Family of Columbia pilot says launch ‘needs to go well’

Eric Leake

Wednesday, July 13, 2005 | 9:49 a.m.

Audrey McCool said there is much at stake in today's scheduled launch of the space shuttle Discovery.

"It needs to go well for NASA, the program, the whole concept," she said Monday evening from her Las Vegas home. "It needs to go well for all of us."

Audrey McCool's family watched NASA's last shuttle launch in 2003. Her son, William McCool, 41, in his first space mission, piloted the shuttle Columbia.

"There was great relief when it went off because everything seemed to be going well," Audrey McCool said.

Her husband, Barry McCool, said the launch in Cape Canaveral, Fla., was an awesome sight.

"It was gratifying to see them go into space and the launch go flawless, we thought. It really struck home just how high risk this is," he said.

Disaster struck Feb. 1, 2003, as the Columbia disintegrated on reentry. All seven crew members died. Subsequent investigations blamed damage to tiles on a wing as the likely cause.

Barry McCool said that he will be thinking of the families of astronauts on the Discovery as the shuttle launches, the first shuttle launch since Columbia.

"We understand and feel what the families are going through," he said. "The families' thoughts and prayers will be in our hearts at the same time."

Both Audrey and Barry McCool said that it was important that people recognize the value of the space program, the sacrifice of astronauts, and support a return to space exploration.

"I hope it continues to grow and expand because the whole space program is an extremely important program for all of us," Audrey McCool said.

Barry McCool said that after the Columbia disaster he was eager to see a return to space while also concerned that all necessary precautions be made.

"We have a vested interest in the return to flight. We've invested family in this," he said.

Audrey McCool is a professor in the UNLV hotel college. Barry McCool is a retired Navy pilot and a doctoral student in the UNLV education college.

Barry McCool said his son died doing what he loved, taking risks just as everyone must in life.

"There's no guarantees," he said. "There's no guarantees that when you take off you're coming back."

As one among the many ways the Columbia astronauts have been memorialized and honored, a planned science center at Frank Lamping Elementary School will bear William McCool's name.