• FEBRUARY 7, 1986 SESSION.

  Marv Jones.

  Stanley Kline.

  Jesse W. Moore and Arnold D. Aldrich.

   

   

Note:

Centered number = Hearing page

[bold number] = Text page.

National Academy of Sciences

Auditorium

2100 Constitution Avenue,

N.W.

Washington, D.C.

The Presidential Commission met at 9:30 o'clock a.m.

PRESENT:

WILLIAM P. ROGERS, Chairman

NEIL A. ARMSTRONG

DR. SALLY RIDE

DR. ALBERT WHEELON

ROBERT RUMMEL

DR. ARTHUR WALKER

RICHARD FEYNMAN

EUGENE COVERT

ROBERT HOTZ

DAVID C. ACHESON

MAJOR GENERAL DONALD KUTYNA

ALSO PRESENT:

JESSE MOORE, NASA

ARNOLD ALDRICH, NASA

JONATHAN THOMPSON, NASA

MARV JONES, NASA

STANLEY KLINE, Federal Bureau of Investigation

MR.JONES: Mr. Chairman, members: I'm Marv Jones, Director of Safety, Reliability, Quality Assurance and Protective Services at Kennedy Space Center. The protective services includes fire and security.

Having gone through a rather lengthy title, I will focus on the very last one of those, specifically security. What I'm going to do is to focus on the security prior to the mishap and what we have done after that, and I will not spend a great deal of time, subject to your questions, as to the routine kinds of security that we maintain around the clock -

(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/17-1]

[195] - other than to say that basically we have a very large reservation, around 100,000 acres. We have perimeter gates, then we have gates with guards further in at the critical facilities, and then finally some internal guards.

Now, you will note on the six or seven viewgraphs that I have a large number of acronyms. I'm sure I will be in trouble with Jesse if I use any of them. There is a list, if all else fails, attached to the back of your briefing that describes what each of these are.

DR. WALKER: Could I just ask one question? Are you completely separate from Patrick Air Force

Base?

MR. JONES: No, we are totally a separate entity, with one exception. The Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Kennedy Space Center are contiguous, and by agreement between the two organizations the Air Force guards the south side and NASA guards the west and the north side, with the ocean taking care of the east. It's a very cooperative venture, but totally separate.

A few days before the launch we established what is called a Blast Danger Area. This is essentially a circle of about a 4500 foot radius around the launch pad. We also established what we call an Impact Limit Line, which is basically three miles from the launch pad. The purpose of the impact limit line is that, if there is a catastrophic problem, that no major pieces representing danger to property or to life should fall in that particular area.

All of that then becomes a guarded area.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: How large is that area?

MR. JONES: The Blast Danger Zone, sir, is 4500 feet from the center of the pad. It's a circle. And then the Impact Limit Line is basically three miles to the west of that. So that then the pads and the beach then are the unprotected area from the blast.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: It is all sides three miles

around and in the ocean?

MR. JONES: Let me have backup number 12 on the far screen, if I could, please.

What we have done is to effectively determine the maximum yield that the vehicle could generate if we didn't take any destruct action, so that we know essentially what kind of catastrophic situation we would have.

We then go back and draw an Impact Limit Line. In this instance, it is essentially right in front of the vertical assembly building, and then go due north, as you will see.

(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/7-1]

Here we have the dotted line, and we make sure then at launch time that we know that there is no one inside or to the east of that dotted line, which, as you see, comes down right by the landing facility, the vertical assembly building, on out through Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

And then the circles, as you see, are the Blast Danger Areas.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: What is the closest spot to the launch site?

MR. JONES: Well, this is actually on pad A, but it's exactly the same for pad B. We have 70 people who are inside

that impact limit line at the time of launch.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: My question is how far is it from the outside line to the launch pad B?

[196] MR. JONES: From here? This is about three miles, from here to the pad.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: So you're fairly comfortable that there were no people within that three mile area?

MR. JONES: Yes, sir, I am, with the exception of 60-odd people that I know who are there, and are there for a good reason. So we restrict access, of course, to that area at about the launch minus three day point and, with the exception of people who have to go to the launch pad for actual work, we also restrict access to the Launch Control Center and critical support facilities, such as some of the communications sites and some of the radar antennas.

Now, during this period of time we actually sweep the area twice daily. It is done with a helicopter with a security team on board. We do it at different times. And of course, we also have the guards that are still out in that area, and they are doing roving patrols and making sure no one gets in there.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Is it fenced in?

MR. JONES: The only fence we can speak to immediately is approximately 1200 feet out from the

center of the launch pad, and it is a complete enclosed fenced in area, with guarded access to get in and out. That is the only fence.

There are other fenced areas, but the whole center as such is not fenced in, no, sir.

DR. WALKER: Does the fence go down to the beach?

MR. JONES: No, it does not. There is on the launch pad, 1200 feet out, and then there's a large open area to the east of both pad A and pad B. Then there is a beach road and then the actual beach itself. But no, they do not go that far out, although access to that beach road and that area is controlled through a guard post.

Now, at this point approximately three days prior to launch, anyone who needs to get into the Blast Danger Area has to go through a rather elaborate series of checks, ultimately being approved by the NASA test director, who is on duty 24 hours a day. And when he arrives at a control checkpoint, he checks in with the guard who is there.

And the guard will not accept that individual's word that he needs to go in. He must radio back to the launch control center and to the console, and then the console will discuss why this man wishes to go in with

the NASA test director. And if he does not know why he needs to get in, he will not approve it. And for example, if there was a problem on the pad with a fire detection system on the structure, he might send an alarm technician in. If the NASA test director was not aware of that problem, he would go back to the control console in the firing room to confirm that they had a requirement. Then he would approve him going in.

So we think we have good controls for any access to the stack or the entire vehicle on the pad at that particular point in time.

(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/7-1]

Let me say that, really up front from our thing, we see absolutely no evidence as of this minute of any sabotage attempt, any willful attempt to damage the hardware, or any terrorist activity. And I might also add, we have no claims of that, which would not be out of character for terrorist activity.

Essentially, as we got closer to the launch, we of course were monitoring all of the security implications, and we simply had no unusual security incidents reported. We also take a pretty [197] good look - and generally, I've been focusing on the land areas right now, but as we got closer to the launch we

implemented certain launch area restrictions in the surface out in the water, and we had normal United States Coast Guard support, and also the Range Control Center, which is operated by the Air Force.

And we had various helicopters and boats operating out there. And in fact, on launch day we had three Coast Guard vessels, five helicopters, plus radar, surveiling the launch area.

And all of the logs and all of the tapes that we have been able to come up with so far reveal that there were never any reported penetrations of any boats in that area. On one of the NASA helicopters we had a brand new security officer who was being trained for the first time, was riding backwards in the helicopter and spotted what he thought was a small boat. It was over water and he was looking over water and had no frame of reference.

And we have interviewed everyone else on that helicopter and we believe that he spotted one of the Coast Guard boats. He thought it was 1200 feet away and it turned out it was more like five miles. He thought it was a 14 footer and it was a 41 footer.

But to substantiate their memories, we have also gone back and reviewed all of the films that would have any evidence of that area. On top of the large

building, the vertical assembly building, there are a couple of cameras and they are essentially looking down at the pad. But, this area, this suspect area behind, and we see no evidence of a ship.

I might add, there were eight to ten foot waves a mile out to sea, and we suggest a 14 footer would have been probably at some degree of risk to have been out there. And so we don't believe that this spotting was accurate.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Did this result in an investigation?

MR. JONES: Sir?

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Did this result in an investigation by you?

MR. JONES: Well, in the course of events post-accident this came up, about three days later, which led us then to go through the interviews and re-examine all of the tapes. And so it was a reaction on our part.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Did you file a report or is there a report of that incident?

MR. JONES: No, sir. It was reported verbally to us, and then we have documented that as part of the files that we are building.

DR. WHEELON: Would it be unusual for such a boat to be in the area at the time of the shuttle

launch?

MR. JONES: No, and I guess if the seas had not been rough it would have been just the opposite. We have experienced - I might add, I've been involved in every single one of the launches. We have had a large number of vessels attempt to get very, very close. We have had a large number of aircraft that have intruded into the area. We have actually had to hold launches for aircraft.

