Original subtitles

BIRDS SQUAWK

LINDA HAM: OK, good morning and welcome to the first STS-107 MMT.

Great launch yesterday

and I'm sure everyone's real excited about getting on orbit here

and finally getting under way with this science mission.

We just want to report everybody's all smiles here. That's good.

The second day, I drive into work kind of euphoric

because another launch, another successful launch.

You know the flight director's office

in the Mission Control Center in Houston is working with them.

They're... Everything's good.

This is the first mission in a while

that is completely dedicated to science.

It's the first one in several years.

It's a 16-day flight with a dual shift.

We have a crew of seven.

Four will be up on one shift and three will be up on the other shift

so that we can work 24 hours a clay.

I walked into the analysis lab

to start reviewing film from the launch.

I love film analysis, I love sitting in there doing that work.

In 2003, my team was in charge of the neighbourhood of 130 cameras.

There's cameras on the mobile launcher,

there's cameras on the launchpad,

there's layers of cameras to give you different distances.

You want your imagery to be able to show you

what is going on on the exterior of the vehicle.

So, we started the film at the beginning.

We're watching this lift-off, you see the roll manoeuvres,

beautiful blue sky.

We do the normal review

and we start pointing out all the things that we normally see.

You use the shadows from the projector behind you,

so you see these fingers that, you know, it's like shadow puppets.

And we got to 81 seconds

and then we see this object come off

of the external tank area.

It moved down and then striked the vehicle,

then exploded into a white cloud.

INTERVIEWER: What was your reaction? Ah...

Inside your head?

My reaction was, "Oh, shit."

ARCHIVE: The shuttle is the most complicated

space machine ever built.

The world's greatest electric flying machine.

It has been a bad clay for NASA.

A sense of tragedy in the space program me

and as word spreads across the nation...

There are no simple and easy answers.

We are doing everything we possibly can

to find out what caused this accident.

All the warning signs were there.

This didn't have to happen.

We let it happen.

# Everybody was kung-fu fighting

# Those kids were fast as lightning

# In fact, it was a little bit frightening... #

Columbia, Houston.

A very good morning to the Red team.

To Rick, Laurel, KC and llan.

That music was Kung-Fu Fighting,

selected especially for you by your dedicated training team.

Is it turned on?

Good morning to all and a special good morning to my wife Rona,

the love of my life.

I remember myself going to sleep and imagining

where he is right now.

"I wonder where he is right now? He's somewhere over us.

"Maybe going around in circles, around the Earth."

It's surreal.

These seven people who are, you know, living in space.

Eating and working and going to the bathroom and...

...and seeing Earth from space.

MAN: Wow.

RICK HUSBAND: Well, actually, things are going really well

and things have been working well.

Columbia is in great shape

and working absolutely perfectly.

We had a great ride to orbit.

After the launch, we came home for the next 16 days

we knew that the crew was going to be in space.

By that point, I mean, I turned on NASA TV here

and just started watching the mission.

Next up for the Blue shift was a blood draw experiment.

Here, Laurel is telling Mike this isn't going to hurt her a bit.

I think God has put a desire of pioneering in us

and exploring, and just to see someone to be able to follow through

with that, and to that level, is so admirable.

But more than anything, I just loved listening to Rick's voice.

I loved listening to him talk back and forth with Mission Control.

Looking at that film,

we were all discussing, "How big are we talking about a problem?

"How much damage are we talking about?"

Worst case would have been damage all the way down

to the skin of the vehicle.

That would have given us a problem during the landing.

And what does that, in human terms, what does that really mean?

Well, that probably would have been loss of vehicle and loss of crew.

So, I went to see Wayne, my boss.

Based on my 20-plus years of experience,

I can tell you every shuttle flight that flew had issues.

People came to me as a flight director or as manager every clay.

In this case, Bob Page knocked on my door,

came into my office and said...

"We've got a problem.

"This is the largest strike of a vehicle that we have ever seen."

He's a little bit of a high-energy guy,

so it wasn't unusual, I didn't think.

