Plot Summary

February 1, 2003. A nation wakes to images of the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrating into a shower of hot metal in the skies over Texas. All seven on board are lost. With the future of human space exploration uncertain, the NASA family vows to find the cause of the accidents, fix it, and return safely to flight. Return To Flight follows intensely human stories of triumph and failure as experienced by those who have undertaken to make things right. The two-year journey from the Columbia accident to the launch of the space shuttle Discovery in the summer of 2005 unfolds through the extraordinary day-to-day struggles of NASA scientists, engineers and astronauts from whom failure is not an option.