The console that i was at, we had an offduty Flight Director who called our console and said, hey. Im watching the landing on tv, and theyre showing this debris in the sky. Thats when we realized it really was bad. Were going to suspend our normal format right now, because weve got some breaking news. This is the space shuttle columbia, on its way to a scheduled landing this morning. But then we began to see this
Everything was proceeding normally that day. The big thing that i remember really paying attention to shortly before landing was the weather. Flight controllers are currently monitoring the fog that has limited visibility but is dissipating. Because, obviously, it is just critical to have decent visibility, no big weather issues when youre 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 theyre all reporting into leroy what theyre seeing. Columbia, houston. Go ahead, houston. Hey, rick, i guess youve been wondering, but you are go for the deorbit burn. We are happy with the weather at ksc. You are go for the burn. Deorbit burn is a major decision in the process
People came to me as a Flight Director or as manager every day. In this case, Bob Page knocked on my door, came in my office, and said. Weve got a problem. This is the largest strike of the vehicle that we have ever seen. Hes a little bit of a highenergy guy, so it wasnt unusual, i didnt think. But he had a little Video Clip that he showed me. Its really hard to tell if anything bad had happened. I mean, this is insulating foam. Its lightweight. So the orange, um, is the external tank which is covered in foam on the outside. Its carrying cryogenically cold Liquid Oxygen and hydrogen, and its going to sit out on the Launch Pad in the sunshine in florida. You dont want that to start boiling off, so over the outside of the tank there is this sprayon insulating foam