Wednesday, July 13, 2005
O'brien, Nation’s Space Reporter
Source:Galveston County Daily News It could be argued that not since Walter Cronkite, has any single reporter been so closely identified with manned space flight than Miles O’Brien. The longtime CNN anchor and reporter makes no bones about it, he has a passion for the space program and for NASA.
And just as NASA has had to take a closer look at itself in the wake of the Columbia tragedy of two and a half years ago, O’Brien himself comes to his coverage of today’s scheduled shuttle launch having learned lessons
“I’ve had to do some soul searching myself,” said O’Brien. “I was one of those reporters who knew about the foam strike three days after the launch.”
An e-mail from a Johnson Space Center source warned O’Brien that a piece of foam had broke away from the shuttle fuel tank. That foam, no bigger than a suitcase, struck a shuttle wing and was responsible for the break up of the ship as it re-entered the atmosphere Feb. 1, 2003. Meanwhile, the shuttle and its crew were in orbit on what NASA called a successful mission.
O’Brien asked around about the foam. He took assurances from shuttle managers that everything was OK at face value.
He knows differently now.
Read the complete article HERE.
# posted by ATN @ 1:36 AM 
