Riding Rockets

I was as scared as I had ever been in my life. But at that moment, if God had appeared and told me there was a 90 percent probability I wasn’t going to return from this mission alive and had given me an opportunity to jump from that crew van, I would have shouted, “No!” For this rookie flight, I would take a one in ten chance. I had dreamed of this moment since childhood. I had to go. Even if God had given me a vision of what the other nine chances meant, a vision of my charred remains being zipped into one of those body bags, I still would have declined His offer to exit the van. I had to make this flight.

I would later look back on my desperate need for this first mission and think how perverted it was. What type of a person puts their wife, their children,their own life second behind a need to ride a rocket? I believed that surely I was unique in this sick prioritization. But I discovered otherwise. In the weeks after STS-41D, Hank Hartsfield described to me his feelings before his first mission (STS-4). I was stunned to hear his admission of the exact feelings I was now experiencing. He recounted how he would rather have died on his first mission than never to have flown in space. We were like the Mount Everest climbers stepping over frozen corpses from prior climbing disasters in our quest for the summit. Like those climbers, we were motivated by a fear far greater than death—the fear of not reaching the top.

What a fraud astronauts practice on our fellow citizens. Most Americans see us as selfless heroes, laying our lives on the line for our country, the advancement of mankind, and other lofty ideals. In reality no astronaut has ever screamed, “For God and Country!” when the hold-down bolts blew…at least not on their rookie mission. We were all stepping into harm’s way because we knew otherwise we would die as incomplete humans. There was room in our souls for noble motivations only after our pins were gold.

AsDiscovery came into view we leaned into the aisle to watch. A crisscross of xenon lights bathed her. Against the backdrop of early morning blackness she appeared as a newly risen morning star. If my heart had been in overdrive before, it now accelerated to warp speed.

At the pad we stepped from the van and looked up at our ship. In spite of my faith in physics, it didn’t seem possible anything so gargantuan could rise from the Earth, much less achieve a 17,300-miles-per-hour speed at 200 miles altitude. The stack towered 200 feet above the Mobile Launch Platform (MLP), which, itself, loomed several stories above us. The 4½-million-pound mass was held in place by eight hold-down bolts, four at each SRB skirt. The SRBs were separated by nearly 30 feet to accommodate the blimpish diameter of the ET. The gray acreage of the MLP’s underside formed a steel overcast. Three cavernous openings were cut through it to allow the flames from the two SRBs and the SSMEs to descend into the flame bucket and be diverted outward. During engine ignition a nearby water tower would be emptied into that bucket to protect it from heat damage. Giant plastic sausages of water were also slung in the two SRB cavities. That water would attenuate the acoustic shock waves the boosters developed, which could reflect upward to damage cargo in the payload bay.

The pad was eerily deserted. A vapor of oxygen swirled around the SSME nozzles. A flag of more vapor whipped from the top of the ET beanie cap. Shadows played upon that fog, creating a scene right out of a creepy science fiction movie. Loudspeakers boomed the prelaunch checklist milestones, a noise that competed with the deafening hiss of the engine purge. The few remaining workers, appearing Lilliputian next to the machine they serviced, performed their duties with quiet urgency. In the shadows the glowing yellow safety light-sticks Velcroed to their arms and legs made them appear skeletal.

We climbed into the pad elevator and shot to the 195-foot level. Hank and Mike walked immediately to the white room, a boxlike anteroom up againstDiscovery ’s side hatch, where technicians waited to help us into the cockpit. Hank and Mike would be first inside. I had time to kill and walked to an edge to get a better view of the vehicle.Discovery ’s belly of black heat tiles gave her a scaly, reptilian look. They contrasted sharply with the white thermal blankets glued on her top and sides.

I looked out at the Launch Control Center (LCC), three miles away. Donna and the kids would be inside. At T-9 minutes the family escorts would lead them to the roof to watch the launch. I wondered how Donna was handling the stress. I knew the kids would be okay, but she would be at her emotional limits.

“Hey, Tarzan, don’t fall.” Judy came to my side. The wind had whipped her hair into a black aura. She had an ear-to-ear grin.