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Dittemore: 'Bound together with the threat of disaster'
Editor's Note: CNN Access is a regular feature on CNN.com providing interviews with newsmakers from around the world.
HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- As they faced the news media just hours after the Columbia tragedy, NASA members were visibly shaken and struggled to talk about the lost astronauts. Shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore told reporters how his NASA colleagues are "family members," not just co-workers. DITTEMORE: Well, it's more than a job. This is a passion for us. Human space flight is a passion. It's an emotional event. And when we work together, we work together as family members. And we treat each other much that way. And whether it's the loss of a crew member of a loss of a member of our ground team or processing teams, it's a sad loss for us. And so we are a very close community. We understand the risks that are involved in human space flight. And we know that these risks are manageable, but we also know that they're serious and can have deadly consequences. And so we are bound together with the threat of disaster all the time, and we know we must count on each other to do what's right. We must count on the ground teams to process correctly. We must count on our suppliers to follow the procedures, just like we have identified to them. And we count on the flight crew members to fly the vehicles within the specifications. So we all rely on each other to make each space flight successful. So we have a dependency, and it's a professional dependency, and it's an emotional dependency. And so, when we have an event like today where we lose seven family members, it is devastating to us. And it's more than just us in this location. There is an emotional attachment to human space flight. It piques our interest, it captures our imagination. I received a couple of phone calls this morning immediately following the -- when it became apparent that Columbia was no longer going to land. One phone call was from my brother in Phoenix, Arizona, not associated with the space business. I haven't talked to him yet. I just received a message certainly extending his thoughts and prayers. I received another phone call from my son in Provo, Utah, with the same emotional outpouring of sadness. And I'm sure this is true across the country. We're seeing that from the public. We're seeing that as people that really care about the space program and understand what it means to this nation reflect their thoughts, their prayers, their caring attitude to us. And we want them to know we appreciate it very much. As we struggle with our emotions in this difficult time, we appreciate the thoughts, the prayers, the care and the support.
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