Science for Breakfast with Jonathan Ward

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

On February 1, 2003 the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry over the skies of East Texas. NASA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and more than 200 other organizations, plus thousands of volunteers, leapt into action to find the remains of Columbia’s crew. They launched what became the largest land search-and-recovery operation in US history, as 25,000 people walked every square foot of Columbia’s 250- by 10-mile debris field to search for pieces of wreckage that would identify the cause of the accident, so that NASA could return the Shuttle fleet to flight. Jonathan Ward spent several years interviewing people ranging from the NASA Administrator, to astronauts who led the search for their comrades, to the everyday people of Deep East Texas who volunteered selflessly of their time and talents, to the engineers who reconstructed Columbia’s debris and definitively proved how the accident happened.

*Buffet breakfast included in ticket price.*