But he had a little video clip that he showed me.

It's really hard to tell if anything bad had happened.

I mean, this is insulating foam.

It's lightweight.

So, the orange thing is the external tank.

It's carrying cryogenically cold liquid oxygen

and hydrogen and it's going to sit out on the launchpad

in the sunshine.

You don't want that to start boiling off.

So, over the outside of the tank

there's this spray-on insulating foam.

Similar to what you have if you have a leak

and you get the stuff from the hardware store

and you spray it around a windowsill.

Cheap, very effective.

But it's got this property that,

as you go through supersonic flight in the atmosphere,

bits of it come off.

INTERVIEWER: So, foam falling off during launch

was something that had happened before?

Yes, it happened all the time.

Maybe not in these big chunks,

but it did happen all the time.

The question is, "How bad of shape is the orbiter in?"

Ancl Bob said,

"I really wish there was some way to get more information."

I knew this mission passed over places

where there were some high-altitude telescopes.

These are looking at stars, so if you want to look at the orbiter,

you could probably get the entire orbiter fit in the field of view

and have extremely good resolution.

Ancl I said, "Well, I don't really know much about that, Bob.

"We'll have to check."

And so, I got the assurance from Wayne

that he would make some calls and he would see what could be done,

and things were put into motion.

Did the crew know at this point?

No.

You don't want to alarm the crew that early.

They had just gotten onto orbit.

They have a job to do.

When we have the complete story,

then that's when we pass it on to them.

STATIC CRACKLES Morn?

Mom?

Miss you.

Bye-bye!

We talked using the early televideo conferencing capability

and super low-tech bandwidth.

It's ratty com but it's a very special time.

It was a huge relief being able to...

...see her again.

But I really couldn't comprehend that she was in space.

Like, it didn't make sense to me at all.

HE GIGGLES

It felt like counting down to Christmas,

waiting for her to get back.

In the NASA world, people don't talk in terms of,

"|t's life or death".

You use the terms, "Threat to the vehicle and crew,"

or, "Risk to the vehicle and crew".

It might have more power and more punch if we talk life and death.

But we don't.

There's an old saying in the space business,

"The first story's never right," right?

So, you get the story, something happened.

It could be the end of the world, it could be nothing.

So, we were all concerned.

It wasn't like we were going to do anything immediately

other than get the data and we will hand it over to the engineers

that are standing ready to do those sort of analysis.

The second day of the mission was just an ordinary day for me.

I was ready to go home about five o'clock on a Friday evening.

PHONE RINGS

And then, I got a call from my manager.

She said, "Rodney, do you know that

"a large piece of foam hit the left wing?"

And I think I gasp and I said, "Ooh" or "Ahh". I made some exclamation.

"No, I did not hear that."

And she said, "They have just released a video."

Every time I watched the video,

I'm looking at portions of it or a sector of it,

just to see if I can glean one more piece of detail out of it.

And the question I had,

"What is that cloud? That expanding white stuff?"

One can't help but ask, "ls that part of the wing coming apart?"

ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

Columbia, Houston.

Good morning to the Red team.

I was thinking about this foam strike all weekend.

And I thought, "Can't we get the astronauts to look through

"this side hatch window?"

There's a little window right here, this little dark circle.

Could they have looked back to this area in here

to see if there's any damage - debris, residue, anything?

What I was expecting is you first look with your eyes.

just look.

And then, if they'd seen something unusual,

they would have probably used binoculars.

They have binoculars on board,

and they have telephoto lenses and cameras.

They would have probably photo documented this whole thing

and sent it down to the ground.

Once the crew has reported something,

the ground responds, must respond.

It was a very easy thing to do

and the crew would have done it happily.

So, let's see. Rodney sent me an email.

"We know that the Remote Manipulator System arm and cameras

"are not available, but what about the left side hatch window?"

He's questioning whether there's been any action

to ask the crew to look for damage.

