Riding Rockets

“The engines are throttling.” Guy watched his power tapes slowly drop toward 65 percent of maximum thrust to keepAtlantis at 3-Gs until MECO. If the engines failed to throttle, Guy was prepared to shut one of them off to preventAtlantis from overstressing herself under higher G-loads. At this point she was nearly parallel to the Earth, running to the northeast with an almost empty gas tank, rapidly adding velocity. “Twenty-two thousand feet per second…23…24…25…here it comes…MECO.” At slightly faster than 25,000 feet per second, about eight times faster than a rifle bullet,Atlantis ’s computers commanded the SSMEs off. There was thethunk of ET separation, theboom of the forward RCS jets to get us clear of the tank, the noiseless squeeze of the OMS burn, and then we were in orbit. I started breathing again.

My stomach was flip-flopping like a hooked trout. It wasn’t space sickness—I was still spared that malady. Rather, it was showtime jitters. It was time for me to deliver on the millions of dollars of training NASA and the air force had invested in me during the past year. I was to operate the robot arm to deploy our satellite payload.

Hoot and I faced aft toward the cargo bay, he at the starboard-side window with the orbiter controls at hand, I at the port side with the RMS controls. Our feet were jammed under canvas foot loops, anchoring our bodies so our hands would be free to grasp controls. Many science-fiction writers had assumed astronauts would wear magnetic or Velcro or suction-cup shoes to keep them anchored while working. The reality was much less sophisticated, just loops of canvas duct-taped to the steel floor in front of the control panels.

I opened the locks that held the RMS to the port sill of the cargo bay, prayed the astronaut’s prayer one more time, “Please, God, don’t let me screw up,” then grabbed the Rotational (RHC) and Translational Hand Controllers (THC) used to “fly” the robot arm. For once, the incredible beauty of the Earth passed unseen beneath me. I had eyes only for the payload,Atlantis, and the robot arm. I focused on each one with the intensity of a doctor doing open-heart surgery. I steered the end of the arm over the payload grapple fixture and fired the snare, which rigidly latched the payload to the arm. Jerry Ross then released the cargo latches. My eyes now moved in a constant scan between the out-the-window view and the views on two cockpit TV screens. There were cameras in each corner of the cargo bay as well as cameras at the end of the robot arm and at its elbow joint. At any time I could select the view of two of these six cameras to better determine the proximity of the satellite toAtlantis ’s structure. I also had Shep in the airlock watching from its outer-hatch porthole and Jerry watching the TV views over my shoulder, both men ready to scream, “STOP!” if contact looked imminent. The tolerances were exceedingly tight and I finessed the controls with the deliberation of a soldier probing the dirt for a booby trap. The payload, like all satellites, was as delicately constructed as fine crystal. Any mistake that caused a satellite-to-Atlantisimpact could damage a critical component and turn the object into a billion-dollar piece of space junk and win me an open-ended assignment to Thule, Greenland, where I would get to hone new skills as a urinal scrubber. An impact could also foul the payload bay-door closing system, a mistake that could kill us. Needless to say, the other members of the crew were as focused as I was.

All went well. The Canadian-built arm handled like a dream. Within an hour I had lifted the payload clear of the cargo bay and had flown it to its release attitude. I called to Hoot, “We’re there.” He was all smiles and I knew that the rest of the payload team watching from the ground was wearing the same smiles. I had delivered for them. No Super Bowl–winning quarterback has ever felt more satisfied.

Hoot double-checked that his orbiter hand controllers were on and got a “Go for payload release” from MCC. On his cue I squeezed the grapple release trigger and pulled the arm off the payload. The satellite was now flying free in a 17,300-mile-per hour formation withAtlantis. Hoot quickly executed the fly-away maneuvers and we watched the satellite slowly recede in the distance until it was the brightest star in our windows. I parked the robot arm in its cradle thinking this would be the last time in the mission it would be needed. I would be wrong.