Technicians and engineers at Barksdale saw the doubler was badly scorched and melted around the edges. Entirely by coincidence, one of the people processing the piece was the man who had installed it on Columbia in the first place. It devastated him. Sobbing uncontrollably, this member of our KSC team held the piece in his hands and showed it to me. He was convinced that he was responsible for the loss of Columbia and its crew. Frank Travassos, a main propulsion system expert from KSC, and I took him outside. We tried to console him and reassure him that the accident was not his fault. —
