Riding Rockets (40 page)

The herpes-infected monkeys made the flight and, as far as anybody knew, none of the crew caught the virus, not even the marines. And neither did any of the monkeys later give birth to an air force pilot’s simian bastard. Nor did Fred come back with a urinary tract infection.

At another meeting one of the female physician astronauts presented some life-science findings derived from Spacelab animal experiments. “Newly born mice appear healthy but, in weightlessness, they are unable to stay on their mother’s teats to nurse.”

The comment elicited a Beavis and Butt-Head reaction from the Planet AD crowd. “Dude, she said teats.” A wave of giggles swept through our ranks. One USMC astronaut whispered, “Sucking tit in zero-G sounds like a job for a marine.”

Another life-science experiment presented to astronauts involved the insertion of an instrumented hypodermic needle into an astronaut’s body to measure zero-gravity veinous blood pressure. A Spanish Inquisitor would have blanched at the size of the experiment needle. I asked, “Where are you going to find a vein large enough to stick
that
?”

Physician (and former marine fighter pilot) Norm Thagard joked, “The dorsal vein of the penis will work.” On Planet AD everybody was a comedian.

The briefer assured us the penis would not be a target, but wherever the needle was destined it wasn’t going to be fun. Needle-oriented experiments always seemed to be part of Spacelab missions, a fact that generated this office joke.

Question: “Why do Spacelab missions require a crew of six MSes/PSes?”

Answer: “Five are needed to hold down the experiment victim.”

At yet another Monday meeting the topic was the STS-51F space cola war between Coke and Pepsi. That mission carried experimental zero-G-functional cans of each soft drink. The crew was to evaluate them in the hope carbonated beverages could be added to the menu. Not surprisingly, both soft drink companies wanted theirs to be the first cola consumed in space and called for their political connections to make that happen. Astronauts would hear the issue had reached all the way to the White House. A disgusted John Young returned from one management meeting and said the first-cola-consumed-in-space topic had occupied hours of the committee’s time. That prompted a growl from the back ranks: “Sure hope they’re spending as much time working on the things that can kill us.”

As the Coca-Cola Company was the first to come to NASA with the suggestion of flying their product, they won the battle. The 51F crew was ordered to take photos of the consumption of the drinks with the date/time recording feature of the NASA cameras in the on position. That data conclusively established that Coke was the first cola consumed in space. But since shuttles have no refrigerators, the beverages had to be consumed at room temperature. That fact doomed the experiment to be a disappointment. STS-51F was the first and last cola flight.

On January 27, 1986, I jumped in a T-38 and, along with the rest of the STS-62A crew, flew to New Mexico for some payload training at Los Alamos National Laboratory. While the primary business of the lab was nuclear weaponry, it was also involved in passive military space experiments. Some of these were to be payloads on our Vandenberg flight.

We landed in Albuquerque and took a lab-chartered flight to the small Los Alamos airport. After checking into a motel, I called Judy at the KSC crew quarters to wish her good luck on tomorrow’s mission. I also teased her about the black cloud of delay that seemed to follow her. Her mission had already recorded two launch scrubs, one on January 25 for bad weather and then the next day for a problem with the side hatch.

“So you’re the bad-luck person who caused all our
Discovery
scrubs.”

“I don’t think so, Tarzan. It was Cheetah.” She was right about Hawley. Steve now had the unenviable record of nine strap-ins for two flights. Judy was only working on her sixth strap-in.

I asked her how the launch looked for tomorrow. “Good, except it’s supposed to be cold, down in the twenties. We’re worried about ice in the sound suppression system.”

“It’s all these shuttle launches that are changing the weather.”

She chuckled at my reply.

I kept the call brief knowing she probably had others to receive or make. “I just wanted to say good luck, JR. Please tell the others the same for me.” These were the last words I would ever speak to her.

“Thanks, Tarzan. I’ll see you back in Houston.” These were the last words I would ever hear from her.

