Bringing Columbia Home: The Untold Story of a Lost Space Shuttle and Her Crew

by Michael D. Leinbach

One of the crew remains search teams had found a cockpit window frame from Columbia deep in the Sabine County National Forest on Saturday, but they were unable to retrieve the heavy item. Gerry Schumann took the six members of his debris response team out to the woods to retrieve the frame on Sunday. After parking on the main road as close as they could get to the object’s GPS coordinates, his team had to trudge more than a mile into the woods to find the piece. The team spent nearly the entire day carrying the metal frame out of the forest—taking turns lifting it by its corners, setting it down when people got tired, and maneuvering it around briar patches. Eventually, the team wrestled it back to their truck. Schumann was elated that his team successfully retrieved the item after such an ordeal. After delivering the window to the Hemphill collection center, he bragged about the accomplishment. Don Eddings, Marsha Cooper, and several other US Forest Service people on hand at the command post seemed unimpressed. Eddings asked, “Was that you guys that brought that window in?” Schumann said, “Yes! Great find. It took us all day to get that thing out.” Eddings said, “All you smart-asses had to do was ask us. There’s a fire road near there. We could have drove you guys within fifty yards of it.” Schumann initially felt both angry and deflated, like he had been made to look foolish and that he had wasted so much effort. When he calmed down, he realized this was a wake-up call. ...