And that is why the Coast Guard is out there, simply because it is very common. It is a heavy area for boating interest, as you know, as well as fishing interest. And in fact, one day we [198] had the QEII simply pull up and stop with a full load of people to see it. And so it is quite common to have vessels.

But they all know the area is closed. Notices are sent out to them to tell them to stay out, and then of course the Coast Guard enforces it, as well as our helicopters, using loudspeakers or hailers.

DR. WHEELON: So if this should turn out to be a valid report, you wouldn't be surprised?

MR. JONES: No, I would not be surprised, that is correct. But at this point there is no evidence to suggest that it was valid. We believe that he saw something, but what he saw is the question.

MR. RUMMEL: Can you clarify the parachute

incident that was reported in the press?

MR. JONES: Yes. As you are aware, the solid rocket boosters are parachuted back. Initially when they come down, a drogue chute deploys, and once that's stabilized then at a certain point the other parachutes are deployed.

And what had happened, as best we can tell, that during the sequence of events post-event, post-accident, and post range safety destruct action, the parachute simply deployed. And what you were seeing then was a part of one of the solid rocket boosters as it came down.

MR. RUMMEL: Was it recovered?

MR. JONES: We do have a large number of those parachutes that came down, but the first report of a paramedic going into the scene by parachute was totally false. That was simply an assumption on the part of the author.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: I do think that these two points illustrate what we were saying earlier. Anything that we do not comment on in the report will be subject to later rumors and criticisms that we didn't even investigate those things.

DR. WALKER: These instances will have to be in our report.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Absolutely.

DR. WHEELON: How close was the nearest Russian vessel?

MR. JONES: We did not have one that was close enough to be a factor, which is fairly common for us.

DR. WHEELON: How close was the nearest Russian vessel? Not that it was a factor, but how close was it?

MR. JONES: I don't have that information.

DR. WHEELON: Can you find it for us?

MR. JONES: It's no problem finding it. I just don't have it.

I do know that from my own point, that he was not within visual sighting of the areas where we normally - where it would be common to see them. He wasn't three of four miles out, but I will find the exact location and provide that to you.

DR. WHEELON: On previous launches, how close do they come in?

MR. JONES: The closest I have seen them on one of these actual launches was I think about three and a half miles out, outside the legal limit. I have seen them probably within 100 yards of the three mile limit, very early in the Apollo program.

In fact, I believe for STS-1 - and this is

strictly from memory now - I believe they were more interested in the solid rocket booster splashdown area, and so we have seen them in various positions, close or a little further out.

DR. WHEELON: And then just in a qualitative way, on this one were they relatively close or relatively far away?

MR. JONES: To the best of my knowledge, the closest one was up north of Charleston, South Carolina. But again, that is from memory and I'm going to have to check it.

DR. WHEELON: So they were nowhere near the area? They were unusually absent?

MR. JONES: No, they have been off and on. We have had several launches where they didn't show up.

DR. WHEELON: On this launch were they unusually absent or in their normal position?

MR. JONES: Their normal position, from my perspective.

DR. WHEELON: Could you clarify that and be a little more precise?

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Jess, I think on those points you should have a complete file, and I don't care what you call it. We will have to have a section dealing with every one of these things. If we don't exclude

every possibility with some convincing evidence, we're going to be subject to criticism for a long, long time. And if you remember the Warren Commission, that is exactly what they were criticized for, failing to do this and that and other things.

They did a good job and they did all the things, probably, that any commission should do, but for years they have been subject to that kind of criticism.

So each one of these things, by asking the question we don't mean you haven't done a good job. We just want the material, so that you will have it ready when we need it, to exclude these possibilities.

And we are going to be working on the exclusion theory most of the time, probably. We're not going to discover something, so we're going to have to exclude a lot of these things and say, here is what's left.

MR. MOORE: Yes, sir. We will make sure that gets documented in great detail, and go back and look at the history from the first flight all the way up to this one, and try to give you a relative comparison of it.

MR. HOTZ: I think the point here is, how many - do they - or how do they behave when there is a launch of unusual interest, in contrast to how they behaved here.

MR. JONES: We've seen their interest vary from

high level of interest, close by, to no interest at all, simply by not being in the immediate vicinity and so you wouldn't be aware of it.

We know through intelligence sources where they are, and routinely prior to the launch the Air Force range commander is briefed on the location of those ships. So it's not uncommon to find them in Charleston or down south and sometimes in transit, going home. And so we get that data routinely.

It is just that I did not get it for this particular flight.

MR. HOTZ: But they didn't appear to be particularly interested in this flight?

MR. JONES: No, not from my perspective.

MR. COVERT: When you say they're highly interested, is that five ships, two ships, one ship?

[200] MR. JONES: In the immediate launch vicinity, I've never seen more than one close by.

MR. MOORE: You also have to realize they put ships in the splashdown area.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Most of the intelligence they get is from other sources, anyway.

(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/7-1]

MR. JONES: One of the other areas that we concern ourselves with prior to launch is what

mail-package screening. Essentially, what we do is to screen all the mail that is addressed to our center director, to the astronauts, and we also take a look at any other mail which seems to be consistent with the profile that one would anticipate finding if you had a suspicious letter or a letter bomb, something of that nature.

And we use the data or information from the FBI to establish what the profile is. And we had no significant mail of any type whatsoever, announcing any threats or any significant events as far as mail was concerned.

We did have a couple of packages that we thought were a little suspicious, and on actual examination again absolutely no significance related to the mishap.

(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/7-1]

MR. JONES: Turning now to the period of time immediately after the mishap, as you would perhaps expect we've had numerous reports of suspicious persons. We've had numerous letters from a wide variety of people around the country.

Primarily, though, they have been of what we would characterize as the kook type, telling us what went wrong. No one in any of those letters has claimed responsibility, announced any threats or anything.

We feel that just because it appears to be a kook letter to us is not in itself good reason to put it in a round file. As a result of that, we're working very closely with the FBI, the Secret Service as necessary, local law enforcement officers, and we intend to pursue each of those to a logical conclusion to satisfy ourself that in fact it was a kook.

DR. WALKER: You say numerous. About how many?

MR. JONES: Oh, I saw five or six yesterday. We have had reports from FBI field offices around the country that they've received some. I think one day last week I had five letters addressed to Jess Moore that we received at Kennedy. I would think probably a hundred would be a fair representation at this point.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: It's amazing there are so few.

MR. JONES: Well, Mr. Chairman, there will probably be a lot more than that ultimately. We also are concerned, of course, with the water areas, and as noted here on the chart that area is still controlled by the Coast Guard while the search and recovery process is going on.

Late - early in the evening after the mishap occurred, the Vice President came down, as I'm sure many of you know, and during his visit there or shortly after he departed we had a small boat that was reported about half a mile off the coast adjacent to Pad B which is shown on the map over there.

He seemed to just pull up and just stop in the water, and he was spotted by our security forces on the beach road. We tried to shine lights out and get some identification off the boat. It was not a large one, and we were never able to identify him.

[201] We tried to raise him with a radio and a PA system, public address hailers, and he did not respond at all, and so we called the Coast Guard.

As you can imagine, this was about nine hours after the accident. The Coast Guard was simply too busy to come and investigate him. He did not declare himself in distress, and after about thirty minutes he drove away, and unfortunately we were not able to get any

identification on him.

Our assessment is at this point it was probably a curiosity seeker, but we're trying to make every attempt to see if we can identify him. I am not encouraged that we will be successful at this point.

DR. WHEELON: From the way you describe this incident, you seemed to identify it with the presence of the Vice President. Did you mean to?

MR. JONES: Yes.

DR. WHEELON: Why?

MR. JONES: I will in fact come back to that in a couple of minutes.

Well, what we have taken a look at was what was not normal, and was it not normal because of some malfunction? Was it not normal because it doesn't happen? The Vice President being there is not normal. He doesn't routinely come down there. We had that boat incident that I just referred to. We had the Vice President on hand.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Could you give us the facts again on the boat matter? I wasn't clear on the facts.

MR. JONES: It seemed to be a small boat in the 15-18 foot range.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: What happened to the man in the boat?

