WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Texas’ senior Senator and ranking member of the Commerce Committee, commends the report released by NASA on crew survivability:
“In the years since the tragic loss of Columbia and her crew, NASA has made great progress in improving the safety of the Space Shuttle program. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) focused largely on the cause of the Columbia accident, and pointed the way to improve space shuttle performance and reliability. The Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report complements that effort by focusing on ways to improve the safety of the crew members themselves, which is, after all, our most important consideration. The scope and detailed analyses of this study is representative of the excellence and dedication of those who manage our human spaceflight programs.
“I’m pleased that many of the report’s findings have already been incorporated in the Shuttle program, which gives our current astronauts maximum protection. The report will improve the design of the follow-on spaceflight systems of Ares and Orion, including space suit and helmet design, seat design, and emergency training and simulations.”
The Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report, released on December 30, 2008 by NASA, is a detailed 400-page report produced by the Crew Survival Integrated Investigation Team (SCSIIT), and represents an expansion of the initial work done by the Crew Survival Working Group (CSWG) formed to support the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) in 2003, and is intended to provide recommendations and “lessons learned” to help improve safety on the remaining space shuttle flights, and the follow-on Orion crew exploration vehicle and Ares 1 and V launch systems.