The last hope to save
Challenger
passed that night. When the Thiokol engineers learned of the extremely cold temperatures forecast at KSC, they convened a special teleconference with their NASA counterparts and argued that the mission should be delayed until the temperature warmed. Their justification was the fact that STS-51C, launched a year earlier with the coldest joint temperature yet—53 degrees—had experienced the worst primary O-ring blow-by of any launch. They suspected the cold temperatures had stiffened the rubberized O-rings and adversely affected their ability to seal. With an estimated joint temperature of about 30 degrees for
Challenger,
the same thing could happen tomorrow, they argued. They recommended the launch be delayed until the joint temperature was at least 53 degrees. The suggestion brought a fusillade of objection. One NASA official responded, “My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch, next April?” Another said he was “appalled” by the recommendation to postpone the launch. They correctly pointed out that there had been blow-by observed after launches in warm weather, a fact that suggested there was no correlation between temperature and the probability of O-ring failure. The arguments continued for several hours but, in the end, Thiokol management caved in to NASA’s pressure and gave the SRBs a go for launch. The Golden Age had only hours remaining.

Chapter 26

Challenger

After waking on January 28, I flipped on the TV to see what was happening with
Challenger.
The STS-51L countdown was running two hours late. I had plenty of time for my morning run so I dressed in my sweats and stepped into the crystalline twilight.

Few cities in America are more beautifully sited than Los Alamos, New Mexico. Set on a shoulder of a dormant volcano at an elevation of 7,200 feet, it commands a godly view of the Rio Grande Valley and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east. The city is built upon multiple mesas separated by dramatic mini-grand canyons. The soil is soft volcanic tuff and eons of erosion have sculpted the terrain into bizarre and breathtaking shapes.

While Los Alamos was a joy for the eye, it was a pain for the lungs. In its thin air I was unable to keep the pace I regularly ran at sea level and I throttled back to a more leisurely jog. The dawn was pinking the eastern sky while a nearly full moon graced the west. I steered myself on a path through a forest of ponderosa pine, the scent of their needles perfuming the air. A herd of white-tailed deer, long accustomed to humans, didn’t bolt at my appearance.

I ran for half an hour and then dropped into a cool-down walk, enjoying a moment of total contentment as I did so. I was in top physical condition. I was a veteran astronaut. I was in line for a second spaceflight, a
fantastic
second flight. There were probably no more than six or seven missions between me and polar orbit. I could easily visualize
Discovery
on the Vandenberg pad, now that I had a photo on my office wall of
Enterprise
on the same pad.
^*
Several months earlier NASA had airlifted that orbiter to Vandenberg for a pad fit-check and the photos taken had captured her as
Discovery
would soon be seen, standing vertical against a backdrop of California hills. It was an image that set my soul soaring.

After a shower and breakfast, I rendezvoused with the rest of the crew and drove to the lab to meet the principal investigators of our payloads. By now
Challenger
’s launch was only a few minutes away, so we delayed our training to watch it. We knew this launch, unlike other recent ones, would be covered on TV because of the public’s interest in schoolteacher-astronaut Christa McAuliffe.

I couldn’t sit down. As a rookie, I had been fearful while viewing shuttle launches. Now, I held a veteran’s terror for what was at hand. I nervously paced behind the others. The TV talking heads focused on Christa, showing clips of her in training, then live shots of her students awaiting the blastoff. There was a carnival atmosphere among the children.

As the NASA PR voice gave the final ten seconds of the countdown, I was in prayer-overdrive, begging God for a successful launch. My motivation wasn’t all selfless: There were still a thousand things that could come between me and my Vandenberg mission, and STS-51L was one of them. Another pad abort or, God forbid, an abort into Africa or Europe would have a serious impact on the launch schedule. The ripples of delay would push 62A even farther to the right.

At T-0 the SRBs blossomed fire and
Challenger
was on her way. The TV only covered a moment of ascent and then cut to the trivia of the morning. Bob Crippen spun the dial to other stations hoping for more coverage but there was none. Even the novelty of a schoolteacher couldn’t buy NASA more than a minute of airtime.

