Hutchinson ? Lt. General Thomas R. Stafford, a Gemini and Apollo astronaut, said he was confident that investigators would discover what caused the space shuttle Columbia to break apart Feb. 1.

“They’ve got some real pros working on finding the answers,” Stafford said Saturday while visiting Hutchinson.

Stafford toured the Stringer Fine Arts Center and the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center Saturday.

Stafford believes the debate about whether to continue space exploration ought to be over.

“The space program has affected everyone’s life,” he said. “It’s helped improve communications. The observations and experiments we’ve done have helped improve the quality of everyone’s life.”

Stafford serves as a consultant for the space shuttle Mir and the International Space Station.