-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 wonderin
-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
-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
-i was recounting all of the pushback that we were getting from management two weeks of just utter frustration and anger. -we talked a lot about the worst-case scenario. -if they re having trouble with the wing, it would be during entry, when the shuttle and the astronauts are coming on that hot entry, high-speed hot entry, into the earth s atmosphere and they re going to attempt a landing. -you know, it s been a long 16 days, and so we re all just super-excited to see our loved ones again and just be back to normal, whatever that looks like. and the kids decorated the house for his homecoming, and our neighbours put out flags. -we did paper chains and making banners
-you know, it s been a long 16 days, and so we re all just super-excited to see our loved ones again and just be back to normal, whatever that looks like. and the kids decorated the house for his homecoming, and our neighbours put out flags. -we did paper chains and making banners and so we had it all decorated just to welcome him home. -we were super-excited, and i remember, like, as it got close to them getting back, we were just ready, super-ready to have him home. and as we said, columbia coming back. it s been 16 days now since she left the kennedy space center. this is the route, which you see on your screen. -i remember getting up that day.