Riding Rockets

We were all seized with aWhat the hell? wonderment. Something was seriously wrong. Hank punched off the master caution light and tone. The left and right SSME shutdown lights stabbed us with their red glare, meaning they were off. But the light for the center SSME remained dark. Surely it couldn’t still be running? There was no noise or vibration. But if it was still running, we wanted it off. Whatever was happening, we wanted everything off. Mike repeatedly jabbed his finger onto the shutdown button. But there was no change in the light status.

Paramount on everybody’s mind was the status of the SRBs. We had gotten to within a few seconds of their start. If they ignited now, we were dead. Generating more than 6 million pounds of thrust, they certainly had the muscle to rip out the hold-down bolts and destroy the vehicle in the process.

The diagnosis quickly came from LCC. “We’ve had an RSLS abort.”Discovery ’s computers had detected something wrong and stopped the launch—a Redundant Set Launch Sequencer (RSLS) abort. But what had gone wrong? Had a turbo-pump disintegrated? Had an engine exploded? Had hot shrapnel been hurled around our engine compartment? We were strapped to 4 million pounds of explosives and didn’t have a clue what was happening a hundred feet below us.

And neither did the families. I would later learn how the abort had played out on the LCC roof. A thick summer haze had obscured the launchpad. When the engines had ignited, a bright flash had momentarily penetrated that haze, strongly suggesting an explosion. As that fear had been rising in the minds of the families, the engine start sound had finally hit…a brief roar. It had echoed off the sides of the Vertical Assembly Building (VAB) and then…silence. Donna had been convinced she was seeing and hearing an explosion. Fortunately the astronaut escorts had been there to ease her fear with an explanation of a shuttle-pad abort. No doubt they had done so with some private reservations. There had never been a shuttle engine-start abort.

Donna had crumpled into a chair and cried. Amy, our oldest daughter, had followed suit. They were crushed by the thought that it would all have to be repeated another day. Amy snapped, “Why don’t they just put more gas in it and launch it now!” The thought of having to climb the LCC roof and endure another countdown torture made her wild with anger.

Back in the cockpit, things took a turn for the worse. Launch Control reported a fire on the launchpad and activated the fire suppression system. Water began to spray across the cockpit windows. What was going on down there?

In the midst of these terrifying moments I looked at Steve Hawley. He stared at me with eyes as big as plates. I knew that was my face—I was staring into a mirror. Then he commented, “I thought we’d be higher when the engines quit.” I wanted to hit the SOB. I wanted to scream, “This isn’t funny, Hawley!” And to think, six years earlier I had harbored doubts about the post-docs’ mettle. Some of them, Hawley included, had steel balls.

Hank ordered all of us to unstrap from our seats and prepare for an emergency egress from the cockpit. If we chose to leave we’d have to run across the access arm to the other side of the gantry and jump in escape baskets. In just thirty seconds those would slide us a quarter mile away. We’d be able to wait out the problem in an underground bunker, assuming we could get there before the rocket exploded.

Judy crawled to the side hatch window and reported the access arm had been swung back into place and the fire suppression system was spraying water over it. She didn’t see any fire. “Henry, do you want me to open the hatch?”

Judy’s question elicited several exchanges of do we or don’t we make a run for it. How bad was the fire? LCC’s conversations seemed unpanicked and that gave us some reassurance that everything was under control. But LCC and MCC always seemed in control. That was their job, to calmly look at their computer screens of data and make robotic, emotionless decisions. Could they remain calm even as their creation was de-creating? I had no doubt. “We’ve had an RSLS abort” could well be engineer-speak for “Holy shit! Run for your lives! She’s gonna blow!” No, I was not comforted by the calm of the LCC.

“Negative on opening the hatch, Judy.” Hank decided we’d sit tight. It was a decision that might have saved our lives. The post-abort analysis determined the fire had been caused by some residual hydrogen escaping from the engines and igniting combustible material on the MLP. The gas flame may have been as high as the cockpit but since hydrogen burns clean we would not have seen it. We could have thrown open the hatch and run into a fire.