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

by Michael D. Leinbach

Wreckage of the broken shuttle—and the remains of her crew—rained down over Texas and Louisiana for the next half hour along a path that was two hundred fifty miles long.

Ross called his associates Lauren Lunde and Judy Hooper at the crew quarters and instructed them to get the facility ready for the families immediately. Ross then gathered the rest of his team in the waiting Astrovan. They drove the eight miles south to the crew quarters as fast as the vehicle could go.

He knew Columbia’s loss meant that NASA’s aggressive launch schedule to complete the International Space Station was now rendered meaningless. He also realized that at that precise moment, the lives of the crew’s families in the bleachers would enter an alternative future that he could not even begin to comprehend.

One sometimes contemplates their reason for being here on this earth or being involved in events of a specific place and time. Over the sixteen years I’ve lived in Hemphill, I’ve lamented over not living closer to my parents and have been frustrated with my lack of career advancement. I felt that God wanted me here, but I didn’t really know why. The thought came to me that my role in this event might be the very reason that God placed and left me here in Hemphill. —Greg Cohrs, US Forest Service, June 2003