Eyewitness to Disaster

Radio reporter Peter Steinhaus '78 covers the worst possible news from his beloved space program.

Steinhaus at the radio controls on a happier day at Kennedy Space Center

by Lorraine Berry

"This is not good." With those words from a colleague, Peter Steinhaus '78 knew that he was not in for a typical day at his job. Steinhaus, whose on-air identity is Peter King, has an unusual beat: as part of his job covering Florida and the Southeast for CBS Radio, he has the plum assignment of covering the space program. On February 1, 2003, he was in place to cover the landing of the space shuttle Columbia at Cape Canaveral.

"I was doing a live shot on a 9:00 a.m. newscast," he explains. "I took my headphones off, and I heard that there were problems, especially with what [my colleague] Bill Harwood, who was on standby for television coverage, was monitoring. I realized that this was dead serious."

At 9:14, King took to the air to begin eight-plus hours' solid coverage of the Columbia disaster. "I was sad, numb, shaken, shaking; I was feeling every emotion except exhilaration," he says.

"It hit me right away when they weren't here at 9:16, their expected landing time."

King had to put his training as a professional to good use. As bad as he was feeling, he knew listeners were counting on him. "It's a great deal of responsibility --- things are not always as they seem, so you don't want to be an alarmist, and you have to keep from speculating. You have to keep thinking, 'Who can we talk to [for insight]?' "

King had interviewed the crew members twice in conjunction with this space flight. The first time was three weeks before their January 16 launch. The second was from orbit. "Two days after launch, I interviewed Commander Rick Husband and mission specialists Ilan Ramon and
Dr. Laurel Clark," says King. "I could hear them and see them."

Having been a self-professed space fan since childhood (see story, ICQ 1999/1), King has always been fascinated by NASA and loves his job. This has not been an easy story for him. "By the end of the day and for a couple of weeks afterward, I was physically and emotionally exhausted," he says. "Having covered space for about eight years now, I think, even after Columbia, that this is still the best assignment in radio."

King is confident that NASA will send more men and women into space, once the problem that caused the Columbia tragedy has been addressed. "We have too much invested in the space program," he says pragmatically, but then adds, "and it's human nature to explore.