We turned off the TV and gave our attention to a principal investigator of an experiment that would be in our cargo bay. As we were about to follow him to the hardware, Jerry Ross decided to give the TV another shot, “Maybe they’ll have an update on the launch.” He turned it on. What we saw immediately shocked us to silence.
Challenger
’s destruction had already occurred. We were seeing a replay of the horror. We watched the vehicle disintegrate into an orange-and-white ball. The SRBs twisted erratically in the sky. Streamers of smoke arced toward the sea.

For several heartbeats there was not a sound in the room. Then the exclamations came. “God, no!” Guy Gardner bowed his head and cried visible tears. I just stared in a dazed silence. Most of the others did the same. A few of the lab personnel wondered aloud if the crew had bailed out. I answered their question. “There’s no ejection system on the space shuttle. They’re lost.”

The TV focused on Christa McAuliffe’s parents. They were in bleachers in the press area and appeared merely confused. I could read the question on their faces:
Are the smoke patterns in the sky part of a normal launch?
Their daughter was already dead and they didn’t know. I silently cursed the press for continuing to focus on them. It was the ultimate obscenity of that terrible morning.

I phoned Donna. She was sobbing. Even though the NASA PR announcer was only saying it was a major malfunction, she was familiar enough with the shuttle design to know it had no escape system. I didn’t have to tell her the crew was dead. I suggested she pick up the kids from school. The press was going to be everywhere and I didn’t want them shoving a camera in their faces. “Just keep them at home.” I told her to expect me that afternoon. I knew we wouldn’t be staying in Los Alamos.

I next called my mom and dad in Albuquerque. Dad, the big-hearted, sensitive Irishman, was crying. As always my mom was unbendable iron. I knew she was dying inside, but there was no way she could verbalize those feelings.

As expected, Crippen wanted to get back to Houston as quickly as possible. We drove to the Los Alamos airport and took the lab charter flight to Albuquerque. Within an hour of our arrival there, we were in our ’38s headed home. I was in Crippen’s backseat, in the lead aircraft of the three-ship formation.

As we climbed to altitude, ATC cleared us direct to Ellington Field and added, “NASA flight, please accept our condolences.” I was certain those same sympathies were being offered to NASA crews everywhere as they hurried home. The entire nation was grieving.

The rest of our flight continued in silence. At each ATC handover the new controller would offer a few words of comfort and then leave us alone. There was no chatter among our formation on our company frequency. Crippen was silent on the intercom. We were each cocooned in our cockpits, alone with our grief. I watched the contrails of the other ’38s streaming away in billowing white and prayed for the
Challenger
crew and their families.

My thoughts returned to the last time I had seen the crew—before they entered health quarantine—more than two weeks ago. I passed them on their way to a simulation. Each wore the thousand-watt smiles of Prime Crew. I shook their hands and wished them good luck and added a hug for Judy. With my arms around her I whispered, “Watch out for hair-eating cameras.” She laughed. It was the last I would see of her and the others. Now, their shredded bodies were somewhere on the floor of the Atlantic. Friends whose joyous faces I had watched only two weeks ago were now being discussed by the TV talking heads as “remains.” I could feel Judy’s arms on my back and her hair brushing my cheek in that last hug. Now those arms, that hair, her smile were gone. They were just…remains. Though I’d known it would happen to some of us one day, I still could not come to grips with the reality of it. They were gone. Forever.

My only comfort was in my belief that their deaths had been mercifully quick, the instantaneous death we all hope for when our time comes. In one heartbeat they had been feeling the rumble of max-q (maximum aerodynamic pressure) and watching the sky fade to black and anticipating the beauty of space and then…death. I was so certain of it. How could anybody have survived the ET explosion? The cockpit was only a few feet from it. There were more than a million pounds of propellant still remaining in the tank when it detonated. The explosion must have destroyed the cockpit and everything in it. The more I dwelled on it, the more certain I was. They died instantly. I would later learn how wrong I was.

My thoughts drifted to the cause of the disaster. The video replays on TV showed fire flickering near the base of the orbiter just before vehicle destruction. Had an SSME come apart as so many of us had feared would one day happen? I was certain the SRBs had nothing to do with the disaster. They were seen flying after the breakup. It was to be expected their flight would be unguided and erratic, but other than that they appeared fine. Again, I would be proven wrong on all counts.