Oh, is that it . There it is thats it right there. There it is. Yeah, i see it. I saw it. There it is. Oh, its cool. Yeah. That is cool. Oh, check that out, man. Its going really fast. Whoa. What the heck is that . I dont know. Wow. Look at the chunks coming off of it yeah, i saw that. Yeah. I see what youre saying. That thing looks like its flipping all over the place. Oh, yeah. I can still see it, but im losing it. It was a saturday morning. It was a beautiful day. And as i turned onto park street, i heard a loud boom. [ rumbling ] our house just shook. We looked at each other, and we said, what is that . When i looked up, i saw a bright white ball. [ Sirens Wailing ] the phones were ringing off the hook, much more than our Dispatch Staff could handle. I didnt know if we were being attacked. Search and rescue teams are warning people not to touch any debris, should they come across it. There are some disturbing pictures that are coming up from the broadcasters. Were waiting for more
-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
from space shuttle columbia as columbia continues to orbit the earth at an altitude of about 150 statute miles. columbia, houston, laurel, you re loud and clear on air to ground one. -the second day, i drive in to work kind of euphoric because another launch, another successful launch. you know, the flight director s office and the mission control center in houston is working with them. they re everything s good. i walked into the analysis lab to start reviewing film from the launch. we started the film at the beginning. [ rockets roaring ] we re watching this liftoff. you see the roll maneuvers, beautiful blue sky. we do the normal review, and we start pointing out all the things that we normally see. and we got to 81 seconds, and then we see this object come off of the external tank area. it moved down, and then striked the vehicle and explode into a white cloud. my reaction was, oh, shit. - you ll always find me sunny side up you ll always find me sunny side
-oh, is that it? -there it is! -that s it right there. there it is. -yeah, i see it. i saw it. -there it is. oh, it s cool. -yeah. oh, is that it? there it is. there it is i see. i heard is always cool that is cool. check, that out it s gotten really what the heck is that are no wow looking into chunks coming off yeah. flipping all over the place. oh, yeah still see if losing it it was a saturday morning. it was a beautiful day and as i turned onto park street, i heard a loud boom house to shook we looked at each other. he said, what is that when i looked at i saw a bright white ball what appears that we have in this area? phones were ringing off the hook much more than our dispatch staff could handle -i didn t know if we were being attacked. -search and rescue teams are warning people not to touch any debris, should they come across it. -there are some disturbing pictures that are coming up from the broadcasters. -we re waiting for more details as to how this hap
-for the second time in nasa s history, a space shuttle has been lost along with its entire crew. once again, we are asking ourselves, how could this have happened? -do you have any idea how big that piece of foam was that came off? -we d heard some reports that during launch there had been some concerns that some debris hit the wing. is that true and is that any cause of concern and that could have caused today s problems? -it is true. it was judged that, erm , that event did not represent a safety concern. -this happened under my watch, but i didn t have the answers. in every public forum i m gonna have to be in, how am i gonna explain this to anybody? at this time, we have no indication that the mishap was caused by anything or anyone on the ground. -nasa never wants to look stupid. nasa wants to be the agency with the answers. -my thoughts are on what we missed, what i missed to allow this to happen. -but if you overlook something, it will come to bite you one day or anot