LAUREL CLARK: OK, well, good morning or good evening,

as the case goes for all you guys

working around the clock there in Houston.

PAUL SHACK: You have to understand, NASA works on procedures.

We have a mission plan.

Red shift are just finishing up their day.

Any deviation needs to be evaluated and assessed

on how it will impact everything.

MISSION CONTROL: Laurel, just to be advised,

you have about two minutes of video left.

To deviate from the processes

and the procedures you'd need to have a reason.

And the reason needs data.

It's not just, "I have a bad feeling about this."

And I got no reply to my email.

My request was never answered.

Columbia, this is CNN, how do you read me?

Hey, CNN, we've got you loud and clear.

Stand by and we'll have you on the telly here very shortly.

Say hello to the crew of the space shuttle Columbia,

now travelling above the Pacific at 17,300 miles an hour.

150 miles above us.

Waving to us. Let's give you an idea of who's who...

O'BRIEN, VOICE OVER: I remember interviewing the crew in space.

...Rick Husband, the commander, second mission. Laurel Clark...

Prepping for that interview,

I thought about the foam strike and how to handle it.

But on launch day,

when I saw that footage,

I wasn't sure what to think about it.

I'm not a rocket scientist.

So, I called to somebody who I know very well at NASA.

I said, "Help me understand how worried I should be for this."

And he said, "Ah, it's foam, it's very light material.

"Probably hasn't caused any damage."

INTERVIEWER: So, they're telling you it's nothing to worry about.

But did you still have a little concern? I was...

It nagged me the whole mission.

Colonel Ramon. I'm curious, was the launch what you expected?

I was thinking about the foam.

I just didn't know how to, in a five-minute interview, set that up.

Are all these experiments working?

They couldn't all be working as planned.

Well, things are going very smoothly.

As expected, there's some minor glitches.

I had gone through this process of convincing myself

that it was going to be OK.

All right, we're going to have to leave it at that.

Goodness, look at that little chalice going by there!

But I had this sinking feeling.

I just... I just didn't feel right.

We spent the weekend analysing this film.

We estimated the size of the foam.

16 inches across, 18 inches long.

Suitcase size.

So, it's a big chunk of foam, moving at 750mph.

But in the end, what we did not know

was the condition of the vehicle post-strike.

How much thermal protection system would be left?

Returning from space,

a craft that is going 17,500 miles an hour heats up gases,

and very hot gases become something we call plasma.

The shuttle is enveloped in this inferno and it's kind of beautiful.

But, obviously, you want to be protected from it.

Well, they came to the conclusion that the best way to deal with that

was to arrange a system of tiles to cover the shuttle.

All of the black here shown is all tiles.

And these tiles are made of a silica fibre material,

which is very heat resistant.

I can show you.

This is a test tile.

There are about 31,000 of them altogether.

And we hope those tiles will stay on

when the orbiter comes back into the atmosphere,

because otherwise the craft itself could be damaged.

Well, if you don't have any tiles on the bottom,

the vehicle's going to burn up.

If you have a lot of tiles on the bottom, the vehicle won't burn up.

REPORTER: But if something should happen to the tile,

is there anything at all that you can do?

During the development of the space shuttle, in the 1970s,

there was quite an effort to develop a way to repair

damaged tiles on orbit.

It was a huge effort

and it was an utter failure.

They could not develop anything.

Ancl that was one of the "accepted risks" of flying in space.

I knew the one tool we had was changing the way entry is done.

You can change the angle of attack coming in

so you can lessen the heat in certain areas.

But you know the calendar is ticking down.

LINDA HAM: OK. Good morning. We're ready for roll.

The biggest misimpression I see in movies and whatnot

is that there's a few guys sitting around a table making decisions.

It's not like that.

In a meeting, there's 20, 30 people in the room.

There's people joining from Kennedy,

there's people from Huntington Beach, California,

a representative from engineering, a representative from the crew.

The chairman of the meeting was Linda Ham.

She basically ran this mission.

She was effectively

the deputy to Ron Dittemore,

the program manager in those clays.

