What will be the first steps in the investigation of the Columbia disaster?
Engberg: Unlike a plane crash, NASA won’t have to look for “black boxes.” The mission control center in Houston is itself a giant, super-sophisticated “black box.” Hundreds of sensing devices on board the orbiter send radio messages to earth monitoring the health of key systems. Apparently, all this telemetry data was flowing until the disaster. This information is recorded and can provide valuable information on what happened. I would imagine that examination of those data tapes has already begun. All the videotapes taken by amateur photographers along the flight will be gathered up and studied frame by frame. NASA has appealed to everyone with film to get in touch with it, but, at the television news conference, they didn’t bother to put out a phone number and they weren’t emphatic enough. That film is critical, and we don’t need someone cutting a deal with some tabloid to sell it rather than to turn it over to the government. Written documentation is maintained on every repair made
