Two years ago, Gene Kranz, a longtime member of NASA Mission Control, wrote a book about his experiences in the early days of the space program.

It was titled &uot;Failure Is Not an Option&uot; and detailed the dramatic experiences Kranz and his colleagues encountered &045; including the Mercury and Apollo missions.

We couldn’t help but think of that book title Tuesday as an independent board released the results of a study on the Columbia shuttle disaster that killed seven astronauts. The report blames the accident on technical aspects &045; specifically, the foam that hit the wing on liftoff &045; but indicts NASA’s very culture as an equal culprit.

NASA shuttle managers and others on the Columbia team will likely carry guilt about the accident for many years.

But whether the space agency learns from this mistake will be the real test.

According to the independent report, many of the safety measures NASA was to have taken since the Challenger accident in 1986 were not followed through.

NASA must change its culture and its organization, but it will take commitment from the top down for that to occur. Congress, which begins hearings on the report’s findings next week, must make the commitment, too, in the form of funding that will not compromise safety. That’s not easy as we face greater federal deficits.

Space exploration remains our next frontier. The interest this week in the extra-close encounter with Mars reveals how enthralled we still are as Americans with the idea of flight. What began in some ways as yet another battle in the Cold War has led to some of our greatest tragedies &045; but has also yielded some of humankind’s greatest triumphs.

We believe it will again, but not without change.