-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
what looks like a streaking meteor. it s actually the space shuttle columbia coming back. we re watching it. landing about 15 minutes away. -we ve also lost the nose gear down talkback and the right main gear down talkback. -columbia, houston. comm check. -and then everybody started to lose sensors. they were getting no telemetry whatsoever. the screens were just going blank, reading nothing, just turning off. -columbia, houston, uhf, comm check. -there was a tenseness coming into the room. my focus was forward you know, trying to get something to report to flight that was useful.
We lost comm with the crew, but thats actually common. I mean, you dont have communications all the way through entry. So that didnt initially get my attention. Good morning to you. Im miles obrien. It is now 9 00 a. M. On the east coast, 6 00 a. M. Out west. Take a look outside. You should see what looks like a streaking meteor. Its actually the Space Shuttle Columbia coming back. Were watching it. Landing about 15 minutes away. Weve also lost the Nose Gear down talkback and the right main gear down talkback. Columbia, houston. Comm check. And then everybody started to lose sensors. They were getting no telemetry whatsoever. The screens were just going blank, reading nothing, just turning off. Columbia, houston, uhf, comm check
good morning everyone. welcome to early start. nice to have you with us. i m ashleigh banfield. i m zoraida sambolin. we re bringing you the news from a to z. it is 5:00 a.m. in the east. let s get started. this is cnn breaking news. we begin with breaking news this morning. two american tourists kidnapped by gunmen in egypt. it happened in the town of dahab in the region of egypt. the report says that two americans were forced out of a car and taken away. the alleged kidnappers demanding the release of a man who was arrested a day before for drug possession. cnn s ben wedeman is live in cairo. i know these are late-breaking details. what can you tell us? reporter: the embassy is in close contact with the egyptian authorities. they say to resolve this situation. now, it s not unusual, the not the first time that tourists, including americans, have been kidnapped here. since the revolution at the beginning of last year, state authority in that part of egypt has really
minutes after a loud blast happened and people started to panic. and somebody screamed, the end of the earth! reminded me of action movies like terminator 4. the light was very bright, looked like a very bright sun and lasted for three seconds and three minutes later, the blast happened. megyn: can you imagine what would be going through your mind? greg palkot with the latest in london. reporter: megyn, we ve been monitoring all day the spectacular amateur video coming in from that russian city. and that meteor slammed into it. it happened in the city about a thousand miles to the east of moscow, and as you noted it happened just after nine o clock in the morning local time that s why a lot of people saw it and recorded it. a russian scientists says the meteor was about 20 feet side. about the size of a small bus and hit the atmosphere at hyper sonic speed. now, people saw the streaking meteor across the sky and a