Re: Space Shuttle story on 60 Minutes Wed. tonight

A few highlights from the interview...

She related how she is afraid to ride rollercoasters. She recently
tried to overcome that fear and moved up in the line to where she got
close to the front, but after getting a closer look at the coaster she
bailed.

She stated her feeling that flying the shuttle is safe. This part
could have used more depth in the questioning. I mean, I don't know of
any rollercoasters that blow up twice every hundred or so rides with no
survivors. And if there were any, it is difficult to imagine the next
person to hop on it calling it safe.

One of the more powerful segments was when she told the story about
informing her oldest daughter about the Challenger mess. She waited
until her daughter was seven years old (!) saying that she wanted her
to hear it from her and not from someone else. She showed her daughter
pictures of the destroyed Challenger and pictures of the crew and that
they had all died. But then she told her that the shuttle was fixed
and then reassured her daughter that it wouldn't happen again. This
was six weeks *before Columbia*, she said. Kinda like waiting til your
daughter gets pregnant before sitting her down to tell her about the
birds and the bees (except that the consequences are much more grave).

Here's that famous safety poster of Eileen with her oldest daughter
back when she was much younger:
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2003/collins.safety.poster.jpg
60 Minutes could have put this in their story to add to the irony.
They did do a good job in covering how close Eileen came to
catastrophic failure while going "uphill" on the first mission that she
commanded. She gets interviewed while flying in the motion-based sim,
flat on their backs while being shaken by the ascent vibrations. Asked
if they had any way to escape during this phase of the mission, she
acknowledges that no, there is no way to escape. No ejection seats.

Eileen came very close to being toast on that one mission. I don't
know how old she is waiting for her daughter to be before she lets her
in on that story. I can only hope that Eileen herself will be around
to tell it.


The program was worth watching just for the Paul Hill segment alone.
Very refreshing to see how straight forward he was. I was glad to see
a Flight Director take full responsibility for mistakes that had been
made. None of that Failure-Is-Not-An-Option machismo.


~ CT

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