MR. JONES: The boat stopped about a half a mile out to sea, approximately adjacent to the launch pad that we have used. We signalled him with flashlights, car lights, tried to speak to him on loudspeaker systems in the police car. He never responded to us at all. He never identified himself. We had no radio transmissions from him at all.

We asked the Coast Guard to come investigate, and since the ship had not declared himself in distress the Coast Guard opted to not show up.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Then what happened?

MR. JONES: Then he - -

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: He didn't land or anything?

MR. JONES: No, sir. There was no evidence. We were standing there with armed guards in case he tried it. He just cranked up his engine and left.

DR. WALKER: It's not illegal for that person to be there because it's not a launch.

MR. JONES: That's right.

DR. WHEELON: But why do you tie that to the Vice President's presence?

MR. JONES: Because of the presence of the Secret Service there and his presence, we were being very sensitive to any event that was out of the ordinary, and

that was out of the ordinary.

We were also concerned because of the mishap with anything that was out of the ordinary.

At approximately the same time, and I don't have the precise times with me. Over on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station there is a balloon that is called - well, it's tethered aerostat radar system, or nicknamed Fat Albert. Fat Albert crashed into the ocean at approximately the same [202] time. All three of these mishaps occurred, of course, shortly before noon. The Vice President arrived at 5:00 and was there until around 7:30. This event occurred about thirty minutes later, and within an hour of that time the balloon fell into the ocean.

The initial report on the balloon falling in was that there was a report of small arms ground fire, obviously a non-normal event, and that gave us a great deal of concern. It now turns out that the investigation revealed the balloon was being hoisted back up. It is taken down routinely before Shuttle launches and was going back up to aid in air traffic control over the search area because we had a large number of airplanes.

The balloon was probably up over 10,000 feet. The tether broke, and as each of the different strands

began to break under a lot of stress and high strain, then the Accident Investigation Board believes at this time, and their findings are not final, that what was heard was in fact the strands breaking.

So these were the not-normal events that I would actually include in there, and of course ground fire being heard within approximately ten miles of the Vice President gave us some concern, but again, no evidence whatsoever that there was ground fire.

MR. HOTZ: Fat Albert doesn't normally fly that high, does it?

MR. JONES: Normally it's about 12,000 feet.

DR. WHEELON: If the Vice President hadn't been there, would you have been surprised that there was a boat in the place you described?

MR. JONES: I think because of the mishap, yes, because we wanted to keep that whole area sterile at this point. It was obviously just a few hours after the accident, and we simply did not know what had occurred. We knew that we had floating debris out there. We had objects being washed up on the shore by this time, and I would not have wanted him there.

Now, I do not know as of right now what time the Coast Guard declared it a closed area. That is part of our trying to tidy this particular event up, because the Coast Guard did close that area to all surface

shipping.

DR. WHEELON: But you see the point of my question. You were tying it into the Vice President's being there. Had the Vice President not been there and he had still come, perhaps he was unwitting of the Vice President's presence and he was in an area where he shouldn't be, and all that sort of thing.

But it seems pretty normal to me that there would be a lot of curiosity seekers. Why are you so concerned with this?

MR. JONES: I'm not concerned with it at all, sir. I just simply am reporting the facts to you as I see them.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Jess, consider if you will, and you don't have to decide now, whether at some time in a public session this kind of report would be useful.

MR. MOORE: Okay.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: In other words, this is the kind of thing that would show care, and it would show that you have done a lot of work ahead of time and you have excluded some possibilities in public, so that would give us a basis for the report that we will make.

MR. MOORE: Yes, sir. I think that if we continue to go in and get most of the details put in to place and kind of get a big picture story, then I think

we can talk to you about some version that is going to the public.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: I think that you might keep in mind what kind of public sessions we can have without damaging your investigation and still reassuring the public that a lot of things are being done.

MR. MOORE: Yes, sir.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Go ahead.

(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/7-1]

MR. JONES: The next day after the launch we decided that one of the most important things that we could do was to search the area immediately adjacent to the pads, and we were perhaps somewhat influenced by what Dr. Kutyna suggested in view of the latter part of this in a sabotage event.

What we did was take thirty of our very well specially trained investigators and formed up five-man teams, and we spent the next three days closely examining the entire area within 2,000 meters of the launch pad; some pretty formidable terrain, some wild animals, alligators, virtually impassable areas out there.

We were simply searching for any evidence that someone had been there; food, paper, cigarette butts, scuffed areas, broken branches, flattened weeds. We

simply found nothing.

Now, related especially to the sabotage issue, we did find a few items of debris that could be orbiter related. We very carefully plotted where all of those were. We photographed them in place. If they could, we felt, stay secure, we would leave them there and get a trained engineer who would understand the thing better than my security people would, to come take a look at it.

To date we have found - well, I think we found about 25 items, many of which we have discounted as being orbiter related, a couple that were related to the vehicle. It is not uncommon to find a little bit of foam, for example, and an occasional piece of a tile, those kinds of things.

But no one who has examined the debris that we have found to date reads any special significance into it. We do have, of course, exactly where it was located.

As a separate action while we were doing the area outside of that perimeter fence which I referred to a few moments ago, we had a special facilities team, who understood the launch pad from an engineering point of view, do a complete walkdown of the launch pad, and that data will of course be available to you in a later forum.

After they finished, then we went back with some of our security people to take another complete

look at the entire area, essentially from the very top of the fixed service structure all the way to the ground. Yes, we started yesterday morning and should have finished late last night after I left for here, with a complete security investigation of the entire inside of the area.

Again, as of now, we have not found anything of any concern to us, and we have continued on using the mail, as I referred to a little bit earlier, and we are working with all of the other agencies who have perhaps received mail or those who have not. We're using their talents to help us in our use of it.

(Viewgraph.) [Ref. 2/7-1]

[204] MR. JONES: As we get official mail for the Board, it goes to the investigative board that we have. Unofficial mail goes to our public affairs office, and any suggestions or information relating to the mishap goes to the security office as well.

Additionally what we're doing, we are continuing to review all of the films that we have. The 60-odd people that I referred to who were inside the Impact Limit Lines are all being interviewed. We are satisfying ourselves that there were always two or more people together, that no one person was in there alone.

We are in direct liaison with the Air Force

Office of Special Investigations and the Naval Investigative Service, the local law enforcement agencies, the state as well as the FBI, as I was saying, and the real bottom line is, sir, as of this point there have been no claims of responsibility, and we have no evidence at this point that there was any attempt of sabotage or terrorism related to the orbiter. Just because we haven't found anything doesn't mean that we will stop looking.

DR. WALKER: The 60 people who were there, would they be doing things like operating cameras?

MR. JONES: Yes, there were camera operators, security personnel at various roadblocks, and fire, crash and rescue in the event that we had a problem on the pad to help the flight crew get out of the pad and get into a safe area.

DR. WALKER: So, they were all officially there?

MR. JONES: They were all there. We know exactly who they were and what their job is. It is a very limited number, and that is why we know precisely who the individuals are.

DR. WHEELON: Let me address a question to you and to Jess, if I may, meaning both the security and the technical side.

By the inspections that you, visual and otherwise, that you performed prior to the launch, can you preclude the possibility that an explosive was attached to the vehicle?

MR. JONES: I would say from my perspective, no, I cannot exclude that until I have examined all of the film and satisfied myself and looked at it [or]

MR. MOORE: I was just going to say that what we have tried to do is to look at the outside aspects of this thing to make sure that we could not find any, and we did not find anything suspicious.

We still plan to continue the investigative process, but we can't exclude that as an absolute possibility until we look at all of the photos from all aspects, and it's not clear that we're going to get coverage of all aspects of the areas we might be interested in. We can't exclude that possibility.

DR. WHEELON: Was the vehicle thoroughly photographed prior to launch?

MR. MOORE: Yes, we have photographs of the vehicle very, very close up prior to the liftoff.

DR. RIDE: Did you get pictures of the right SRB?

MR. MOORE: We got pictures of the right SRB; not total, however. They are in stacks. There are parts of it that are

excluded and so forth that we do not have pictures of, Sally, so there may be some area there that you're just not going to see anything.

