Shuttle disaster report due

[legin]

An independent report into the fatal break up of the Columbia space shuttle is expected to be highly critical of the US space agency Nasa.

<<snip>>

The CAIB report will recommend strengthening the remaining shuttles and the introduction of some kind of in-orbit repair kit that allows astronauts to fix similar problems in future.

<<snip>>

"Nasa's performance, its organisation, its underlying values and culture have not been up to expectations and we have a lot of recommendations about how to change that," he said.

<<snip>>

Dr Logsden said Nasa had not learn enough from the Challenger accident, when concerns from engineers were not acted on by senior managers.

And he criticised the agency's "lack of constant vigilance and lack of curiosity" about things that were not supposed to be happening.

Certain Nasa staff did make request for images to be taken of Columbia in orbit to assess the damage, but these were never acted on.

(more...)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3174963.stm
(It looks like I rather picked out the worst paragraphs)