Shuttle’s age wasn’t a factor, experts say

It was the oldest shuttle in an old fleet. But as NASA tries to sort out what caused the Columbia to disintegrate over Texas, experts said it was no more troublesome than any other of the complex spacecraft.

Dennis R. Jenkins, a former shuttle engineer and historian of the program, said, “There were a lot of early issues, but she was the first vehicle, and she got repaired.” Some of the issues included a tendency for the ceramic heat tiles to fall off the shuttle’s skin.

As recently as July 2001, the space agency was considering parking the Columbia because it was the oldest. “It’s questionable whether it would be cost-effective to keep Columbia fully operational,” a spokeswoman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration told Aerospace Daily.

Jerry Grey, director of Aerospace and Science Policy at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said, because it would be the first to fly, Columbia had been fitted with more instrumentation than its sister ships. But, he said, the equipment had been removed in 1999. “Other than that, he said, “Columbia is not much different than the others.”

The Columbia was completed at Rockwell International’s Palmdale, Calif., facility in 1979, the product of seven years of work.

At the time, the ship seemed to represent the fulfillment of a dream for the world of science: a reusable vehicle that promised to make space travel routine. Until then, trips beyond the atmosphere had been aboard relatively small vehicles that could be used just once.

The Columbia arrived at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on March 24, 1979.

Columbia’s final flight was its 28th and was the shuttle program’s 113th.

“The whole shuttle program is still considered experimental,” Grey said. “It’s still a flight vehicle that has to be delicately handled — given lots of tender loving care.”