Riding Rockets

Poof.With Abbey’s words TFNG camaraderie vaporized. I don’t believe there was ever again a social gathering of all TFNGs. As a group wallowing in a common uncertainty and united in a common distrust of our management, it had been easy to share a beer at the Outpost. Now we had been cleaved into haves and have-nots. There was a pecking order; some of us were better than others. I tried my best to be rational—somebodyhad to be first. We couldn’t all be. But I couldn’t accept that rationale and I doubted any of the others could either. We were too competitive. It wasThe Right Stuff syndrome as described by Tom Wolfe. The seven flight-assigned TFNGs had more of thatstuff than the rest of us. We, theunassigned, had been left behind. I would later see first-flight assignments have the same effect on every astronaut class. Their all-for-one and one-for-all camaraderie would end just as abruptly as ours had. The effect could have been somewhat assuaged if Young and Abbey had been open about the flight assignment process, but all Abbey left us with was “Hopefully we’ll get more people assigned soon.” That wasn’t a lot to hang on to. Abbey’s and Young’s silence on the mechanics and calendar of flight assignments was earning them a growing enmity.

With George’s announcement still echoing in my brain, I wished for a hole in the earth to open and swallow me. I wanted to nurse my wounded ego in private, but that wasn’t an option. Like the also-rans at the Academy Awards, I had to don a fake smile and shake the hands of the winners. They were incandescent. You could feel the heat from their faces. Several of the blessed tried to mollify us with comments like, “You’ll be getting a flight soon” and “Your day is coming, too.” I was being pitied. I didn’t think I could feel lower. But I was wrong. I heard Sally comment, “George told us of the assignments a week ago, but he wanted us to keep it quiet until the press release.” I wondered how many times in the past week I had been eating lunch in the cafeteria with Rick Hauck or John Fabian and whining about the delay in flight assignments, and all the while he had been silently celebrating his mission appointment. God, I felt so pathetic.

As I drifted from the room, I heard Fred Gregory’s sotto voce growl, “This is bullshit!” His head and shoulders slumped in depression. Another casualty. Then it dawned on me. He had not just been passed over for an early flight assignment. He was black. He had just been passed over as the first African American in space. Guy Bluford would seize that title on STS-8. I was just a white guy. My name would never be on anybody’s Trivial Pursuit card regardless of when I flew. But Guy Bluford would be history. And Sally Ride, as the first American woman in space, would become an icon. Some had lost more than just a mission assignment with Abbey’s announcement. Some had lost history and the payday that came with celebrity. Sally Ride, in particular, had just been handed a free ticket through life. As the first American woman in space she could look forward to book deals, speech honorariums, corporate board seats, and consulting fees that could earn her millions.