Riding Rockets

I left Mike’s office and called home. “I did it, Donna. I just told Coats we would be leaving after the mission.” For a moment, Donna was silent. I had told her that morning of my retirement intentions, but I knew she didn’t believe me. I had changed my mind too many times before. She understood the agony I was going through. She had seen the videos of me as a young teen running toward a parachuting coffee-can capsule. She knew the significance of my finger-wornConquest of Space book. She had boxes of space memorabilia from my youth. She finally spoke. “Mike, I’m so happy. Thank you. I know you’ll second-guess this decision to death, but it’ll be okay. It’ll all work out for the best. God has His plan.” As I hung up the phone, I knew exactly what she was doing…lighting a candle of thanksgiving at her home shrine.

Chapter 38

“I have no plans past MECO”

I made my last flight to Kennedy Space Center as a member of a Prime Crew on February 19, 1990. With our T-38 afterburners tagging us with twin streaks of blue fire, we roared down the Ellington Field runway and shot into the dark. At our cruise altitude of 41,000 feet, we skimmed across the tops of massive thunderstorms associated with a cold front pushing through Dixie. Lightning illuminated the nimbus heads in colors of white and gray and blue. Fantastic shapes of electricity jumped from cloud to cloud. The charged atmosphere produced a St. Elmo’s fire that painted the leading edge of our wings in a blue haze. As if that wasn’t enough, I looked upward into a star-misted deep black.God, how I’ll miss this—the beauty and purity that is flight .

At the KSC crew quarters, Olan Bertrand outlined the next three days of our lives. We were reminded to stay in health quarantine at all times, to not leave the quarters without telling Olan, to eat meals only cooked by the dieticians, to claim all meals on our travel voucher as “Government Furnished Meals.” As employees of Uncle Sam we traveled on official orders, the itinerary of which read,FROM: Houston, TX. TO: Earth Orbit. All of our meals, transportation, and lodging would be provided by NASA, so we would only receive a standard per diem of a few dollars a day. A typical spaceflight earned an astronaut an extra $30 to $50 total.

We were also reminded not to carry anything personal on board the orbiter. When we climbed intoAtlantis, everything on our persons, from the condoms on our penises to the LES helmets on our heads, was the property of the U.S. taxpayer. Gone were the days of astronauts stuffing their pockets with rolls of coins, corn beef sandwiches, and golf balls before their trips into space. In the early days of the space program these colorful items of contraband added a human interest touch to missions. Now they were forbidden, due in large part to an Apollo-era incident in which astronauts carried philatelic items they later sold. NASA felt it was inappropriate for crews to profit from items transported aboard a taxpayer-funded vehicle and imposed tight control over shuttle-flown material. Shuttle astronauts were restricted to twenty items in a Personal Preference Kit (PPK), which, together, could not exceed 1.5 pounds in weight. Weeks before launch, the PPK items were submitted to NASA HQ for approval and packed in a shuttle locker. In the PPK for my STS-36 mission, I had included the crucifix from my dad’s casket, the wedding bands of my daughter Amy and her husband, Steve, a gold medallion that would be imprinted with the mission patch after landing, and some other small items of personal significance for the rest of the family.

Olan also reminded us to pack our clothes and wallets and mark the bag EOM (End of Mission) before leaving for launch. The items would be delivered to us at Edwards AFB after landing. “Also, include some civilian clothes in case of an abort.” This was a standard request, but I knew some astronauts refused to pack their civvies out of a superstitious dread that to do so wouldcause an abort. I was one. If an abort occurred, I would just have to walk around Zaragoza, Spain, in my underwear.

As the VITT briefing ended, the family escorts arrived with our wives. They would be joining us for our midnight lunch. Unlike STS-41D and STS-27, both of which had banker’s hours for launch windows, STS-36’s window was from midnight to 4A.M . This necessitated a killer sleep/awake schedule. We were going to bed at 11A.M . and waking at 7P.M . Breakfast was at 8P.M ., lunch at midnight, and supper at 6A.M . A vampire kept better hours.