Riding Rockets

Dave Hilmers entered our company just as the TV was showing a topless Iowa coed doing naked handstands on a boat dock in a feature titledFarmer’s Daughter. He was not happy. “Come on, guys…You shouldn’t be watching this.” I was surprised by Dave’s complaint. Before I had been excommunicated from the office Bible study, I had learned he was one of the more religiously conservative astronauts. He wasn’t the type of guy who would watch the Playboy Channel himself, but I had never heard him be openly critical of others who didn’t share his belief system. Maybe it was the looming prospect of meeting Saint Peter and having to explain away the naked nineteen-year-old on the TV. I knew Dave was as scared as I was. While jogging with him, he had quoted a Scripture passage that he found helpful in calming his fears. At one of our crew parties, when asked about some postflight activity, he had dismissively replied, “I have no plans past MECO.” Those six words spoke volumes. The threat to our lives was so real and immediate during the eight-and-a-half-minute ride to MECO, there was no reason to waste time with post-MECO plans. A post-MECO life was hypothetical.

Dave’s criticism of our TV channel selection hung in the air. Our choice was either to appease him or watch the coed do naked handsprings off the dock and into a lake. It was a no-brainer. Pepe dismissed him. “Dave, a woman’s body is a beautiful thing.”

Hilmers shot back, “But not to be laughed at.”

I defended Pepe. “We’re not laughing…. We’re lusting.”

Dave just shook his head in resignation that our sorry souls were beyond saving. He picked up a checklist and began his review.

On L-1 we drove to the beach house for a midnight lunch with our wives and some NASA support personnel. There were no other family guests this time, thank God. On the drive I noticed J.O.’s cough was getting worse. It had been bothering him for the past several days. I wondered if the flight surgeon was aware of it. Knowing aviators, I doubted it. He probably wouldn’t go to the doc until he coughed up a lung.

After the meal, the NASA guests departed and we were left with our spouses for the final good-bye. Donna and I bundled up and walked to the beach. Earlier at the crew quarters I had jogged under a crescent new moon, but it had set and the sky now offered a planetarium view of the winter constellations. There was enough starlight to illuminate the foam of the surf but the night air was chilly so we steered clear of the water. On the walk our eyes were continually drawn to the northern horizon. The xenon lights of Pad 39A sketched the salt air in shafts of white.Atlantis was being readied.

By now Donna and I were wizened veterans of shuttle launch good-byes. That’s not to say this one was easier. It was actually harder. We had already confessed to each other that we were more terrified of this mission than either of the others because now there was an end in sight. It was hard not to recall all those Hollywood movies where the hero died on his last mission, and our last mission loomed. For me there was just one more time to surrender myself to the terrors of ascent. For Donna there was just one more T-9 minute climb to the LCC roof (or so she prayed). There was just one more adrenaline-draining launch. And then it would be over. We would finally close the NASA chapter of our lives and begin to write the post-MECO chapter. It would be a chapter filled with the fun and beauty of southwest living, of getting back to the deserts and mountains of our youth. It would be a chapter that would record the joys of watching Patrick and Laura follow Amy’s lead into the bans of matrimony. And it would include the most wonderful part of life…grandchildren. Those were still glimmers in the eyes of our children, but we knew they would come. Yes, a wonderful post-MECO life awaited us. But to get there required one more “Go for main engine start.”

With only the stars as witnesses, Donna and I kissed in a long and passionate embrace that we both knew could be our last.

By noon on February 21, 1990, I should have been an hour into sleep, but instead I was staring into the dark of my room. Even a sleeping pill hadn’t done the trick. I could hear doors opening and closing, murmurs of conversation, J.O.’s worsening cough. I couldn’t imagine he was going to be able to hide it from the flight surgeon and prayed it wouldn’t generate a delay.