Riding Rockets

TAL—Trans-Atlantic Landing abort. A launch abort in which the shuttle makes an emergency landing at an airport in Europe or Africa.

TDRS—Tracking and Data Relay Satellite. A satellite used by NASA to relay commands, data, and astronaut voice communication between the orbiter and MCC.

TFNG—Thirty-Five New Guys. The nickname adopted by the astronaut class of 1978. The name is a play on an obscene military acronym FNG (F***ing New Guy), used to describe someone new to a military unit.

THC—Translational Hand Controller. A square-shaped controller that can be moved in or out, up or down, and left or right. These control inputs will produce the corresponding movement at the tip of the robot arm. The CDR and PLT also have THCs that will fire the orbiter’s thrusters to move it in the direction commanded.

UCD—Urine Collection Device. A condom/nylon bladder arrangement or an adult diaper worn by astronauts on the three occasions when they cannot use the shuttle toilet: launch, spacewalks, and reentry/landing.

UHF—Ultra-High Frequency. A radio frequency.

USAF—United States Air Force.

USMC—United States Marine Corps.

USN—United States Navy.

VAB—Vertical Assembly Building. The 500-foot-high building originally used to prepare theSaturn V moon rockets. The shuttle stack is completed in the VAB before being transported to the launchpad.

VFR—Visual Flight Rules. An aviation term referring to flights where the pilot is responsible for his/her own clearance from other aircraft and objects.

VITT—Vehicle Integration Test Team. The team at Kennedy Space Center that supports the checkout of the orbiters as they are prepared for a mission.

WETF—Weightless Environment Training Facility. A large swimming pool used by astronauts to train for spacewalks.

WSO—Weapons Systems Operator. The air force crewmember (usually in two-place fighters like the F-4 or F-111) who is responsible for navigation, electronic warfare, and weapons status. WSO is used interchangeably with GIB (guy-in-back).

I was a child of the space race—twelve years old at the time of Sputnik I’s launch, October 4, 1957. I wanted to be an astronaut from the moment I heard the word.

The Hugh Mullane family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, circa 1960. I’m second from the left. My dad was rendered a paraplegic at age thirty-three by polio. His leg braces are visible at his atrophied ankles.

At about age sixteen, I’m posed with one of my homemade rockets. My “capsule” was a coffee can; the nose cone was a rolled-up sheet of plastic. My mom and dad were huge supporters of my interest in space. After taking this photo, my dad drove me into the desert for the launch.

Donna and I walk out of the Kirtland AFB chapel, June 14, 1967. We both married for the wrong reasons—me for sex, she for escape from her parents. Somewhere in our marriage (thirty-eight years and counting), we fell in love. We would have three children, who would give us six grandchildren.

In 1969, I flew 134 combat missions in Vietnam in the backseat of the RF-4C, the reconnaissance version of the F-4 Phantom. My flawed eyesight prevented me from being a fighter pilot.

George Abbey, a midlevel bureaucrat, was God to the astronaut corps. He had supreme authority over shuttle mission assignments. Morale suffered significantly under his despotic and secretive leadership style, and many astronauts came to loathe him.

Judy Resnik, the second American woman in space, helps me prepare for a spacewalk simulation in early 1984. In our year of training for our rookie mission, STS-41D, we became close friends. Judy opened my male, sexist-pig eyes to the reality that women could do the astronaut job as well as any man. She would die aboardChallenger while flying her second space mission.

The heartrending final astronaut-spouse good-byes occur approximately twenty-four hours prior to launch at the astronaut beach house. For theChallenger andColumbia spouses, the good-byes were forever. The beach house sits on sacred ground.

Donna and I sought the privacy of the beach house sands for our farewells. Before all of my missions, I told her, “If I die tomorrow, I died doing what I loved.”

Donna slumps in emotional and physical exhaustion after one of my many mission scrubs. At T–9 minutes in the countdown, spouses and children are escorted to the roof of the Launch Control Center to watch the liftoff in the company of an astronaut family escort, aka “an escort into widowhood.”

The STS-41D in-orbit crew self-portrait. I’m floating at the left (legs extended). At the bottom, from right to left, are Pilot Mike Coats and Commander Hank Hartsfield. At Judy Resnik’s left side is Mission Specialist Steve Hawley. Payload Specialist Charlie Walker floats behind me. Judy received hate mail from a handful of feminists for the cheerleader effect the pose suggested.

A lifetime dream comes true—floating in Discovery’s upper cockpit on my rookie mission, STS-41D, August 30–September 5, 1984.