[205] GENERAL KUTYNA: Jess, on our guidance systems the accelerometers are sensitive enough if I had an explosion aboard my vehicle it would be picked up by the accelerometer. Does the Shuttle have the same kind of sensors?

MR. MOORE: The Shuttle has some pretty sensitive things on it to pick up G-loads and the movement of the bird, like that and so forth, and that data is under work right now.

GENERAL KUTYNA: So as you analyze it, possibly if you had anything you would see it?

MR. MOORE: The loads analysis is a very critical question we're addressing right now in addition to the events time line which, as I said earlier, needs great correlation from everybody that was taking flight data in real time, and that seems to me is a systems thread one has to go through to get the people to agree on what the events are.

Then the loads analysis is another major effort that is going on right now to try to understand the dynamics of the loads that were on that vehicle as a function of its flight.

DR. WHEELON: Did you take - not have you analyzed, but do you have in your possession a good

photographic coverage of the area of the SRB which is presumed from the in-flight photography to have been a problem?

MR. MOORE: We have good photography of that SRB, but we do not have photography competely 360 degrees around the SRB, so there are some limited zones that we do not have photography of.

DR. RIDE: But I think there is photography of the area where the plume comes out.

MR. MOORE: There is photography but, Sally, there is not photography of exactly where the origin is at this point in time. At least the guys have told us that we do not see that area exactly where it comes out.

DR. WHEELON: But is there prelaunch of that area?

MR. MOORE: There are prelaunch photos of the entire stack that our photography team is going into and putting together right now, including as I might say prelaunch closeout photographs of all the flight segments and the various phases. We are trying to pull that whole stream of photographs together.

DR. RIDE: Do you do closeout photos of the vehicle on the pad just a day or two before, or are most of those closeout photos in VAB?

MR. MOORE: Most of those closeout photos are

on the VAB. There are some pictures taken at prelaunch but not in great detail from the time it goes to the pad until the time of launch.

DR. WHEELON: What kind of closeout photography do you have on the day of the launch?

MR. MOORE: The photography we have on the day of launch is the still cameras that were sitting there taking pictures during the actual liftoff. How many pictures have we seen of that still photography, Arnie, ten or so?

MR. ALDRICH: We personally have not looked at but a small percentage of the total number of films and locations. They are available.

MR. MOORE: But we have a real time camera that looks at the launch pad that is transmitted back into our console area that looks at video and so forth. There are also cameras that are sitting out at the pad.

DR. RIDE: I was going to ask you about those. There are a million cameras on the pad. Are they running the day of launch?

[206] MR. MOORE: They are running at some time before launch, Sally. I don't know exactly that time. Marv, do you happen to know that time?

MR. JONES: Well, there are a series of them out there, sir, activated one of two ways. One

sound activated, and the others are light activated. So essentially, Sally, they would be at ignition.

DR. RIDE: I'm talking about the ones that are basically - gosh, there must be almost a hundred percent coverage of the pad. You can't stand any place there without being in view of a camera. Just on, if you go out there a month before launch or something, there are cameras running all the time everywhere, and I was just wondering when those are turned off.

MR. MOORE: I don't know the answer to your question, and our photography team down at the Cape is pulling all of that data together and we have not looked at that data yet. We haven't had a chance to look at it, and I don't know the answer to your question. I don't know specifically when they are turned off. There are a lot of cameras out there.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Would the Commission be able to look at those pictures whenever we want?

MR. MOORE: Yes, sir, we would be more than happy to provide this Commission with any of the photographic data that we are looking at.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: It probably would be better to do it down there.

MR. MOORE: Yes. There's a photography lab that we had set up down there, and we have got a major

team of people that are just doing nothing but looking at photography and trying to enhance the photography and looking at it from different aspects.

So, yes, at the appropriate time it would be quite good.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: We would not want to do it at a time that would interfere with whatever they're doing, but from the time standpoint I think that would be useful, just so we don't interfere with the analysis.

MR. MOORE: Yes, sir, and I would say sometime in the next several days or week or week and a half we would probably begin to have a good photographic story together on the sequences that we see.

We may not have all of the fine enhancement done yet on the photography, but I think we will have a good knowledge base of the data in terms of the complete set of events sometime within the next several days or week.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Is this classified?

MR. JONES: No, sir.

MR. MOORE: Only sensitive from the standpoint of the public and exciting the public again.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Why don't we give it back to you? We don't need it.

MR. ACHESON: Has there ever been a sniper

incident at the Center?

MR. JONES: No, sir. One of the things that we thought, that Dr. Graham suggested that we offer to the Commission, is the subject of the generic terrorism threat at Kennedy Space Center.

We have asked the FBI to share that information with us, and I think they will have a few minutes on that.

[207] DR. WALKER: Can I just ask one question on that? Would you say that your security is sufficiently tight so that in your mind no one unauthorized could have gotten to the vehicle at any time when it was undergoing any of its operations at the Cape? It sounds like that is the case.

MR. JONES: We believe that we have a very positive control system. I would be very hesitant to say absolutely no one can get in. I think I would be foolish to make that commitment to you, but I think we have a pretty positive control system.

DR. WALKER: The intent is good.

MR. JONES: The intent is good. I think we have reasonably good control.

DR. RIDE: As a result of what you've been doing just the last week or so, have you come up with any suggested improvements for the security system, or

have you got any recommendations?

MR. JONES: Oh, I could come up with a million dollars worth of improvements probably overnight, Sally; infrared detectors, closed circuit TV cameras, intruder alarm detection systems. But yes, I could improve on the system.

DR. RIDE: I guess that is kind of the same as Art's question, which was do you think it is possible for somebody to have gotten on there and sabotaged it, not on this particular launch but just generically? Is that something you're concerned about?

MR. JONES: One, I think, it would have to be an orchestrated effort by more than one person because I think we try to - -

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Could you just say you can assume that what is happening in the world is that there are all kinds of orchestrated efforts and they always have more than one person, so that's an assumption.

MR. JONES: We try to keep two-man control anytime anyone is out there. There are obviously times when you can't do that, when you're getting back into the aft end of the engine department, and so on.

But we do try to make that effort.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: I think this is really a

vitally important issue because of terrorism in the world. I mean, this is a natural place, particularly with this accident.

MR. MOORE: Yes, sir. As visible as the Shuttle program is worldwide, I totally agree with you.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: It seems to me we should continue to draw on this one as long as necessary to make sure it is absolutely secure.

DR. RIDE: I think this is a good area of investigation to be sure what the possibilities for sabotage are.

MR. JONES: We have done some fairly lengthy studies and tried to come up with some scenarios, and then we have characterized those in terms of attractiveness to an outsider, and then in terms of likelihood, and then we have those kind of numbers.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: When you talk about attractiveness, do you have any scenario to handle a small plane with a suicide pilot?

MR. JONES: No, sir. Well, yes, we do, as a matter of fact, and I think that I would have to say that we are - and I would like to treat this portion of it, sir, if I could, as classified.

[208] It is simply a vulnerability that we cannot address. It is rather ironic that one week ago today I was supposed to be in this very building meeting with the Presidential Protective Detail to discuss their procedures of how they protect the air

space over the White House, and that was an arranged meeting which, of course, was cancelled, but to address that very subject.

DR. WALKER: But this is an area of concern for you?

MR. JONES: Well, I think it is, and of particular concern, and I happen to have had a military background as General Kutyna does. The rules of engagement are horrifying. An airplane comes toward the launchpad and you get terribly concerned. At what point do you shoot him down? Only to find that it was a poor young man from Memphis on his way home from the Bahamas, and was curious. I mean, he shouldn't have been in that air space.

DR. COVERT: Or lost, even.

MR. JONES: But it could occur. And that is kind of a real problem to come to grips with. The rules of engagement and how do you protect a 40-story building which is the launchpad with a vehicle on it?

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: All you have to imagine is the type of terrorist who drove the truck into our embassy, and I guess I accept the fact that probably there isn't anything you could do that is completely safe. But I do think the record should reflect that you are giving a lot of consideration and you are trying

to do something, and that there are some steps that can be taken along that line. I think that would be very helpful.

MR. MOORE: Yes, sir. We have not given up looking into the internal prospects as well. I mean, I think Marv Jones and company have done a good job of sweeping some of the areas. He told me that they walked over some areas on the land around the launchpad down there.

