Reporter's Notebook: Covering the Space Program

The public rarely gets to see the excitement behind the scenes at NASA.

ByABC News
February 18, 2009, 6:12 PM

Nov. 5, 2007 &#0151 -- The Space Shuttle Discovery is just days away from landing at Florida's Kennedy Space Center. The mission has been a spectacular success for the space agency, which has had a rough year.

NASA's endured the alleged tawdry love triangle of former astronaut Lisa Nowak; a report that suggested astronauts drank alcohol before flying; and fallout from the agency's decision to withhold documents about the safety of commercial aviation.

So this shuttle mission, STS-120, has been welcome news in Houston. But it's also been a nail-biter.

"You don't ever show the energy of what is going on here," said a veteran astronaut a couple of days ago, after ABC News had interviewed him. We had been talking about the daring spacewalk that was being planned by hundreds of engineers at the Johnson Space Center. He said he was overwhelmed by the effort and the nonstop around-the-clock planning.

"You're right," I told him. "That's because you divorce us from the process. You don't let us see it."

At briefings, you hear about the process reporters are told Team Four has been activated. Team Four is the group in Mission Control that is ready to respond to emergencies during missions.

A scene in "Apollo 13" comes to mind, the scene where the guys come walking down a hallway dragging an armful of boxes and tubes taped together in a valiant effort to save the Apollo crew. It worked.

That is the NASA that most people like to imagine. It is the NASA that apparently still exists, when you see the end results. It's just not a process anyone on the outside ever gets to see.

Discovery carried a dream-team crew on this, the most ambitious mission since the shuttle fleet returned to flight.

The entire crew, led by Cmdr. Pam Melroy, was eager to share the tale of their trip. They were descriptive about what they saw, their jokes during spacewalks and their camaraderie overall. They shared what was happening to them and weren't afraid to cry a little when they said goodbye.