-my wife, laurel, was on the shuttle. she was a scientist primarily involved with life sciences. one day during the mission, i was reviewing the notes, and then here s this foam issue. during launch, a large piece of foam had come off the external tank and impacted the left wing. me and my colleague had this discussion of, hey, you can use a family conference to talk to laurel and find out what she knew. -oh! -you got to remember the hat you re wearing is your flight-surgeon hat, not your family hat. it would have broken protocol for me to bring up an issue to a crew member, even though it s my wife. -i remember a certain sense of relief like, it s almost over. she s almost back. -i didn t talk to laurel about the foam issue. that conference was for iain and laurel, and i was a bystander. -i knew she was going to come back. you know, i never had a question in my mind. -given the fact that you may have lost a little bit of tile during lift-off, i m wondering
t nt you to know how much we at nasa appreciate how you cover space. i was worried about her and her kids. anytime a shuttle is going to come to earth, i d be worried. in this case, i had a little more worry. -columbia, houston, good morning, and we re looking forward to our last day on orbit with you.
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no big weather issues when you re landing. -flight director leroy cain discussing weather conditions at present with forecasters here. -leroy was the person in charge. so everybody on their consoles are monitoring their own systems, and they re all reporting into leroy what they re seeing. -columbia, houston. -go ahead, houston. -hey, rick, i guess you ve been wondering, but you are go for the de-orbit burn. we are happy with the weather at ksc. you are go for the burn. -de-orbit burn is a major decision in the process. once that de-orbit burn is made, you are committed to landing. they re coming home. one way or the other, they re coming home.
-right now, nasa will be trying to make sense of what happened in the skies over texas. -searching for wreckage from the columbia shuttle, they ve already made hundreds of finds, from tiny scraps of metal to whole panels. and the tragic, but inevitable discovery of human remains. -a spacecraft breaking up at 190,000 feet it s something you couldn t, like, get out of your mind. and i d been in space before. this was something i was about to do again. and then this horrific thing happens to my classmates, my co-workers, friends. so i call a constable, and i said, hey, i need a helicopter.