Thousands
of people across the United States
committed their lives to returning the shuttles to space after the 2003 Columbia accident.
Many of them are our neighbors here on Florida's
Space Coast. FLORIDA TODAY wanted to tell the story
through their eyes, from the devastating morning of Feb. 1, 2003, through a
roller-coaster of turmoil and triumph that lasted two and a half years.
The newspaper's space reporters and photographers went behind the scenes to
chronicle the lives of a select few of these people.
They conducted thousands of hours of interviews, visited people's homes,
offices and work sites and sat in on meetings and simulations.
The result is a tale -- in 11 chapters -- that could not have been told without
the help of the characters named in the story as well as many others on NASA's
shuttle team who helped arrange key opportunities from 2003 until today.
We thank all of them for their time, and we hope you will enjoy hearing the
story of their quest.
- John Kelly, FLORIDA TODAY
Chapter
1
The
Worst Day: 02.01.03
Columbia was 16 minutes from home, where astronauts
and loved ones would reunite, when Wayne Hale realized there would be no
reunion.
Chapter
2
Picking
Up the Pieces: Solving the Columbia Mystery
The rain
never seemed to stop. The cold, the wet, the tired, hundreds of searchers
huddled in bleachers of a rodeo arena in Nacogdoches,
the small Texas town where many of the
remnants of the destroyed shuttle Columbia
had fallen to Earth.
Chapter
3
Fixing
the Foam: Preventing Disaster, Getting Clear Picture
NEW ORLEANS - The stuff that changed everything
at NASA feels like the foam in life jackets on a fishing boat. It's super light, mostly air. Hold
it in your hand and it defies common logic. How could a chunk of this foam
bring down a mighty space shuttle?
Chapter
4
Shuttle
Shuffle: Discovery Gets the Call
COCOA - Stephanie Stilson's
cell phone rang as she listened to her college class on another phone. It was
February 2004. She -- and everyone else -- looked forward to seeing Atlantis
return the fleet to space. Stilson was about to find
out otherwise.
Chapter
5
NASA's Procedures, Culture Under Fire: Striving for Accountability
Among Wayne Hale's orders as deputy manager of the shuttle program: Change NASA's culture; revitalize its safety system; encourage people to overcome fears and speak up to top managers; wipe away years of ingrained apathy when requirements loosened and managers often let cost and schedule pressure guide decisions.
Chapter
6
In-Space Repairs Become an Impossible Mission: The Shuttle Tiles
Michael Brieden bore bad news. Sixteen months after the Columbia accident, Brieden stood in a conference center meeting room, a corporate amphitheater of sorts, in Ogden, Utah.
Chapter
7
2004 Hurricanes Caused Frustration
CAPE CANAVERAL - Stephanie Stilson felt her team's energy jump as workers saw Discovery starting to come together. Then came the hurricanes. Three times in two months, workers had to stop getting ready for return to flight and start preparing for the worst.
Chapter 8
Coming Together
Stephanie Stilson, the manager for Discovery was taking a break from intense preparations to get the shuttle flying again. It was the division softball challenge for Kennedy Space Center, and the people who put together the shuttle were putting bat to ball and glove to hand.
Published under license from FLORIDA TODAY. Copyright © 2005 FLORIDA TODAY. No portion of
this material may be reproduced in any way without the written consent of FLORIDA TODAY.
·
Fixing NASA: Complete Coverage of
Space Shuttle Return to Flight