Linda has excellent judgment,

can grasp complicated problems very quickly.

She was the first woman to be certified as a flight director.

Linda was recalling STS-112, a flight, two flights before.

MISSION CONTROL: We have go for main engine start.

Two, one, we've got booster ignition,

and lift-off of the space shuttle Atlantis.

STS-112 had...

...a very similar piece of foam come off

from almost the same location.

But in that case,

the foam hit a solid rocket booster

and put a dent in it.

The foam travelled, travelled down.

It struck right here.

These three lines.

But, of course, solid rocket boosters disconnect.

They splash down in the ocean.

It didn't hit the orbiter,

so it was no effect to the flight.

The management team, they analysed it

and came up with the conclusion that no safety of flight issue existed.

MISSION CONTROL: Welcome back to Earth, Atlantis.

And congratulations on a truly spectacular mission.

But we dodged the bullet on that one.

The difference with Columbia is that the foam hit the orbiter,

but you can't see where on the wing it hit

and how big the damage to the orbiter may be.

A special team was forming and I was told that I would be on it.

The mission management wanted to know how bad it is.

No damage, minimal damage, or grave damage?

In that room, on the first meeting,

there were probably 12 to 15 people.

They were the best experts in different fields.

But all we knew was

this was foam and it hit the left wing.

But WHERE on the left wing, we did not know.

This is why we naturally came to the conclusion,

we cannot initiate a credible analysis

until we know damage location and extent of damage.

There's nothing credible we can initiate.

We must have another piece of data, another image.

We knew that performing a spacewalk would have been very dangerous.

Spacewalks are always highly choreographed.

They always go to places where they have handrails,

where they've had a chance to practise.

In this case, people would have been just going out there

and hanging a metal ladder off the side of the vehicle

where it's going to bang around, while somebody climbs down there

to see if there's something there to see.

You're talking about doing something that very well could have caused

damage to an orbiter that might be undamaged.

I knew that the military satellites at that time were extremely good.

There were stories like they could read licence plates from space.

We have quite a fleet of spy satellites out there

and most are trying to, at that time,

chase down terrorists in Afghanistan or Iraq or whatever.

Aiming it at the shuttle was a possibility.

That's why the whole group thought it was a good idea.

"Let's ask for military assets."

"The meeting participants all agreed

"we will always have big uncertainties

"until we get definitive, better,

"clearer photos of the wing and body underside."

So in bold face, I put,

"Can we petition (beg) for outside agency assistance?"

INTERVIEWER: But even with the satellite images,

what were you hoping would be achieved?

Once you have this proof,

if there were damage,

then you have experts just flowing in.

Next thing, you tell the crew.

By informing the crew, they're now part of the solution.

They had tools. They had cutting instruments.

You take the available materials,

take the Spacehab apart.

You improvise.

You stuff the hole,

if there was a hole,

with materials that will delay peak heating.

Then you can you talk about altering the entry trajectory.

Or if this had been publicised,

the Russians might have sent up an empty Soyuz.

We did the Apollo 13 scenario.

We would have tried something.

But first, you need the images.

Um...

I thought Rodney was asking for something that was

out of my ability to obtain.

So, I went to my boss.

I said, "Some engineers want photographs."

You know, there's uncertainty.

I gave her the facts and she just said,

"Well, they're still doing their analysis.

"When they come back with their answer,

"we'll see what it is, and then we'll ask."

So, she didn't say, "No."

What she said was, "Let's get the analysis

"and then, make a further decision if necessary."

# ..Means no worries

# For the rest of your days

# It's our problem-free

# Philosophy

# Hakuna matata... #

MISSION CONTROL: Good morning, Blue.

That was Hakuna Matata, by the Baha Men, going out to Mike.

And it was picked especially for Dad by the kids.

MIKE ANDERSON: Good morning, Houston. What a wonderful song.

And I'd really like to thank my kids for that one,

both Sydney and Kaycee.

