Streaking across the predawn sky at 15,500 mph and at an altitude of 230,000 feet, Columbia was a fast-moving, breathtakingly bright “star” followed by a beautiful glowing pink and magenta trail of ionized oxygen. Transiting the sky in only a minute, the shuttle blazed off to the southeast over Nevada and Utah. Hanley got back in his car and raced on toward Dryden. He had twenty minutes to get to his work trailer so that he could watch the NASA-TV feed of Columbia’s landing in Florida. He did not know that he was among the last of the NASA family to see Columbia in flight.
