Astronauts recall emotional mission

? The seven astronauts who fearlessly got NASA and its space shuttles flying again are still marveling over the world’s passionate reaction to their safe return.

In the 1 1/2 weeks since Discovery delivered them back to the planet, commander Eileen Collins and her crew have been swamped with e-mails, phone messages and interview requests. They have been hailed as heroes by their colleagues and the president, and heard from long-out-of-touch relatives and friends, even total strangers.

Perhaps most touching, they have been in close contact with the families of the seven astronauts killed aboard Columbia and visited with the commander’s deeply religious widow and her two children. Collins e-mailed the Columbia families from orbit so they would feel connected to the mission.

“She was praying for us – everybody was praying for us,” Collins said in an interview with The Associated Press last week. “That’s another reason I knew we were safe.”

Throughout their mission, all seven astronauts wrote or called their families to reassure them that the shuttle problems were being handled properly and that Discovery was safe to come home. They truly believed that – in interviews with the AP last week from Houston, not a single one of the astronauts expressed any fear or misgiving about re-entry.

It wasn’t until touchdown that their emotions surfaced.

“After we landed, when we were rolling out, I really thought about my pals on Columbia,” Astronaut Stephen Robinson said. “I thought, ‘We got to do this and they didn’t.'”

After 14 days of keeping calm order in orbit, Collins choked up when she saw the smiling faces of the California landing convoy.

“I couldn’t help but have a little tear come to my eye,” she said. “They were all happy with these big smiles, waving at me through the window, and I just thought about all the work that had gone into making that flight.”