-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 primary thing is getting the spacecraft up on to orbit and getting it back down safely. that morning, the atmosphere it was upbeat. there s 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 de-orbit preparation, which is you convert the space shuttle from a spacecraft to a re-entry vehicle. everything was proceeding normally that day. -the big thing that i remember really paying attention to shortly before landing was the weather. -flight controllers are currently monitoring the fog that has limited visibility but is dissipating. -because, obviously, it is just critical to have decent visibility,
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