What: Director of NASA Ames to discuss the Columbia accident investigation

Who: G. Scott Hubbard, director of the NASA Ames Research Center, will discuss “The Columbia Accident Investigation: Causes and Contributors in a High-Risk Environment.�

Why: The space shuttle Columbia was lost with all aboard on the morning of Feb. 1, 2003. By that afternoon, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board was convened, in accordance with NASA guidelines established after the Challenger disaster in 1986. Hubbard served as the sole NASA official on the board. His talk will review the evidence for both the physical and organizational causes of the accident, with particular insight into the process of investigation that led to the board’s conclusion. The talk will summarize the board’s findings and recommendations for returning the space shuttle to flight and operating it safely in coming years. The potential for broad applicability of the board’s findings to complex, high-risk environments will be discussed.

For more information, check the DDLS Website: http://lsto.llnl.gov/DDLS/index.html.

When: Monday, February 23, 2004 at 3:30 p.m.

Where: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Bldg. 123 auditorium

Press members interested in attending the talk need to contact the LLNL Public Affairs Office at (925) 423-6627 to make arrangements.

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is managed by the University of California.

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