Ancl it's a really good clay to wake up today and nothing to worry about,

and Blue shift is ready to start another clay of science on orbit.

You know, as a kid, your imagination just like, runs wild.

I'm like, "Do they just float and sleep?" Or, you know,

"Does he get to go out in actual space?

"Did he see aliens?"

Mostly I just thought like he was an explorer.

Kind of like, I don't know, like a space Indiana Jones.

You know, we make it a point to get out and go to schools

and talk to kids all the time.

Ancl when I do that, I really try to let them

know what it was like for me when I was a kid growing up.

Ancl howl had this dream of one clay becoming an astronaut.

Ancl that really, if you work hard and you're always persistent,

you can really make those dreams come true.

So, I always try to give that

message to the kids when I talk to them.

He wanted to always be involved in something that was

kind of bigger than him,

that contributed to society,

that had a purpose.

It was fun to watch him. He looked like he was enjoying himself.

The crew looked like they were doing what they needed to be doing

and everything was going off really well.

And I didn't know, at that time,

that anything concerning had happened.

There were people that did, though, but I wasn't one of them.

I was in my office in Florida,

and I got a phone call from the head

of what we call "systems integrations."

He's an engineer who I respect very highly.

Ancl he said, "Hey, we really don't have all the information

"we'd like to have on this debris strike.

"Do you know of anybody that's got a way to get better pictures?"

Now I had this engineer as well as Bob,

asking me to see if I can find out some more information.

NASA does not own any military satellites but, at that time,

we had a close working relationship with the Patrick Air Force Base.

So, I put in a request with them.

INTERVIEWER: How hard could it be to take a few photographs?

I'm not going to pretend that it's easy.

I do appreciate the preparation that would have to go into it.

One would have to interrupt the mission

to get the right lighting, to make sure you're over...

The right satellite is in position.

Then now, you have an army of people on the ground.

We have to reorient the shuttle

for the proper exposure angles and all that.

And to do that means they may have to terminate

their science experiments.

In a program manager's mind

that's responsible for getting shuttles up there on schedule,

if you interrupt the science mission,

you have the ire of all the people

and the science objectives were now ruined,

and that looks badly on NASA.

I think that weighed on him, too.

WAYNE HALE: A little bit later in the clay, in the afternoon,

I got a call from Linda and she said,

"Hey, I heard that you were trying to get some pictures,

"and I've checked around and nobody has a requirement for us

"to get any more information. The engineers have all they need."

What she was telling me is that none of the managers

was willing to stand up and say,

"We really need to have more information."

Ancl at that time, I took that as, well, she was in Houston.

The engineers that are doing the analysis are there,

she's probably been over.

But she said, "I want you to turn this off

"because we don't need to bother those other people."

"OK-"

INTERVIEWER: How did you feel when she said that? I was mad.

Because I don't like to be overruled.

I'd been trying to act within my authority,

and I'd been countermanded by my boss.

Linda Ham knew that NASA's history with the Department of Defense

in using spy satellites

was a little bit chequered.

There had been a previous mission

where the landing parachute door came off on launch

so the orbiter was flying with a parachute without its door.

NASA made a request to get some kind of imagery.

However, the photos didn't help much.

INTERVIEWER: OK, so, even if you could get photographs

it doesn't mean they'll necessarily show anything?

I think they were a little bit embarrassed in the end about asking.

And NASA never wants to look stupid.

NASA wants to be the agency with the answers.

If you'd have said,

"Linda, two different people need this information,

"their departments are both asking, are you aware?"

That may have changed the course of events.

Could I have argued with her? Maybe.

But did I get the impression that her mind was made up

and, you know, that was the end of that?

That's kind of where I was. Is it not worth it

when there's seven people who could be in a...?

That's easy for you to say in retrospect.

Then, I wasn't really concerned about it.

I was going to be a good soldier.

So, I called Air Force Base and said, "I knowl made this request.

"Turns out we don't need it.

"Forget I asked about it."

I was told that we would not be getting images.

I got angry and confused.

"What does this mean?"

