Riding Rockets

Until my STS-41D association with Judy, I had believed it impossible for a man to be the close friend of an attractive woman. It was a fact of testosterone as irrefutable as gravity was a fact of nature. Men see attractive women as sex objects and that destroys any hope of close friendship. But I had discovered an exception to that rule. When a man and woman are thrown together for several years of training for a journey that has the potential to kill them, the man learns to see through the woman’s youth and beauty and measure her proficiency. He learns to see her as somebody whose response in an emergency might meanhis life or death. On that June evening, six years after we first met, I could now see and appreciate Judy’s skills as an astronaut. I could trust her with my life. Tomorrow, I would do exactly that.

Several years later I would learn this friendship had placed my name on the office grapevine. AfterChallenger, I was in Hank Hartsfield’s backseat on a T-38 flight. We had been sharing our thoughts on the disaster and the loss of so many friends when Hank had commented, “Judy’s death must have been particularly hard on you.” I was confused by the statement. The death of all the crew had been hard on me. I asked him, “Why do you say that?” To which Hank had replied, “Well…being that you two were sleeping together.” I was stunned. I proclaimed innocence but I knew he didn’t believe me. Maybe it is possible for a man to share a close relationship with a beautiful woman that does not include sex, but don’t expect other men to believe it.

At the crew quarters I showered and returned to the main conference room. Hank was my only company. He was reading the newspaper, mumbling about the idiocy of liberals and their destruction of the country. “Goddammit, I wish Ted Kennedy would find another bridge…with deeper and wider water under it.” I had long before learned not to respond. It would only elicit a filibuster on the topic. When Hank got wound up on politics, you could never escape.

Our satellite TV, for some fortuitous reason, received the Playboy Channel. I marveled at this fact as much as I marveled that alligators didn’t chase astronauts. How did the Playboy Channel end up on the TV in the astronaut crew quarters? I suspect it was just one of those government snafus. There was a KSC bean counter somewhere who had contracted with a company for satellite TV and this was what we got. It would probably have taken multiple forms in triplicate and ten thousand taxpayer dollars to turn it off. I wondered if the signal was coming from a satellite a shuttle had previously placed in orbit. That would be a unique claim to fame: “I was the guy who put the Playboy Channel in space.”

So, at T-12 hours and counting I was listening to Hank grumble, “Gloria Steinem should be in Ted Kennedy’s car when he finds that bridge,” while watching a topless model speaking about her turn-ons, “a six-pack belly and world peace,” and turnoffs, “pollution and rude people.”

I finally headed to my room for sleep. I knew that would be a struggle. I was bipolar with the frequency of a tuning fork, oscillating between fear and joy. The flight surgeon had given us sleeping pills but I had no intention of taking one. There was still a last physical exam ahead and I didn’t want an adverse reaction to the pills prompting a medical question. There were plenty of MSes who would gleefully step into my shoes on a moment’s notice. I wasn’t about to give any of those vultures that opportunity.

I lay in bed and studied the room’s only wall decoration, a framed photo of an exploding volcano. The photo was a time exposure so the glowing ejected lava was captured as arcing streaks against a black sky. Bloodred coils of molten rock snaked downward on the skirt of the mountain. I wondered what bureaucrat had been doing the interior decorating for the astronaut crew quarters and thought,If it was my last night before a mission into space, what wall art would I like to reflect upon to calm my uneasy soul? I know…an exploding volcano with lots of fire and sparks! It was like showing films of airplane crashes on an airliner as the in-flight movie. If you’re going to hang a picture of something exploding, why not hang a photo of a NASA rocket exploding on the launchpad? That would be rich.

The only sound was a muffled, unintelligible voice coming through the steel wall next to my ear. Mike Coats was talking on the phone to Diane and his children. I had made my final call to Donna and the kids a couple hours earlier and had performed as poorly in that good-bye as I had in person on the beach. Even though I now had time to make another call, I did not. One more good-bye wasn’t going to help me or Donna. Mike was a better man than I, God bless him.