Riding Rockets

I looked at my watch. Unfortunately we were fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. In this business you never wanted time on your hands. Mike Coats, who had been observing the suit-up, pulled out a deck of cards. He had been where we were and knew of the need to have every moment occupied. We gathered at a table for a couple hands of Possum Fargo, a dumb fighter-pilot card game that required no strategy—the worst hand won. As we played, Pepe observed that the flight surgeons seemed to have hung around him more than anybody else. “It was like they were two padres waiting to escort me to the gallows. I wonder if they thought I was going to panic or pass out or something.”

Casper noted, “Pepe, you’re always in a panic. How would they know?” He was right. Pepe was a twenty-four-volt guy in a twelve-volt world. He reminded me of a hummingbird in the way he darted at whatever he was doing, whether he was turning the page of a checklist, punching in a phone number, or flipping cockpit switches.

I added, “If they were watching for panic, they should have been at my seat.” I told them of my pounding heart during the pressure test. Everybody nodded knowingly. We were all the same. Anybody who wasn’t terrified getting ready to fly a space shuttle must have chased a couple Valiums with a fifth of vodka.

At my suggestion, we started playing draw poker. The game required more thought and was therefore a greater distraction. To the astonishment of all, I pulled two straights in just six hands. Incredible luck. As we were called for the bus, I hoped I hadn’t used it all up.

In the elevator I noticed J.O. and Casper had net bags filled with flight surgeon–prescribed Afrin, throat lozenges, antibiotics, and other treatments. Casper held up his medicine bag and suggested a STS-36 motto: “Just saymaybe to drugs.” I wondered if this was a first in the space program…a commander and pilot carrying a small pharmacy as they headed for their machine. I wasn’t worried. The autopilot would be flying us to orbit. If it wasn’t, and J.O. was hand-flying us because of some malfunction, I knew he would do just fine. The threat of death has a way of focusing anybody, even a sick CDR.

It was 9:45P.M . on a Sunday night when we stepped outside and headed for the astro-van. There were only a handful of NASA workers there to greet us, a fact that proved fortuitous for Pepe, as there were fewer people to laugh at his near fall. We had been instructed to stay close together on our exit so the photographers could get aMagnificent Seven –style group photo. Pepe was closest to the building door, and, as he passed it, his oxygen hose caught on the handle and he nearly walked right out from under his feet. It was great entertainment for the small crowd.

At the LCC the driver stopped to let Mike Coats off. He would get a ride to the Shuttle Landing Facility and serve as the weather pilot in the STA jet. Before stepping down, Mike had us all join our hands in collective prayer. We bowed our heads as he led, “God help you if you screw this up.” It was a prayer that Dan Brandenstein had first composed and made famous among TFNGs. We all laughed, but knew that Mike spoke the truth. God better help us if we screwed up anything because management would shish-kebab our testicles if we did.

The van continued toward the pad and I sucked in every detail of the journey. The memories would have to last me the rest of my life, be that another few hours or decades. We sat facing one another, our suit-cooling units in the aisleway. In the high-humidity air the units produced a vapor that swirled around our feet. Several of us had one hand at our throat pulling back the rubber dam to allow an escape pathway for the cooling air being blown into the sides of our suits. Others solved the problem by inserting their space pens between flesh and rubber to create a flow path.

I watched the crew. Hilmers was quiet. I knew he was praying and that was more than fine with me. If God protected him, He would be protecting the rest of us Playboy Channel–watching children of Gomorrah. J.O. and Casper, still struggling with the effects of their illness, were subdued. Pepe and I were the motormouths, trying to hide behind our joking.

I observed, “With this swirling vapor at our feet, it’s like being part of the STS-26 crew. Let’s start singing ‘I’m Proud to Be an American.’ Come on, Dave, you know the tune.” Dave Hilmers had been a “Return to Flight” crewmember.

Pepe quipped, “I forgot my badge. We’re going to have to go back.” We had left our NASA badges in our EOM bags—standard prelaunch protocol. With NASA security cars leading and trailing our van, the roadblock guards weren’t about to stop us and ask for badges. It would be like the Vatican Swiss Guard stopping the pope mobile to check the badge of the guy in the funny hat.