So I emailed Paul Shack.

"Why? Did you do anything about it?" No reply. No reply.

So, I called him and I got him.

He was shouting at me.

You can't call it an argument

because an argument takes two people shouting

and just one was shouting in this case.

I ask him, "Why are you ignoring?

"You didn't reply to my email. Why? I was asking why you didn't respond.

"Now I have you."

Well, I got sarcastic.

I said, "Don't be a Chicken Little."

NARRATOR: Here is Chicken Little.

A little shy on brains,

but a good egg as chickens go.

I knew that story in the American folklore.

Hurry, hurry! The sky is falling!

I've seen the cartoon. He is portrayed as easily frightened.

just like I told you! Hit me on the head!

And the lesson is, Chicken Little is not to be trusted.

Chicken Little always gets excited.

Paul Shack treated me as if I were

the well-intentioned-but-silly chicken.

I was very upset and angry

and disappointed with my engineering organisations top to bottom.

There's a ticking clock.

We were losing time.

This is an emaill drafted.

"|n my humble technical opinion,

"this is the wrong, and bordering on irresponsible, answer

"not to request additional imaging help from any outside source.

"Remember the NASA safety posters everywhere around stating,

"'|f it's not safe, say-so'?

"Yes, it's that serious!"

I felt the need to draft that email with that strong language,

and the strongest word in there is accusatory, "irresponsible".

But I struggled on sending it or not sending it.

I thought, "The astronauts trust us.

"They're in the mission, we're protecting their lives.

"They want to believe that we're doing the very best for them."

But I would be going against all of my engineering management,

and I was afraid about my future career.

I was married and we had a child,

had a home, had a mortgage.

And I did not send it in the end.

I remember, that Wednesday night when I came home from work,

he showed me the email

that he had not sent.

He was very agitated...

...very frustrated,

because he wasn't sure what to do.

The thrust was, finish the analysis

even though you have no information

on which to base your analysis.

He said, "|t's like being asked

"to analyse a car accident

"that has just happened outside,

"but you're not allowed to look out the window."

The photo denial forced us into a rock and a hard place.

We have to produce an analysis anyway, without a photo.

Now we play volleyball.

And football.

Bicycle kick.

"You guys are doing a fantastic job staying on timeline

"and accomplishing great science.

"There is one item that I would like to make you aware of.

"This item is not even worth mentioning,

"other than wanting to make sure

"that you are not surprised by it in a question from a reporter.

"During ascent, at approximately 80 seconds,

"some debris came loose

"and subsequently impacted the orbiter left wing.

"Experts have reviewed the high-speed photography

"and there is absolutely no concern for entry. That is all for now.

"|t is a pleasure working with you every clay."

INTERVIEWER: How reassuring does that seem to be?

Oh, OK, so they saw something.

They're taking care of it.

This email was...

...too short, too sweet, too easy.

I really love seeing a team to come together.

Ancl the bigger team who makes this entire mission possible...

...is the team on the ground

and all the folks who work in Mission Control, all the folks who

work at the different NASA centres.

It's just such a great feeling

for me to see everybody working together as a team like that.

LINDA HAM: OK, good morning and welcome to the MMT.

Friday morning, Rodney's team presented their analysis.

I wasn't presenting the results of our analysis.

The protocol was that a senior engineer would

present on our behalf.

We all knew that if the engineers find out that this is bad,

there is nothing we can do.

If the heat shield was lost, that was just the endgame.

RODNEY ROCHA: The presentation showed five scenarios

that we were analysing over the past few days.

Rodney's concern was uncertainty in where the damage was.

The way they compensated for that

was to analyse multiple possible locations.

Instead of analysing this area,

we're going to analyse THIS area.

"|t would cause localised heating,

"but no burn through,"

I believe, were the words that they used.

RODNEY ROCHA: When we completed the analysis,

none of the scenarios showed a fatal outcome.

I felt some relief. I thought we were in good shape. I believed him.

I mean, you know, that's what you want to hear.