That is probably the first people since the Indians left that area down there, and so they have covered a lot of acreage around the pad, but I do think that we have to continue to look internal as well at our own system to see if there are some suspected areas that we would want to proceed on. So I think this is by far not closed at this point in time, and we need to continue to work this area.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Thank you very much.

MR. MOORE: Sir, the next thing is that we asked for a very short presentation by the FBI on the general threat in the area, just as some background information for the Commission.

[209] Viewgraphs introduced by Marv Jones on February 7, 1986 were not published for security reasons.

MR. KLEIN: Thank you. My name is Stanley Klein. And I am an FBI special agent, and as such, I direct the bureau's counterterrorism efforts in the United States, both domestic and international. I am assigned to FBI Headquarters.

I would like to begin by saying that Director Webster expresses his greetings and offers the full resources of the FBI to this Commission and to NASA. We are now working with NASA in Florida and throughout the country in trying to dispel, if that is what we should do, any hint that a terrorist has committed sabotage and caused the explosion of the Space Shuttle.

What I would like to do is touch on terrorism briefly, what we see in this country and what we view as the major threats, what we have seen so far, and some of the inquiries we have looked at based upon information supplied to us by private citizens and the news media, et cetera, and where we stand and where we hope to go in the future.

We have approximately 18 domestic terrorist organizations currently under investigation and 40 some odd international terrorist organizations under investigation operating within this country with many hundreds and hundreds of supporters and infrastructures

and groups, et cetera, and it is a tangle of motives and ideals and religious fanaticism, et cetera. I would like to concentrate on Florida more than anything else to show you what we see there now. Between 1981 and 1983, there were nine bombings and seven attempted bombings and one kidnapping carried out by terrorist groups or alleged terrorist groups in the Florida area. All 17 of these incidents were in Miami, Florida.

There has been no indication of terrorist activity up around the Cape, and there don't seem to be any groups operating in that area. A group called Omega 7, which was an anti-Castro Cuban group some of you might have heard of, were the perpetrators of these bombings. The leader, Eduardo Arencino, was arrested not too long ago, and is currently serving a life plus 55 year sentence, I believe, and with his prosecution and conviction, there have been no terrorist acts in Florida since that time, in the past year or two.

The major threats in the United States right now, we believe, are posed by Libya, by Iran, and by domestic terrorist groups operating out of Puerto Rico, which is not that far from Florida. As far as Iran is concerned, we have seen no terrorist acts committed by that country in this country.

Most of their activity centers around intelligence-gathering and attempts to purchase weapons and spare parts to ship back to Iran to support their war with Iraq. They have a large organized infrastructure in the United States based mostly on college campuses, and they collect their information from meetings and "askings that they get directly from Iran, and we believe [211] we are about as on top of their operations as we can be at the present time. We don't believe that any Iranian terrorists were involved in the action on the disaster of the Shuttle.

Libya. Although Mr. Qaddafi makes a lot of pronouncements and he makes it seem as though he can reach into our streets, I believe, and our investigations have shown that he has not as yet reached into our streets. When he has attempted to, we have been able to stop him. The attempts of intelligence officers that he sends into this country are almost naive. They seem to be the gang that couldn't shoot straight. They go through intermediaries to get things done, and because they do, we are able to insert often undercover agents and thwart their plans before they occur and arrest their operatives.

DR. WHEELON: Stop right there. You would agree they reach into the streets of Lebanon, wouldn't

you?

MR. KLEIN: Absolutely. Could they reach into the streets here? Of course.

DR. WHEELON: And haven't they drilled some of their own people here on our own streets?

MR. KLEIN: What Qaddafi has done is offered training to individuals in the states that he believes would form a support base for his view, his Green Book view of what the Arab world should be in the states and support his causes, and because of that people have been flown or have flown themselves to Libya and participated in training in that country.

Most of that training is what you and I would refer to as basic training, some basic military skills, political indoctrination, and through the intelligence community and through our sources we have not seen Americans being trained there for what we would define as terrorist activity.

DR. WHEELON: I appreciate all of that, but isn't it true that they have in fact killed their own people here in this country?

MR. KLEIN: They have made attempts to assassinate dissidents in this country. And the last instance was about a year ago, when they did send an intelligence officer into the United States, and he was

forming up an organization to plan the assassination of anti-Qaddafi dissidents. We were fortunate enough to thwart that plan, and he left the country, and we have the people that are part of his group currently under very close scrutiny.

DR. WHEELON: But there have been no killings?

MR. KLEIN: No, there have been no terrorist acts in this country involving assassinations, murders, or bombings that were supported by Qaddafi unless you go back to the assassination that occurred in Colorado by a surrogate, whose name escapes me at the moment, who did shoot, attempted assassination, I should say, a Libyan dissident in Colorado.

This guy was part of the Wilsin-Terpil network, and of course Wilson is in jail now, so he did make attempts, but he has not really succeeded.

DR. WHEELON: I don't think it is relevant. I was just trying to focus in on that.

MR. KLEIN: I just wanted to touch on Iran and Libya briefly to say that we have no information based upon our best intelligence, which includes human sources and technical sources, that either Iran or Libya, our two greatest threats in this country, were involved in any actions against the Shuttle.

That is not to say that information such as

that might not come up in the future as we continue probing our sources and things such as that. The only viable domestic group would be an organization that calls itself the Macheteros out of San Juan, Puerto Rico. They have been involved in numerous terrorist acts on the island, one of which is interesting because it does involve explosions that damaged aircraft on the island. This occurred on January 12th, 1981, where a series of 18 explosions occurred which totally destroyed a Corsair, two A-7B subsonic attack planes, damage to one Starfire F-104 aircraft, and also some equipment that was in the National Guard air corridors alongside the planes. They went in, cut through a chain link fence, went in at night, planted their explosives, one in the front of the plane and one in the back.

Let's see. There were, I think, eleven devices planted, and it caused $45 million in damages. The Macheteros have also been active in this country. They were responsible for a multimillion dollar armored car robbery in Hartford, Connecticut, in which we have staged a series of raids and arrests in Puerto Rico in the latter part of last year and arrested eleven individuals, the leadership of the Macheteros.

And they are currently incarcerated and about to go on trial, hopefully by the summer or fall in

Hartford for that armed car operation. We do not have any indication that this group, which does have the skills, and could have the desire to make a statement, was involved in any action that was taken.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Are they supported by any foreign governments?

MR. KLEIN: Cuba. The Puerto Rican independence terrorist groups that operate in Puerto Rico we have definite very interesting information that is going to probably come out during the trial process about the Cuban involvement in support of Puerto Rican terrorism going on.

DR. WHEELON: Okay. Now, you fellows rolled up a Puerto Rican gang in Chicago which was preparing for activity about two years ago.

MR. KLEIN: That group was the FALN, which is the Puerto Rican liberation movement in this country. We did conduct a series of arrests. We did arrest a number of people up there. There also have been a number of people arrested in New York and in other parts of the country. Most of the leadership of the FALN is in jail right now. And I think with the FALN in jail and the Macheteros in jail, we are going in the right direction, and that is how we look at terrorism, as criminal acts. I mean, we don't look at it as political acts. And we try to

identify those people who are involved and put them in jail, and all of a sudden the terrorist statistics go down.

DR. WALKER: What about the neo-Nazi group that was just sentenced?

MR. KLEIN: The Aryan Nation is a rightwing organization. Again, its leadership, eleven of them, ten or eleven of them were just convicted of racketeering charges in the state of Washington and are currently awaiting trial. There is no indication, although they certainly have the wherewithal as far as weapons, homemade weapons and explosive expertise to do something like that, there is no indication either that this group was active or is active or has been active in Florida.

DR. WALKER: Going back to Libya, what about Farakhan, who is making some noises about going to Libya?

MR. KLEIN: Yes, we are very interested in Mr. Farakhan.

[213] DR. WALKER: Do you think it is mostly noises?

MR. KLEIN: Well, he certainly received a lot of money from Mr. Qaddafi, and we are looking at that very closely to see if that money will be, could be, might be used to support terrorism in this country. At

tints point in time we can't say one way or another.

