British shuttle astronaut grieves at loss of friends

The British-born astronaut Piers Sellers spoke yesterday of his sadness at hearing about the loss of his colleagues on the Columbia.

"Three or four of my friends are on board," he said from his home in Houston, Texas.

Dr Sellers, 47, originally from Crowborough in East Sussex, completed an 11-day mission to the International Space Station just three months ago. He had trained for the mission with some of the Columbia's crew.

The father of two children, who obtained US citizenship to become an astronaut, said re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere exerts massive pressures on the shuttle. "The main pressure is from thermal stress and a sort of air ramping effect on the shuttle," he explained. "I never thought I would see this on entry. The attention for this sort of thing is usually focused on take-off. It's terrible. But it goes to show it's a dangerous business."

The scientist was the third British-born astronaut to be launched into orbit. He followed Helen Sharman, who spent eight days on the Mir space station in 1991, and Michael Foale, who visited Mir in 1992 and spent 145 days on the then ailing space station in 1997.

Yesterday, Dr Foale's father, Colin, 72, who lives in Cambridge, said: "My thoughts are with the crew and families. Michael is in Russia training. He will be commanding a space station and is due to take off in July.

"I'm not really sure how to explain what it's like when your son is on a space mission. You know when your son is in space that he has Nasa behind him, which contains some of the brightest people in the world doing their best to ensure that people are safe."