam come off the shuttle we wouldn't have launched. It would have been a none-starter. We just wouldn't have flown."
Yet despite the repeat of the foam problem plus issues with protruding gap filler, he said none of the crew ever felt "particularly threatened in terms of safety of the mission".
Dr Thomas said no corners had been cut to get the shuttle into space, but it was prudent to review why the foam problem had re-occurred.
He described shuttle travel as "the greatest ride of your life" and admitted feeling disappointed that he had flown his last mission.
"This flight was bittersweet for me in some ways because I know that I'm not going to experience it again as I won't fly again. So in a way I was saying goodbye to a whole environment that I'd been in and to a whole series of experiences of my life."
He said one of the highlights of the trip was observing from the shuttle the phenomenon of the Aurora Australis lights south of Australia.
"Another very spectacular sight [was] on the night passes when you look down onto the earth below you and you can actually see meteors plunging into the atmosphere below you. That's a pretty amazing thing to see."
And what does Dr Thomas think about the possibility of other life forms in the universe?
"I think considering the unimaginable immensity if the universe and the unimaginable number of stars and probably planets that are in it it would be inconceivable to me that there is not some kind of sentient life elsewhere."
"I am very quick to point out though, that that does not mean that they're visiting us and dropping in in UFOs and so on. I think that's all nonsense. That's just absolute nonsense. But I do believe there is sentient life of some kind out there."
- smh.com.au, with wires