WORLD NEWS TONIGHT WITH PETER JENNINGS (06:30 PM ET) - ABC February 28, 2003
COLUMBIA DISASTER SHUTTLE INVESTIGATION
(Off Camera) The space agency's administrator rejected the notion today that NASA could not have saved the astronauts, even if it knew there was trouble. NASA has a huge amount of information about every shuttle launch. But at the time these images were recorded, it didn't have enough. Here is ABC's Ned Potter.
graphics: camera angles
NED POTTER, ABC NEWS
(Voice Over) Shuttle flights are routinely documented in more detail than the public ever sees. For the launch of "Columbia," NASA had 23 cameras rolling, precisely in case something went wrong. But the system let them down. Case one, while some cameras showed tantalizing views of debris hitting the shuttle's wing, a camera with a better angle happened to be blurred.
RON DITTEMORE, NASA SHUTTLE PROGRAM MANAGER
We've tried, we've searched, but we're not going to get the best view that we know we could have had because of the out-of-focus camera.
NED POTTER
(Voice Over) Case two, engineers, worried the left wing might be damaged, might have used cameras on the shuttle's robot arm to take a look. But "Columbia" carried no arm on this flight. It wasn't needed for a science mission.
NED POTTER (CONTINUED)
(Off Camera) Which leads to case three, could Defense Department spy telescopes have helped? They did get this view of the shuttle, 200 miles up, upside down, and as you can see, it's detailed enough that you can make out the shuttle's windows. Mission control did ask the air force to shoot the ship's wing as well, but NASA managers withdrew the request.
JOHN PIKE, DIRECTOR, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG
I think it's going to be very important to understand why it was the air force started to photograph the shuttle and was then overruled.
NED POTTER
(Voice Over) We may never know if any of this would have made a difference. What we do know is that the most vivid pictures were of the shuttle breaking up in the sky. Ned Potter, ABC News, New York.
Copyright © 2003, American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.
