Eileen Collins, STS-114 Commander: Well, clearly this past year has strengthened me as an individual as well as our whole space community, in my opinion. I’ve been strengthened personally and professionally. And really the year has given me time to step back and refocus and look at things from a different perspective and from a global point of view. I’d been so focused on my training for 114 prior to the Columbia accident. In the year since I’ve looked at the Columbia crew, their mission; I’ve looked at the space program in general, where we’ve been, where we’re going, what our mission means to us as being the Return to Flight mission. I think our country has been strengthened by this also. For me personally, I’ve restrengthened my ties with my family and with my friends. Professionally, I’ve had time to look at the Shuttle program, technically learn more about the Shuttle, learn more about how I can even be a better crewmember, over this past year. The Shuttle being such a complicated system, you’re never going to know everything about it, so we have had time, myself and my crew, to learn more and to learn more about the system that it operates in. And finally, to look at our organization and how NASA serves the country’s space policy. And I think you just get strengthened by going through something like this.
You and your crew were just four weeks from launch when the accident occurred. Think back for a moment, Eileen, if you will, and think to that Saturday morning, how you found out about the loss of Columbia and its crew, and what it meant to you personally to emerge from those dark days and weeks after the accident to absorb this recovery process that NASA continues to be in and press ahead for this new STS-114 that you’ll command.
Eileen Collins, STS-114 Commander: Well, clearly, the last year has been very difficult, for myself, my family, for the NASA family, for the Shuttle program, for the Station program. As I said, we’re just stronger coming out of this. But, the process that you go through … now that I can look back at it, I can see clearly what has happened. You go through shock, initially, you go through grief, and then you go through this long process of, what happened, how did it happen, how could this have happened; you look at it from a technical point of view. And then you go through a recovery, a realization of what happened, and all this takes time. You keep going back into the other stages and you come out of them, and you just progress. And now, I believe that we are in a recovery stage, and we’re thinking more and more -- although we’re still thinking about our own crew every day -- we’re more and more looking forward to how can we make this work for us, how can we make this tragedy make the space program better -- not the just Shuttle program but the space program and the future of our country in space. So, it’s just a long process that we’ve been through, and I want to say that through it all, every day when I drive to work I see reminders of the Columbia crew; I have reminders at home, I have reminders in my office, and I want those reminders because while initially they were sad, they’re not as sad anymore; I’d say they’re more strengthening; they’re making me want to make more of a commitment to the program and to continue their legacy and to continue their mission.
How have you, as an individual and as an astronaut, forget the commander part of this, changed as a result of the accident and its aftermath? Do you take less for granted about this program, maybe, if astronauts ever take anything for granted about the job that they are involved in?
Eileen Collins, STS-114 Commander: Well, I think basically I’m the same person, but obviously I’ve changed -- you have to change going through a process like this. I know that I have matured, I’ve learned more about the Shuttle program and how the Shuttle flies and, and the environment that the Space Shuttle flies in. I think that I have had the time -- it’s really having the time to look at myself and my mission and how we all fit in the space program and how we can do a better job. I think that had we flown our mission back in March of ’03, where it was originally scheduled, I think we would have done a fine job. But I think now we’re looking at it from a different perspective. And, I have been able to look at myself as an individual, how am I fitting in as the, as the Shuttle commander, how is my crew fitting in, are we responding to the needs.