DR. WHEELON: What about the parties responsible for the bomb in the Capitol?

MR. KLEIN: We believe there were two cells. I think I will take you back in time a little bit to the old Weather Underground, going back to the SDS days on the campuses, and as I say often, I think most of them when they turned 40 became - their motives changed, yet there was a small, dedicated group of people that were involved in criminal acts and supported revolution in this country.

One of those groups was, one of those cells which moved up and down the east coast from Boston to Washington to Baltimore consisted of individuals that were involved in the robbery of the armored car in Nyack, New York, in 1981. Marilyn Jean Buck's name comes to mind. I don't know if you have heard her name mentioned before. And in her house during the searches that followed her arrest we did find detailed plans in a folder calling for action on various facilities around the country, which included this building, very detailed sketches of where to place a bomb, and also other targets such as some facilities at Annapolis, et cetera.

Most of their bombings occurred in the evening hours. They were preceded by a telephone call. They

did not want to cause any grave, I don't believe, any grave physical damage. Our terrorists as opposed to the ones you see in Europe seem to want to make a statement, and they believe, I think, that the taking of human life detracts from their cause, which is to gather the American people behind them in a socialist communist revolution at some point in time, and that turns people off.

So, most of those individuals also currently have been arrested during the past few years and are currently in jail, and we don't believe that those two cells function or exist any more. I would be surprised to see another bombing like that occur in D.C., but then again there are people out there who could take up the flag.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: I think the FBI does a fine job. I am sure you do all you can do prevent it. This is a little bit beyond our jurisdiction. Go ahead. We are having a bit of a time problem here.

MR. KLEIN: I have been working with NASA since the explosion by offering FBI laboratory services to NASA, and we were in receipt of some hairs and fibers on February 2nd from NASA that we have examined in the FBI laboratories, and the exams have been completed, and we do have human hair, Negro hair, Oriental hair, and

hair from two different brown-haired Caucasians, and what is interesting, according to the laboratory, is that there were no signs of heat damage to any of the hair, which was surprising. The hair came from face seals, fragments of helmets, and helmet liners, and headrests.

There have been a number of threats and investigations that we have become involved in since the Shuttle went down. An engineer in a consulting firm for Rockwell Engineering out in California advised the FBI that he believed the Shuttle was hit by a laser, that his examination of the frame by frame stills - I don't know how he recorded it - showed that brown smoke was [214] emitted as opposed to white smoke, which would mean that - the white smoke would indicate a fuel problem, and brown smoke would indicate possibly a laser.

And we have interviewed the chief engineer at Hughes Aircraft, and he believes the theory is plausible but not probable. The FBI agent that interviewed this person believes he is sincere, and not a flake, or not demonstrating any emotional instability, but it is just a theory which we have passed on to NASA.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Is that being taken seriously at NASA?

MR. MOORE: All possibilities are being looked

at. Yes, sir. No possibilities are being excluded.

GENERAL KUTYNA: I tell you, if that guy has got a weapon like that, I would like to put him on my project.

(General laughter.)

MR. KLEIN: There have also been a number of other instances where people have come forward and said they believed that this happened or that happened, and we are following every one of those leads out. At this point in time we pass it on, because we don't have the scientific expertise to say whether their theories are correct or not correct. We just pass it on to NASA and let them be the judge. And so I guess what I wanted to say is, there is no terrorist threat, no information that there is, or was or is a group that planned, organized, or executed any action at Cape Canaveral.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: And I am sure you are watching very carefully to see that it doesn't happen in the future.

MR. KLEIN: We are watching very carefully.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Thank you very much.

Any questions?

DR. WALKER: Should we handle these theories with our own discretion? That is, if an individual who

is someone who we know, and if the person has a theory, we handle that in a way that we think best, but if there is someone that you don't know, do you have any advice in that regard?

MR. KLEIN: I am sorry?

DR. WALKER: If someone contacts us personally and has a theory about the explosion, do you have any advice to offer us as to how we should handle that?

MR. KLEIN: Yes. If you could pass it on to either us or NASA, we are conducting these kinds of interviews jointly, so we will take it for possible sabotage violation, and somebody from NASA.

MR. MOORE: It is kind of my repository right now for all of these kinds of things, and we are going to run every one of them down. It is our intention right now.

MR. JONES: If you get some information of that type, either refer it to Jess's office or Stan's, and then while you are down at the Cape area, again, my office, and we will tie this thing together, because I see the highest degree of cooperation between all of the government agencies on this particular operation. No one is worried about turf. Everybody is working together. The Bureau and NASA are working together. And we will handle any of those kinds of things that you

receive.

[215] CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Okay. Thank you very much.

MR. MOORE: Let me just add one little more comment to what Mr. Walker said. Don't send it to me by mail. Hand it to me personally or to Marv personally, because I don't think we want to distribute that information in the mail to my office.

MR. THOMPSON: Mr. Chairman, if you want to give it to me, I can take care of getting it to Jess.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Okay. That's fine.

MR. MOORE: We have completed all of our discussions we had planned this morning with you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Why don't you come up here, Jess? Can you tell us now anything beyond what we have read in the newspapers?

MR. MOORE: I can tell you that about 670 or 80 milliseconds after launch we saw a short puff of black smoke come out of the righthand solid. We cannot see the exact origin of it. I have had reports that it is all the way down to where the attached unit from the external tank attaches the solid all the way to some two feet or so above that, which could or could not include the joint, which some people are focusing in on right now.

I can also tell you that we did see some - -

DR. WHEELON: Wait a minute. Excuse me. Within a second of launch?

MR. MOORE: It was less than a second. What was it, Arnie, 680 milliseconds?

MR. ALDRICH: Six-tenths of a second from ignition of the solid, and that is the precise time that the solid comes to full internal pressure.

DR. WALKER: That was before liftoff?

MR. MOORE: No. Let me go through the sequence again. The sequence is, the main engines starts at about 6.3 seconds before actual liftoff from the launchpad. You bring the engines up to near full throttle. Then you send a mission signal to the solids from the GPC, the General Purpose Computer on board. The solids ignite, and that is what we call liftoff. At about 670 or 80 --

DR. WALKER: It doesn't actually lift off then?

MR. MOORE: Well, it takes some pressure to lift it off of the launch support platform.

DR. WALKER: How long does it take the solids to build up?

MR. MOORE: We don't know precisely. That is what we are looking at on

these films, to try to get the precise time that the system unlatched itself from the pad. There will be some variation in there. It is not exactly precise.

This happened about 680 or so milliseconds. It finished at about two seconds or so. And it settled down. We don't see it any more. And the orientation of it on the one set of films that we have looked at is kind of behind the solid. It is kind of obscure. We see the smoke come out, but we do not see, we cannot see on at least the initial films we have looked at exactly the origin of it.

DR. FEYNMAN: Could you remind me whether the oxygen line that comes down along the ET tank and those trays of electrical cables, is it in that area, or is it somewhere else?

MR. MOORE: They are on the right side of the Shuttle. The whole cable tray that you saw yesterday on the bottom and so forth are on the right side of the Shuttle.

DR. FEYNMAN: In a place that could possibly be related?

[216] MR. MOORE: Possibly. The other question that was asked, I guess, Bud asked me earlier about the range destruct and so forth, the linear shape charge that goes up and down the solid, all the way up to approximately the area below the thrustum where the parachutes are stored up, down the segments, up until some 18 or 24 inches above the attach going onto the ET, the linear charge that goes up the solids and each side of the solid.

DR. FEYNMAN: How close is that to the electrical tray?

MR. MOORE: That in terms of distance, I would say a few feet would be my guess to the electrical tray that carries that cable.

Arnie, do you have a better idea?

MR. ALDRICH: You are talking about the shaped charge

on the solid?

MR. MOORE: Yes, where it is relative to the tray on the external tank.

MR. ALDRICH: I don't think we could comment in terms of the clocking radially around the solid with respect to that. I am not sure that I know.

MR. MOORE: It is feet. I mean, it is not very close. I mean, there's the big solids themselves and then there is the distance.

DR. FEYNMAN: I am confused. I thought there was also a destruct tray along the ET.

MR. MOORE: There is.