You don't want to hear, "We're going to lose the vehicle."

What's missing in that is we should have

had, in bold face, at the very beginning,

"These are engineering assumption cases.

"We do not know, without extra data,

"whether these are actual representations of reality."

A "turnaround issue" - what they meant was "some level of repair".

INTERVIEWER: So, when Columbia comes back?

When it comes back, but nothing really bad, that bad.

just local repair.

Patch it up and let's go again.

And that's what was being communicated to Linda Ham?

That everything was OK? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Even though you all sat there and thought it wasn't OK? Yes.

What, you didn't...

You didn't... She was in the room with you.

She was in the room with us.

So, what prevented you from going to talk to her?

The chain-of-command protocol.

You don't approach managers directly.

You're... You know, you're a grown man,

and you're in the room with only 12 people.

I'm a grown man with grown men telling me not to do that.

There are other grown men

with power and authority saying, "Don't do that."

What would have been the repercussions

of talking to her in that room?

I don't know if...

I don't know.

My thoughts at the time of...

I feared the worst, but I hoped for the best.

Most people, I think the psychology is,

avoid even thinking about the worst.

You don't want to face that fear that...

That issue that is the worst.

We've got an announcement that we'd like to make.

It is today that we remember

and honour the crews of Apollo 1 and Challenger.

They made the ultimate sacrifice,

giving their lives and service to their country and for all mankind.

Their dedication and devotion to the exploration of space

was an inspiration to each of us,

and still motivates people around the world to achieve great things

in service to others.

As we orbit the Earth, we will join the entire NASA family

for a moment of silence in their memory.

Our thoughts and prayers go to their families, as well.

One day, during the mission,

I worked Mission Control and it was like 2am.

You know, the graveyard shift.

I was reviewing the notes of the mission,

and then, here's this foam issue.

Me and my colleague we were reading that,

and I remember saying, "Well, that's unusual."

We actually had this discussion of,

"Hey, you can use a family conference to talk to Laurel

"and find out what they knew."

Ancl you got to remember the hat you're wearing

is your flight surgeon hat, not your family hat.

INTERVIEWER: What did he mean by that in this case?

You found out this information in the context

of not being a family member,

but being a NASA employee on the mission.

It actually would have broken protocol for me

to bring up an issue to a crew member,

even though it's my wife,

without going through the official channels.

And when you spoke to Laurel in the video conference,

did it cross your mind to bring it up then? No. You know why?

Because that conference was for lain and Laurel,

and I was a bystander.

I remember a certain sense of relief.

Like, it's almost over. She's almost back, kind of, yeah.

I knew she was going to come back.

I never had a question in my mind.

UPBEAT ORCHESTRAL MUSIC PLAYS

LINDA HAM: Columbia, Houston. Good morning,

and we're looking forward to our last clay on orbit with you.

Thanks, Mike, we've all enjoyed the mission down here.

Ancl I think that music woke up the Control Center, too.

You know, it's been a long 16 clays,

and so, we're all just super excited to see our loved ones again

and just be back to normal,

whatever that looks like.

And the kids decorated the house for his homecoming

and our neighbours put up flags.

REPORTER: Given the fact that you may have lost a little bit of tile

during lift-off, I'm wondering if there is going to be

anything different about the entry profile, taking that into regard?

No, there isn't.

We, the engineers and analysts,

took a very thorough look at the situation

with the tile on the left wing,

and we have no concerns whatsoever.

All of the analysis says that we have plenty of margin

and that the impact could not have been,

from this particular material, significant enough...

...and therefore we haven't changed anything

with respect to our trajectory design.

So, nothing, nothing different.

It'll be nominal, standard trajectory.

Ancl as we said, Columbia coming back,

it's been 16 clays now since she left the Kennedy Space Center.

This is the route.

I remember getting up that day

and we were staying right next to Banana River.

We got up and there were dolphin in the water

and looking at the dolphin,

thinking it looked like a picture-perfect day.

I mean, it was so pretty and everything was so pleasant.

