-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
-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
Ready, ready, mark. -we were so excited. -i remember going into nasa taking a series of photos with my mom and dad after school. i was 7. i was worried. i was, like thinking, like, how is her hair gonna fit in there? [ chuckles ] she made everything joyful all the time. she was my whole world. -i remember the columbia mission being announced. i mean, i knew them all. in my class was laurel clark, dave brown, and willie mccool. we were all there at the same time. you get your blue flight suit. that s pretty exciting. i mean, yes! i ve spent 54 days in space over four missions. most fun thing i ve ever done by far.
Smiles. alright. [ laughter ] -i would see the crew daily. -perfect. -let me take my glasses off. -that ll be in here. [ laughter ] i m not a star-struck kind of person, right? but you fly 12,500 miles an hour? i was like, yeah! i like you. [ laughs ] -whoo-hoo, baby! [ laughter ] -when they got selected as a crew, i went and got their astronaut bio and i read what they did, what they liked. [ laughter ] i went over and i m like, ah, doctor. ah. dr. dave brown, surgeon. dr. kalpana chawla, phd. laurel laurel was a submarine doctor. i thought that was so cool. mike he s air force pilot. and then willie he was like a test pilot. rick he d already been up to space. and then there was ilan. you know, he was already a hero in his country.
You really have to have a high level of what they call behavioral health. -and what do you think, willie? -mm-mmm! -.where you re not just technically competent, but you re low-maintenance. . cause you are inherently in a confined space. you can t say, i m just gonna take a time out and go outside and not deal with your, you know, b.s. anymore. so, nasa had started to realize, we got to get a handle on this, and it s really important. [ all cheering, whooping ] -when they came back, it was like their bond was forever.