DR. FEYNMAN: That one, is that close to the electrical line?

MR. MOORE: That is close to the cable tray. There is a cable tray that goes up through the thing, and there is an destruct package down on the top of the tank and one down on the bottom.

MR. ALDRICH: There is a destruct tank in the middle under the orbiter. However, you are asking for information that we know. We have found pieces of both of those cord, and neither has been fired on the external tank.

DR. FEYNMAN: You have found that?

MR. MOORE: Yes, we found that floating.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Why don't we let him go ahead and finish, and then we will ask questions.

MR. MOORE: Then that finished at about two seconds, and we did not observe or we have not observed in any of the photography we have looked at up until that period of time, and then there was an unusual event, a forced event that occurred around, what, 40 seconds or so is what the time line chart indicated. And you have a better analysis of that than I have. Why don't you come up here and discuss that?

MR. ALDRICH: This would be a correlation.

MR. MOORE: Is that the time line? We haven't seen that?

DR. RIDE: Yes.

MR. ALDRICH: Without trying to read this, the telemetry events do show indications of happenings as the flame occurs on the solid rocket boosters in flight. And Jess, I can't recall the discussion we had at Marshall about the possibility of some dynamic change at 40 seconds. There was such a discussion.

MR. MOORE: The gimbal angles on the solids moved at about that period of time, as I recall. And they moved about two degrees, and maybe Sally has got it listed in there.

DR. RIDE: I think it is in there. I think

there may be something at around 40 seconds.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Sally, why don't you come up here, too?

DR. COVERT: Sally, what was the altitude, then, 35,000?

DR. RIDE: Probably. I am not sure.

MR. MOORE: The events that we are looking at could be associated with some winds. It could be associated with some loadings and so forth. We send up weather balloons at various times before launch, and the last balloon we did was about two and a half hours.

That balloon data is then sent down to Houston for computing the wing loadings and system loadings on the orbiter at that point in time, and early on, I guess, about 20 hours or 15 hours before launch we had seen some wind changes, but they were within the spec of the envelope and so forth.

DR. WHEELON: At 40 seconds you are at Mach .85 and 16,000 feet going 950 feet per second at 65 percent throttle thrust with a Q of 605.

MR. MOORE: Go ahead, Arnie.

MR. ALDRICH: Looking at this closely, the first thing that I recall started about 60 seconds, and that is when you first began to see the flame on the exterior photos as well, and at that time the thrust

within the solid rocket boosters is building gradually, normally, and they see the lefthand booster, which is the one we suspect performed normally, build along the normal thrust profile, which is a slight increase.

At that time they do not see the righthand rocket. It attempts to stay down, and is affected in some way and does not build.

VICE CHAIRMAN ARMSTRONG: And what is the sensor, Arnie?

MR. ALDRICH: I believe the thrust level from the solids is a derived calculation based upon the performance of the stack. Coupled with that, we do have thrust chamber pressure from the solids, and the chamber pressure on the righthand solid does not build, and it does on the right. So both the calculated thrust level and the chamber pressure correlates as not increasing on the righthand side as this bright spot appears on the left, it does appear.

As I say, we haven't been down to Florida in two days, and I haven't seen what Sally has, but further up the cycle, close to the event, as you approach the 70-second time frame, you do see a kick of order of magnitude of two degrees in the gimbals on both solids, both pitch and yaw, or what do you call it, rock and tilt on both solids, and you see a similar minor

adjustment on the main engines as they account for some dynamics, and that is what Jess was describing.

My recollection is, that is higher up, closer to the event.

MR. MOORE: You could be right, because I haven't physically sat down and seen that data in several days, so the timing that you probably have, Sally, is probably the most accurate timing that we have at this point in time.

MR. ALDRICH: And then I recall at about the time that the visual analysis predicts the hydrogen tank first beginning to rupture, where you see hydrogen fuel come out of the hydrogen tank, and on the order of a second later you can see the rupture occur and fuel come out of the oxygen tank. You can also see the main engines which are being fed by these liquids. The main [218] engine chamber pressure decreases slightly because of the lack of feed from the propellant system.

I think those are the only indications that I can remember.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Would you mind going over what you just said about the six-tenths of a second, and then the remainder of it, because I am not quite clear.

MR. ALDRICH: Yes, sir. At ignition T zero on the Shuttle launch is defined as the time we light the

solids as the main engines are lighted at minus 6 seconds, so T zero is essentially the solid rocket ignition. The time of release is slightly different than that, almost precisely the same time. At six-tenths of a second the thrust within the solid rockets builds to its maximum pressure, its normal flight pressure, and in the photos that we have -

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Now, is that when the rocket takes off and leaves the ground at that point, six-tenths of a second?

DR. RIDE: That is sort of hard to define, because as soon as it ignites, it starts trying to get off, and the main engines are already running, and so they are trying to get it off, so the whole process, it is hard to say when it actually is no longer in contact.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: But obviously at about that time.

MR. MOORE: Yes, at about that time. I think that is correct.

DR. WALKER: It is not restrained, it is just sitting there?

MR. ALDRICH: No, it has bolts that hold it up.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: It rips them out?

MR. MOORE: They are blown. You want to hold down the launch to make sure that you do a validation check on the main engines. In other words, we want to bring the main engines up to make sure all three are running and you have full redundancy in each engine, and that is a launch commit criteria.

DR. WALKER: Once you start the solids, then you release any constraints?

MR. MOORE: That is correct.

DR. WHEELON: And isn't it true you probably start to lift off before you have the maximum pressure?

MR. ALDRICH: I believe so.

DR. WHEELON: So probably at about .4 you start to move.

MR. MOORE: I think we will be able to tell that when we go back and look at some of the high-speed photography.

MR. ALDRICH: That is my point. I didn't want to imply that that fact can in fact be determined. I just don't know precisely.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: But at about that time?

MR. ALDRICH: At about that time, that is what happened, and we can tell you precisely.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: But then you see something?

MR. ALDRICH: Let me say one more thing about

blowing the bolts, because that is an important factor. We send the signal to ignite the rockets. At the time it is called T zero, or launch. We also send the signal to fire the bolts, either at precisely that time or within milliseconds of it. But before that, the rockets are bolted solidly, [219] and they see a loading, because the Space Shuttle main engines are cantilevered off the solid rockets.

We light them at minus 6 seconds. The whole vehicle stack actually swings forward and back, and the timing of when you will commit to light - to release and light the solids is timed such that you load that stack this way and back from the main engine ignition, and about the time it is vertical again, that is the 6-second period, and the ignition of the solid, so these boosters give a strong bending load during that 6 seconds up to the time of ignition.

Now, your question, what did we see? At six-tenths of a second after ignition the solid rocket pressure is essentially up to flight level. On the righthand solid in the same area that 60 seconds later you see the flame you see a puff of black smoke, a big puff.

DR. WHEELON: How big?

MR. MOORE: I would say it was a couple of

feet in diameter.

MR. ALDRICH: I would say it was about the size of a main engine bell.

MR. RUMMEL: Would a burning seal produce that black smoke?

MR. ALDRICH: That is under discussion and investigation. The comment I have heard, and I am not an expert, and we don't know the answer yet, is that more likely the grease that is used around the seals if it were burned could cause a smoke of that characteristic. It is a very dark smoke. Most of the flame and smoke you see is light-colored, and this is a very black puff.

DR. FEYNMAN: Possibly from graphite in the liners or something

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Why don't we go ahead and let him tell the rest of it? Then we can come back with questions.

DR. WHEELON: Have you ever seen such a puff before?

MR. ALDRICH: We are researching all flight films, as we do on every flight. No one that has done that viewing the films in the past recalls seeing it before. We are going back to be sure that we haven't missed anything.

DR. WHEELON: So it could have been there?

MR. ALDRICH: It could have been there before. No one recalls seeing it.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Anyway, now you have got the puff of smoke, roughly two feet.

DR. WHEELON: Two to ten.

MR. ALDRICH: I would say two by ten.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: Then what happens?