We show page A1 -15 complete.

MISSION CONTROL: And, Rick, we copy.

I just remember standing out on the balcony with Laura

and watching the sunrise

and just saying to her, "This is a clay you'll never forget."

We're about 42 minutes away from an engine firing

that would begin Columbia's descent.

The crew, in the final stages of their preparations now,

are taking their seats.

At the commander seat, Rick Husband.

Pilot Willie McCooL

I was desperately waiting for my mom to come back.

The thing I was most excited about was just...

...holding her again and talking to her.

They put bleachers close to the runway

and you're driven down there with your friends and family

that you have invited for the landing.

They had speakers and you could hear Rick talking.

MISSION CONTROL: Rick, we're ready for the manoeuvre.

RODNEY ROCHA: 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 realised 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 STS—1 07 mission.

My primary thing is getting the spacecraft up onto orbit

and getting it back down safely.

That morning, the atmosphere was upbeat, there's no issues.

We work with the crew to go through check outs of the orbiter systems.

Rick, we're ready.

Here it comes.

Looks good.

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.

MISSION CONTROL: Flight controllers are currently monitoring the fog

that has limited visibility but is dissipating.

Because obviously, it's just critical to have decent visibility,

no big weather issues when you're landing.

Flight Director Leroy Cain discussing weather conditions

at present with forecasters here.

Leroy was the person in charge.

So, everybody on their consoles are monitoring their own systems

and they're all reporting into Leroy what they're seeing.

MMACS and GNC, you're ready?

Flight-MMACS, we're ready. GNC is go.

OK.

Columbia, Houston.

Go ahead, Houston.

Hey, Rick, I guess you've been wondering,

but you are go for the de-orbit burn.

We are happy with the weather at KSC, you are go for the burn.

De-orbit burn is a major decision in the process.

Once that de-orbit burn is made,

you are committed to landing.

They're coming home.

One way or the other, they're coming home.

Columbia, Houston.

Good burn, no trim required.

We copy and concur, Houston. Thanks.

Then we'll meet you in post-burn.

REPORTER: Columbia's altitude now 71 statute miles

as it enters Earth's atmosphere above the Pacific Ocean.

Its speed, 17,000 mph.

THEY LAUGH

REPORTER: Columbia approaching the coast of California now.

Wings level, nose angled up 40 degrees to control heating.

Flight, MMACS

Go ahead, MMACS.

FYI, I've just lost four separate temperature transducers

on the left side of the vehicle, hydraulic return temperatures.

RODNEY ROCHA: As time goes on, we start seeing anomalies.

Sensors are starting to fail.

I mean, you're telling me you lost them all at exactly the same time?

No, not exactly.

They were within probably four or five seconds of each other.

There was something that we didn't understand going on.

And I remember asking my team, you know,

"just make double sure.

"Let's double-check all of our data."

OK. Where is that instrumentation located?

All four of them are located in the aft part of the left wing.

Something has gone very wrong.

And it is the left wing.

That's the stomach punch right there.

And, Columbia, Houston, we see your tyre pressure messages

and we did not copy your last...

Roger... STATIC CRACKLES

At some point, we lost comm with the crew,

but that's actually common.

I mean, you don't have communications

all the way through entry,

so that didn't initially get my attention.

Columbia, Houston. Comm check.

MMACS: We've also lost the nose gear down talk back

and the right main gear down talk back.

RODNEY ROCHA: 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.

But there wasn't anything.

Columbia, Houston. UHF, comm check.

Oh, it was...it was painful.

He makes the call. We hear nothing.

You look at the screen

and the tracking hadn't moved from the Dallas area.

FDO, do you have any tracking?

No, sir.

So, at the console that I was at,

we had an off-duty flight director

who called our console and said,

"Hey, I'm watching the landing on TV

"and they're showing this debris in the sky."

INAUDIBLE CONVERSATION

INAUDIBLE

ELLEN OCHOA, VOICE OVER: That's when we realised it really was bad.