Riding Rockets

We had vastly different senses of humor and decorum. But these were merely the veneer of our personalities. At the most fundamental levels we were also light-years apart. Donna was rule-oriented, risk-adverse, inflexible, and easily stressed. When I tore the warning label from a new mattress, she was certain a SWAT team would come bursting through the door. Just missing an exit on a freeway would virtually paralyze her. Any time the gas gauge on the car dropped below one-half she became as nervous as a fighter pilot sweating out a midocean aerial refueling. She was obsessive-compulsive to an extreme even I couldn’t touch. All in all she had a personality ill suited for a woman married into the nomadic and dangerous world of military aviation. It had to have been torture for her to kiss me off to work, particularly after the plane crash that claimed our neighbor, but I never heard a complaint. My career had become her career.

In 1974 we transferred to Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, where I entered the Air Force Institute of Technology in pursuit of a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering. We had barely unpacked before we were once again on the move to Edwards AFB, California, where I entered the Flight Test Engineer School. In both places, Donna became sole parent as my studies consumed me.

In 1976, while I was finishing my Edwards assignment, NASA announced it would begin accepting applications for the first group of space shuttle astronauts. For the first time in the agency’s history there would be an astronaut position, mission specialist, that did not require pilot wings. It was astounding news. I was now eligible to apply to be an astronaut. Not only was I eligible but my flying background, master’s degree, and flight test engineering credentials made me a strong candidate. When I rushed home to tell Donna the news she smiled and said, “I told you. Everything works out for the best. God has His plan,” and then she went to her shrine and lit another bonfire, this one of thanksgiving.

How much of my curriculum vitae did I owe to Donna? All of it. Every step in my career set me up to meet the challenges of the next step. If I had stumbled at any point, there would have been a hole in my life that would have put my astronaut application in the “nice try” pile. But I hadn’t stumbled. Donna had provided me with the one thing I needed more than anything else…the opportunity to focus. Unlike many of my air force peers and nearly all of the TFNGs, I wasn’t a gifted person. I couldn’t get ahead on innate brainpower. I was more like the Forrest Gump of MS astronaut applicants. For me to have passed through the wickets of navigator training, combat flying, graduate school, and flight test engineer training required the intense focus of a dung beetle. And it was Donna who provided me the freedom to focus—to pour my heart and soul into the task at hand, to volunteer for extra flights, to take on additional squadron duties, to stay late in the grad school labs. I was spared the major distractions of married-with-children life.

Countless twists and turns in my life had put me on a Florida beach on June 24, 1984, only hours from my first space mission—but none as significant as the night a teenage girl stepped out from a party to kiss me.

*NASA uses the term L–(pronounced “L minus”) to indicate the days remaining to launch. Within twenty-four hours of launch, the term T–(pronounced “T minus”) is used to indicate the hours, minutes, and seconds to launch.

Chapter 19

Abort

Back at the crew quarters I changed into my athletic gear and headed for the gym. If I died on tomorrow’s mission, I would die in perfect health. I weighed 145 pounds, ten pounds less than I had weighed twenty-one years earlier when I had graduated from high school. I doubt there was a pound of fat on my 5-foot-9½-inch frame. I could run five-and-a-half-

minute miles…four of them back to back. I had a resting heartrate of 40. My ass was so tight I could have cracked walnuts between my butt cheeks.

As I pumped iron, I chuckled at the sight of the straw-filled archery bull’s-eye in one corner. What candy-ass astronaut had requested that addition to the gym? Whoever it was, I hoped they could fly a shuttle better than they could shoot a bow. The plaster wall around the target had been shotgunned by errant arrows.

I left the gym for an outdoor run and found Judy stretching before her jog. We fell in together. It was early evening and KSC had emptied of workers. Our only company were mosquitoes, and they were a real incentive to keep the pace fast. Sweat came quickly, which was the whole purpose of the run. I wanted to dehydrate myself to minimize bladder discomfort in tomorrow’s countdown. Other astronauts did the same. The few couch potatoes in our ranks tried to wring themselves dry by sitting in a whirlpool bath and drinking beer, counting on the diuretic effect of the alcohol and sweat to do the job.