Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center

And I was training in Russia when the Columbia accident happened.

And when the cosmonauts came across the field, the common area at Star City, and they knocked on our door in the cottages in the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, and they told us we lost the crew of STS-107.

Put on the TVs, and I watched this very large piece of foam during launch come off, strike the wing leading edge, something that I studied because that was my specialty, thermal protection system.

And what was appalling was nobody realized that that was a serious problem.