I lived in Lubbock TX at the time, and we could see it burning up above us... Rick Husband was from the panhandle and had come to my elementary school to talk about being an astronaut... crazy.
Those were very sad days at the Rocket Ranch. I worked at the space center during this time with the USA. I was waiting for the shuttle to land at the SLF with some of the returning astronaut’s family members. We had mission control piped in over a PA so we could follow along with their progress. I’d been working there since 1998 and I knew NASA’s timing for landings at the SLF was pretty much spot on to the second, give or take some headwinds. We waited as usual through the LOS but by the time we got to three minutes late, we all knew something was wrong. As the the family members were whisked away in shuttles back to one of the buildings where astronaut prep is done, we stood in silence. In the weeks that followed, we received pieces of the shuttle from all over Texas that were shipped back to the Cape by plane and truck. The pieces were placed in a large shed erected near the Landing Facility. There was a life-sized outline of the shuttle drawn on the floor and the pieces were placed inside the outline. In the back left corner was a separate set of walls they had erected where are they placed the Glass Cockpit (crew cabin) It was the only place that the press was not allowed to enter. Only those working the investigation and a few family members were allowed in there. Those were my last weeks at the space center. With the shuttle program shut down, I relocated to the West Coast.[EDIT] Someone found a photo of the hanger I'm talking about above. *USA=United Space Aliance *SLF=Shuttle Landing Facility *LOS= Loss of Signal
adddopamine81 on June 1st, 2021 at 19:21 UTC »
Wow. What an extremely gloomy photo but I’m sickly fascinated
Restless_Wonderer on June 1st, 2021 at 19:57 UTC »
I lived in Lubbock TX at the time, and we could see it burning up above us... Rick Husband was from the panhandle and had come to my elementary school to talk about being an astronaut... crazy.
Desperate-Ad-6463 on June 2nd, 2021 at 00:31 UTC »
Those were very sad days at the Rocket Ranch. I worked at the space center during this time with the USA. I was waiting for the shuttle to land at the SLF with some of the returning astronaut’s family members. We had mission control piped in over a PA so we could follow along with their progress. I’d been working there since 1998 and I knew NASA’s timing for landings at the SLF was pretty much spot on to the second, give or take some headwinds. We waited as usual through the LOS but by the time we got to three minutes late, we all knew something was wrong. As the the family members were whisked away in shuttles back to one of the buildings where astronaut prep is done, we stood in silence. In the weeks that followed, we received pieces of the shuttle from all over Texas that were shipped back to the Cape by plane and truck. The pieces were placed in a large shed erected near the Landing Facility. There was a life-sized outline of the shuttle drawn on the floor and the pieces were placed inside the outline. In the back left corner was a separate set of walls they had erected where are they placed the Glass Cockpit (crew cabin) It was the only place that the press was not allowed to enter. Only those working the investigation and a few family members were allowed in there. Those were my last weeks at the space center. With the shuttle program shut down, I relocated to the West Coast.[EDIT] Someone found a photo of the hanger I'm talking about above. *USA=United Space Aliance *SLF=Shuttle Landing Facility *LOS= Loss of Signal