Riding Rockets

On August 31, 1979, Chris Kraft came to the astronaut office to tell us NASA was dropping thecandidate suffix from our titles. Apparently we had impressed the agency enough for them to designate usastronauts nearly a year earlier than originally planned. We were no longer Ascans. I was happy to hear it. Even though I wouldn’t consider myself an astronaut until I got into space, I was tired of having to explain the title on PR trips and watching the crestfallen faces of event planners as they realized I wasn’t thereal astronaut they had been expecting. At our next office party we were each given silver astronaut pins to go with our new title. These were lapel pins fashioned in the shape of the official astronaut symbol, a three-rayed shooting star passing through an ellipse. When we finally flew in space, we would be given gold pins. Actually, we would then be allowed to purchase, at a cost of $400, a gold astronaut pin. (The silver pins were paid for out of the office coffee fund.)

After returning from the party, I took my pin off, put it in a drawer, and never wore it again. To me it was a meaningless token, like the plastic pilot wings that stewardesses give to children. Those Delta Airline wings weren’t going to make a child a pilot and a silver pin and title weren’t going to make me an astronaut. Only a ride into space could do that.

Chapter 15

Columbia

Columbiawas less than a year from launch, and, when it flew, it would mark NASA’s first manned spaceflight in six years. That was a concern for the NASA safety office. A six-year hiatus in manned operations provided a fertile environment for complacency. In defense, the office sent astronauts to various factories and shuttle support facilities to refocus the workers. We wanted to put a face on manned spaceflight, to reacquaint people with the deadly consequences of making a mistake on the job. Teams of astronauts were dispatched around the country and around the globe to give speeches, shake hands, and pass out NASA safety posters. We astronauts referred to these appearances as “widows and orphans” visits. While we never said, “Don’t fuck up or you could kill us and make widows of our wives,” that was exactly the message we hoped to impart by just standing there in our blue flight suits.

Steve Hawley and I were tapped to travel to Madrid, Spain, and the Seychelles Islands to deliver that message to the NASA and air force contingents who manned the shuttle tracking sites at those locations. NASA did not yet have its own communication relay satellites in orbit, so we depended upon an earth-girdling network of ground sites to communicate with orbiting astronauts. Other TFNGs were sent to Australia, England, Guam, Ascension Island, and the other overseas sites that completed this global tracking system.