NASA's Safety and Mission Success Week - GSFC Director Shares Recollection of Visit to Shuttle Recovery

	Members of the Columbia Recovery team meet with Mr. Diaz during his visit to Corsicana, Texas. Pictured left to right are: Deputy NASA Lead Steve Sullivan (KSC); GSFC Center Director Al Diaz; Food Service Employee Jessica Hartnell; Space Flight Awareness Representative Julio Gramajo and NASA photographer Cara Johnston (JSC)

On November 20, as part of NASA's Safety and Mission Success Week, GSFC is very pleased to welcome Dr. Amy K. Donahue, Senior Advisor to the NASA Administrator for Homeland Security, as the Director's Colloquium speaker. Her talk is entitled "Lessons Learned from the Columbia Accident" and will be held from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Building 8 auditorium.

The Columbia recovery effort was one of the largest in history, and it happened to coincide with one of the most significant government reorganizations in history-the creation of the new Department of Homeland Security.

I hope you will take the time to attend this very special talk by Ms. Donahue. It is especially fitting and appropriate that we take time during the Safety and Mission Success Week to reflect on the heroic efforts of another group of people who's tireless efforts on NASA's behalf are not as well known, but are nevertheless vitally important - the thousands of people who helped recover Columbia's debris.

This summer, I had an opportunity to visit two of the sites where these recovery activities were based. It was such a memorable experience for me that I wanted to share with you some of what I experienced. I'd like to thank Jennifer McCarter of NASA Headquarters (HQ) for being my guide for the day and for introducing me to the many wonderful people involved with the operations in Texas.

When the Columbia broke up over Texas, debris showered down along a 2,400 square mile corridor stretching southwest from Corsicana in the north to Nacogdoches in the South. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was responsible for recovery operations and they engaged the Forest Service to provide workers to walk across that entire expanse, recovering pieces as small as several grams and as large as hundreds of pounds.

To get a sense of the scale of the recovery operation, each of the 4 campsites at Corsicana, Palestine, Hemphill and Nacogdoches (along with Lufkin, which acted as HQ for the operation) hosted as many as 1,500 people at a time. There was a participating population of about 10,000 overall during the operation of several months. These campsites were like little portable cities, contained in outfitted warehouses, circus-size tents and semi-trailers that were normally brought in to support forest fire operations. They were equipped with the necessary requirements for the care and feeding of the "walkers" as they were called.

Most of the labor was provided by young people in their 20's. They had worked forest fires and had also worked in New York City and Washington, D.C. after September 11. And I suspect many of them are working forest fires in the Western United States today. I was absolutely awestruck by the scope of activities in terms of organization and effectiveness. At the time I visited these sites, over 30 percent of Columbia had been recovered, catalogued and housed at the Kennedy Space Center in support of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and NASA investigations.

While I talked quite a bit to the "adult" supervisors, I couldn't miss the opportunity to speak to some of the young workers. They were advised daily by their supervisors and signs were posted everywhere stating that all "walkers" needed to wear snake chaps while in the woods. SNAKE CHAPS! Are you kidding? For a city person like me the thought of even acknowledging the presence of snakes in my immediate environs is terrifying enough, let alone making sure that my legs are protected from their strikes!

One young man jokingly told me that he knew exactly how to kill a snake if by chance its fangs became embedded in his chaps in its attempt to strike! I asked him how it was done. He said he would use a stick to dislodge the snake, and then shoot it. He looked at me in my linen trousers and told me that it was really important that it be done in that order! I must tell you that I was really impressed with the obvious attention to detail given to the health and safety of the workers. I was also impressed with the obvious cleanliness and orderliness of the camps.

The Forest Service leaders told me that they used peer group rules that had been developed over years of fighting fires. They had apparently worked very effectively. "Walkers," like firefighters, worked in teams and if any member broke a rule, the entire team suffered. Typically they would be denied the opportunity to work. Since this work represented a significant income source for these young people, there was a very strong motivation to comply with the rules, rules that were associated with health and safety as well as the maintenance of order.

But by far, the most impressive and rewarding discussion I had was with a young woman, a very young woman, who worked in the kitchen and the mess tent. She was on a break between the completion of morning meal cleanup and dinner prep and sitting alone. I sat down next to her and after I had established who she was and what she did, I asked her how this operation compared to her experience fighting fires. She said that she was actually enjoying this operation much more than forest fires. I asked her why and she recounted the fact that every week astronauts had visited them and talked about their work in space. She said volunteering made her feel that she was doing something very important and that there were a lot of people that really cared.

How profound, for someone who is not in our business to understand that what we [NASA] do is important. But for all of you here at Goddard, I know you do understand. We are all involved today in America's Space Program. That is our reward! It is our privilege to be involved in something that is larger than life. And just as my young friend in Corsicana told me, there are a lot of people that do now and will in the future, care.

Thank you for all that you do and remember that we are all involved in something that is very important and deserves our every effort to do it safely and do it well.