Remembering Columbia, five years later

Lessons about safety culture still resonate, NASA managers say

(MSNBC.com) - NASA has launched seven shuttle missions since the loss of seven astronauts aboard Columbia five years ago on Friday, but the disaster still resonates as the space program prepares for its most ambitious year yet since it resumed orbiter flight.

Beginning with the Atlantis orbiter’s planned Feb. 7 launch to the international space station, NASA hopes to launch up to six shuttle flights this year — five of them dedicated to orbital construction. The lessons from Columbia are always close by, mission managers said.

“I think every day about Columbia and how that came about, and how we can prevent similar events,” NASA shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said this week, attributing the accident to what Apollo astronaut Frank Borman called a “failure of imagination.”