MR. ALDRICH: That seems to persist for 2.9 seconds and stop, because as the stack rises you can see the booster rising through the puff, and it disappears, and there apparently is no evidence of further black smoke or any other condition from that area until the time 60 seconds later that you see this little finger of flame approximately, and by approximately it could be a number of feet apart along the solid either radially or upwards or downwards. We haven't correlated the blownup photos well enough to say how close the two things are together or whether they coincide in their location. They are from that place on the solid rocket booster in a general sense, however.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: If you get to that point where those things are pretty accurately determined visually, will you then be able to isolate the area or could that condition be related to a lot of other [220] things? In other words, does that help you isolate the cause?

MR. MOORE: I think it helps us isolate the cause, but contributing factors, it could be a while to understand what the contributing factors were. The other thing, let me point out, as the cases are put together, I don't know if they were shown yesterday, I don't recall, there are metal pins about that big in diameter and about that long that are inserted around the case. There is a cork lining put around those pins. There is a band and a cork lining around it. And then there is grease put along the outside of that entire segment out there, and so I have heard some comments that the smoke goes up, and others have said the smoke goes out, and so forth, so we don't have that exact origin, but we have really got an area to go and concentrate on.

MR. ALDRICH: I would also like to recall Don's presentation this morning. We of course do discuss scenarios as we go along our path, and there is every possibility that this black smoke is from something completely different from the thing that caused the flame or the thing that caused the accident.

DR. FEYNMAN: This is what we would have called an anomaly? Is that right?

MR. MOORE: There is no question, and we have got the people putting all these anomaly trees together. The way you eliminate the anomalies is, you validate them, and in most cases you need to go through testing or to have previous test data to cross off this as an anomaly, and that is what we are building now, is one giant system anomaly tree, to go through and try to cross off all the things on that tree that we can validate as we test or through other procedures.

MR. ACHESON: How many seconds apart did you say the black smoke and the first visible plume of flame were?

MR. ALDRICH: Sixty. This is fairly close to the ignition and liftoff. Now, when we do the refinement of the photography, it may be that a much smaller flame is visible a good bit earlier than that, but what we have been able to see to date, the flame starts about 60 seconds.

GENERAL KUTYNA: Arnie, I didn't press Judd yesterday, but he talked about erosion, post-flight inspection to find out about erosion of these joints.

MR. ALDRICH: It is an anomaly unless we find a film where we have seen one just like it.

VICE CHAIRMAN ARMSTRONG: These incidents all fit very well within Don's anomaly tree.

How much of a problem has that been? Have you got it solved yet, do you think, or do you still think it is sort of an open item?

MR. ALDRICH: It has been in discussion in the program at least during the last year. There are two O-rings around the seal, and on about five, perhaps half a dozen STS flights, on each flight there are six seal areas, three segments, three breaks in each of two solids. There are six seam sets that see the flight experience each time we fly, and on five flights one or at least on one flight two of those seams saw some amount of erosion on the inner O-ring.

That is believed to have occurred at ignition. When you first pressurize, you get some blowby of the first O-ring, but in every case they have seen it stop by the second O-ring. However, that blow-by has caused what they consider to be within an allowable tolerance the amount of degradation called erosion of that O-ring, and then sooting from that degradation occurred between the two O-ring seals.

DR. WALKER: But not beyond the second O-ring?

MR. ALDRICH: Not beyond the second one.

[221] MR. SUTTER: Are these O-rings replaced?

MR. ALDRICH: They are brand new every

flight. There is an interesting factor related here that you should understand. Of all of those instances that occurred, the worst one that we have seen from torndown rockets is the teardown after the launch we did a year ago, also in cold weather. There was more erosion and more blown-by material between the O-rings on that one than on any of the other four or five.

DR. WALKER: Did that one burn two rings?

MR. MOORE: Yes, that was one of the flights - that was the flight where the temperatures were low.

MR. ALDRICH: Everything that I know about the certification of this seal, and this is being worked in much more depth at the Marshall Center than anything that has been reported to our board, is that the certification tests run on that joint show that the seal would be somewhat more stiff, but completely adequate for sealing at all temperatures in the ranges. There was never any intention that the system couldn't be launched in freezing conditions, particularly at 32 degrees. And it is my belief that we expect this Viton O-ring to perform essentially at much lower than that.

MR. SUTTER: They said when these pieces are brought in they are somewhat warped, but they may not be as good as a new piece.

MR. ALDRICH: What they said yesterday was,

they ship these segments on rail cars after they pour them. They pour them vertically, and they are tested for roundness, and then they ship them horizontally all the way from Utah to Florida. They store them there, and sometimes when they at) mate them, they found that they are not completely circular any more, and they have a variety of hang points so that if it is not circular you can hang it up some other way for a little while and it will reform into a full circle, so that they do this check for roundness before they do the mate.

MR. SUTTER: Then maybe that builds some stresses, so again when the load changes it pops back to where it wanted to go.

MR. ALDRICH: Perhaps. We will find as we investigate this that the contractor and the Marshall Center have been very thorough in analyzing the characteristics like that in their buildup of this design and the way it is handled and the procedures. I agree with you. It seems like there is some flaw here we should be looking for, but I think many of the obvious ones will be shown to be completely researched.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: One of the things that - when we ask questions, when we continue to ask questions, we are not really trying to point a finger. Really, this is an area of what can be done to make it

safer. I mean, I don't think anybody, if there were any errors in judgment, God knows, nobody is going to expect everything to be perfect. I think that is one of the reasons that you will see that there is bound to be a lot of discussion on this point, and it may well be that we will decide to recommend that you not retrieve them.

I mean, I know - some people have told me that I thought knew what they were talking about that it might be just as cheap now to buy new ones when you consider all of the problems of recovery and rehabilitation and all of that. Anyway, that is certainly one problem, and there will be continued interest by the public.

[222] The other thing I wanted to mention to you, I thought it was a little unfortunate in the paper this morning that they said that, and I don't think you really said that, that you had excluded the possibility that weather had any effect. I mean, I think weather is also going to be considered very actively by a whole lot of people, and if at the end of the road you decide or we decide to exclude it, fine, but if it appears you have excluded that to begin with, particularly because apparently Rockwell did call and gave you a warning which you considered and decided that it was okay to go ahead, suppose that judgment was wrong. Nobody is going

to blame anybody. I mean, somebody has to make those decisions, and you were all there and made the decision.

MR. MOORE: We made the decision on the basis of the data that was available. Let me say one other thing about weather which didn't come out. Weather is by no means being excluded. My opinion is that that might be a very major factor. During the month of January, I believe, before this launch there was also something like seven inches of rain down at Kennedy. And so that is another element that really has to be looked at, that the associated moisture may have had something to do with it.

CHAIRMAN ROGERS: And again, the testimony yesterday was that one pad had a rain cover and the other didn't. I mean, those things are of interest.

MR. MOORE: Absolutely, and the differences between Pad A and Pad B, those are being looked at as well. They were looked at before this particular launch. But whether we have put everything in place, we have got to go back and scour that from top to bottom to see, although we did use the same mobile launch platform, I guess, as the previous launches have gone off, but there could be some kind of different loading effects at that particular pad.

MR. WALKER: Is it possible to get a detailed drawing of those seams showing where the O-rings are?

MR. MOORE: Yes, sir.

MR. WALKER: If we could just have a sketch.

MR. MOORE: Yes, sir.

At some point in time, if that continues to be a very high probability area, as it is right now, we think it would be appropriate to bring our experts from the field to talk about this whole thing and give you a very detailed presentation on it. I think that is the best thing to do for the Commission, and we would certainly offer that, to get some more information about the seal area.

The other thing that we are looking at is the checking of those seals at the segment of the stack. There is a pressure port in the seal on the side of the case, that a person goes in and does a pressure check. And that pressure check is done to ensure the integrity of the O-rings, and the pressure check is up to 200 psi, and then it is backed down from 200 psi and brought back up and held at 50 psi.

VICE CHAIRMAN ARMSTRONG: Is that a plug on the nozzle?

MR. MOORE: It's a plug on the side.

MR. ALDRICH: You blow one O-ring up and you

check it?

MR. MOORE: You check the integrity of the O-rings prior to launch, and that is done several days or a week or so before.

[223] VICE CHAIRMAN ARMSTRONG: But the pressure would be outside-in in the case of the inside O-ring, then, right?