-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
-they put bleachers close to the runway, and you re driven down there and you re in a set of bleachers with your friends and family that you have invited for the landing. -they had speakers, and you could hear rick talking. -and, rick, we re ready for the manoeuvre. -i did not usually come in for a landing. to me, those were so routine. usually, the orbiter has been working well, they have a good weather call. but i had this wing concern because of the impact. so i said, i will go in. i realized that most of those people at those consoles they don t know anything that s been going on for two weeks. they ve been looking at the condition of this system, this system, but they don t know any other history. -i was the lead entry ground controller for the mission.
But i had this Wing Concern because of the impact. So i said, i will go in. I realized that most of those people at those consoles they dont know anything thats been going on for two weeks. Theyve been looking at the condition of this system, this system, but they dont know any other history. I was the lead Entry Ground Controller for the mission. My primary thing is getting the Spacecraft Up on to orbit and getting it back down safely. That morning, the atmosphere it was upbeat. Theres no issues. We work with the crew to go through system checkouts. We got all of our systems ready, all the sensors ready, and we prepared for the deorbit preparation, which is you convert the Space Shuttle from a spacecraft to a reentry vehicle