In the summer of 2001, the crew of the Space Shuttle "Columbia" completed a 12-day, 50-mile expedition in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming with NOLS Professional Training. These same seven crewmembers were the crew on the Space Shuttle "Columbia" that broke up upon returning to Earth on February 1, 2003. When on the course, the crewmembers commented on the group cohesion the course helped them develop, as well as the similarities to space flight: “we spent a whole lot of time together as a team solving problems without any other outside influences, which is similar to the way that it will be in space,” said crewmember Laurel Clark. NOLS has continued to train NASA astronauts.