-for the second time in nasa s history, a space shuttle has been lost along with its entire crew. once again, we are asking ourselves, how could this have happened? -do you have any idea how big that piece of foam was that came off? -we d heard some reports that during launch there had been some concerns that some debris hit the wing. is that true and is that any cause of concern and that could have caused today s problems? -it is true. it was judged that, erm , that event did not represent a safety concern. -this happened under my watch, but i didn t have the answers. in every public forum i m gonna have to be in, how am i gonna explain this to anybody? at this time, we have no indication that the mishap was caused by anything or anyone on the ground. -nasa never wants to look stupid. nasa wants to be the agency with the answers. -my thoughts are on what we missed, what i missed to allow this to happen. -but if you overlook something, it will come to bite you one day or anot
by moving to the other side and then come back again. -we can do all the woulda, shoulda all day long here. that s easy. when you actually have to make the decisions real time, you re doing some really complicated stuff. that s a lot harder. -i think that rick would have wanted to have known something was very wrong with the vehicle, so he could have the opportunity to repair something or fix something. but at the same time, there was also a trust that nasa would look out for their best interest. -in terms of a hypothetical and i think other people in senior levels that probably felt the same way if we knew that the crew wasn t gonna survive, why would we tell them? why wouldn t we let them just carry out their mission
That probably felt the same way if we knew that the Crew Wasnt gonna survive, why would we tell them . Why wouldnt we let them just carry out their mission and feel like they were successful you know . The Thing I Cant get past is, if we had of known that entry was going to cause loss of the Vehicle And Loss of the crew, there are things we can do as human beings. And that is for the families, the chance to be able to say goodbye. That wasnt afforded to anyone. And thats always haunted me. Sorry. Yes, there were individuals who made very poor decisions. You need to embrace dissenting opinions,