Convention Soars with Astronaut Wendy Lawrence

Of all the “amazing things” retired astronaut Wendy Lawrence experienced during her 14 years with NASA, nothing ranked higher than “helping return the Space Shuttle program to flight” after the 2003 Columbia disaster that killed all seven crew members, she said.

The Phi Kappa Phi member considers her participation in the STS-114 “Return to Flight” voyage, which launched on July 26, 2005, “a privilege and an honor,” she told approximately 300 guests in her keynote speech to conclude Friday’s dinner at the 2012 Phi Kappa Phi Convention in St. Louis. Lawrence wanted to be an astronaut since she watched the Apollo 11 spaceflight land the first humans on the moon in July 1969, she said. Little did the 10-year-old girl parked in front of a grainy black-and-white TV realize the extent to which her dream would come true, Lawrence continued.

Showing numerous slides, she recounted what went tragically wrong with Columbia and what the two-and-a-half-year task of figuring out how to fix the problem entailed. “This was a really tough process,” she explained, one in which engineers analyzed the damage while the astronauts trained. “We didn’t know exactly what we were going to do on our mission,” she said. “But we did know that we were going to the International Space Station.”

In revisiting the saga, both sorrowful and inspirational, she mentioned numerous facts that the audience audibly responded to, including:

·       The Columbia crew perished about 16 minutes before landing.

·       83,000 pounds of debris was recovered from Columbia; that comprised only 30 percent of the vehicle.

·       Lawrence and crew endured 6.5 million pounds of thrust during takeoff; the impact “felt like someone plopping down on your chest,” she said.

·       It took eight-and-a-half minutes for STS-114 to get into outer space.

·       Some of what mission specialist Lawrence and company practiced over and over again turned out irrelevant when they got to the space station; therefore, quick improvisation ensued. Not for nothing was their craft called Discovery.

                                                                                         
Discovery was her last shuttle mission. Lawrence, who was initiated into Phi Kappa Phi at the United States Naval Academy in 1980, and who said she valued the Society because of its great emphasis on education, logged more than 1,200 hours in space during four flights as a NASA astronaut and visited the Russian space station Mir before retiring in 2006. Prior to her 14 years at NASA, she earned multiple commendations as a Navy captain and helicopter pilot.

Scores of listeners took photos with Lawrence after her talk and asked her questions.