Riding Rockets Part 4

But in our Gulf of Mexico playground, the only rule was, "There are no rules," another witticism of Hoot Gibson. Pilots would make that final turn toward each other and slam the throttles into afterburner. It was a game of chicken and we strained to pick out the dot representing the compet.i.tion. When the "tallyho" call was made, the game was on. Our jets would pa.s.s canopy to canopy, sometimes no more than a couple hundred feet apart, and the pilots would jerk their '38s into a vertical spiraling climb, keeping each other in sight and trying to maneuver for an advantage. Usually the first "vertical scissors" would end in a tie with both planes standing on their nozzles and the airspeed dropping lower and lower. When an out-of-control tail slide was imminent, the pilots would have no alternative but to pull the nose over. With the ocean steadily filling the windscreen, another scissoring dance to gain advantage would begin. Only after several of these up-down vertical helixes would one pilot finally gain a small advantage and a tail chase would begin. The pursued would twist in various escape maneuvers. The planes would shudder violently in high-speed turns that crushed us in our seats. Sweat would pour from our scalps and sting our eyes. Unintelligible grunts would fill the intercom as we strained to tighten our guts and prevent blood flow out of our brains. Unlike fighter pilots we did not wear anti-G suits, which added the danger of G-induced unconsciousness to the games. In a high-speed turn the G-forces could momentarily reach seven, which would pull the blood from our brains and bring on tunnel vision. Just a little harder pull and our vision would have gone to black...unconsciousness. Death at water impact would have followed. But we always managed to grunt our way through the yanking and banking to eventually hear the "rat-a-tat-tat,you're dead" call over the radio. A victor would be proclaimed and another game would begin.

How we survived this idiocy without an aircraft and/or crew loss, I have no idea. On several occasions the extreme maneuvering would lead to a flameout. A "break it off" call would be a certain indication the other crew was restarting a failed engine. It must have been the Almighty watching out after us. As I would later hear John Young say in reference to near disasters on early shuttle flights, "G.o.d watches out for babies, drunks, and astronauts." He certainly watched after dogfighting TFNGs.

If only G.o.d would have watched out for me all the way to the chocks. On one occasion Brewster Shaw let me fly our jet to a landing. After touchdown, I made the mistake of lowering the nose too quickly. The tire impacted a barrier wire stretched across the approach end of the runway (used by tailhook-equipped aircraft in an emergency), which dented the wheel and caused the nose tire to go flat. In the vernacular of the military flyer, we had just "stepped on our d.i.c.ks." One of the few rules in NASA's playbook was that backseaters didn't land the plane. Brewster attempted to cover our violation by telling the flight-line mechanics he had screwed up the landing. "I let the nose down too early." The maintenance chief seemed to accept this explanation and we thought we were home free...until the next Monday morning meeting. TFNG Dave Walker brought the flat tire into the conference room! He hefted it from behind the table and said, "Brewster, you want to explain this? The incident report says you forgot to hold the nose up for aero-braking." Dave had recently been appointed the TFNG safety rep for flight operations, so it was not surprising he had heard about the flat tire.

Brewster, a short, wiry, reticent air force pilot, shot Walker a look that read, "After this meeting is over, I'm going to personally shove that freakin' tire up your a.s.s and then reinflate it!" We had been caught, given up by one of our own. There was no way anybody in that room was going to believe Brewster, a test pilot, had forgotten to hold up the jet's nose, any more than they would have believed Nolan Ryan had forgotten how to throw a fastball. John Young, in particular, was looking for an explanation.

An hour later we were in his office giving him one...the truth. "I let Mike do the landing, John." After the confession it was painfully obvious we were going to need new a.s.sholes. Young gave us a well-deserved reaming. "I'm constantly fighting headquarters to keep these '38s and stunts like this jeopardize it for all of us. MSes aren't pilots. Letting Mullane land was the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time."

During our grilling, I was struck by how uncomfortable Young appeared to be with command. As with his welcome speech, he couldn't make eye contact. He looked at his shoes. He looked at papers on his desk. He looked out the window. He looked everywhere but into our eyes. In every prior a.s.s chewing I had ever received from my military commander, and there had been a few, their eyes had been the worst. They had drilled into my very soul and filled me with dread. I recalled my last commander, Colonel Jim Glenn, haranguing me and my pilot for having disobeyed a checklist procedure to jettison some hot ordnance before making an emergency landing. Colonel Glenn had stared at us with the intensity of a cobra. I was embarra.s.sed for Young and his dancing eyes. His unease was palpable. But we were finally dismissed to return to our offices and worry about whether we'd ever fly in s.p.a.ce.

The flat tire incident didn't hurt Brewster's career. In fact he flew before Dave Walker, on STS-9 as-get this-John Young's copilot! I can only a.s.sume that Young never really knew it was Brewster who had screwed up because he had never looked him in the face.

There was one aspect of the T-38 flying I wondered about. How would the civilians handle the issue of airsickness? Some of them were going to be affected, of that, I was sure. I had been in my early air force flying career. When I made my transition to the backseat of the F-4 Phantom, I vomited enough for a squadron of men. Would any of the civilians have a similar experience? Would any of them give up? There were whispers of some being as tormented as I had been. The office grapevine had it that Rhea Seddon was struggling and Hoot Gibson was taking her on flights to help her adjust. She didn't quit. None of the civilians did. I admired them for it. It was a shared experience and another lesson for me that the civilian TFNGs were not the wimps I had imagined they were.

Chapter 13.

Training.

The training we had all been anxiously antic.i.p.ating-how to operate and fly the s.p.a.ce shuttle-began in earnest in 1979. It was a training program that would last our entire careers. The shuttle c.o.c.kpit has more than a thousand hardware and software switches, controls, instruments, and circuit breakers. Before our first ride, we would have to know the function of all of them.

The heart of NASA's training was simulation. Anything a.s.sociated with s.p.a.ceflight that could be simulated, was. There were part-task trainers in which individual systems were simulated: the hydraulic system, the electrical system, the environmental control system, the main engine system, the att.i.tude control system, the orbital maneuvering system, and all the other systems that made up the s.p.a.ce shuttle. We were scheduled in these trainers again and again until we had a working knowledge of each switch and computer display for that particular system. Then we would go through the emergency procedures for each system.

There were no tests in our training. We had a motivation far more compelling than any written test...ourselves. The military flyer's creed said it best, "Better dead than look bad." n.o.body wanted to look bad in front of their peers. So we attacked the training as if something more important than our lives depended upon it, since something more important did...our egos.

We graduated from the part-task simulators to the Shuttle Mission Simulator (SMS). NASA had two of these machines, both featuring exact replicas of the s.p.a.ce shuttle c.o.c.kpit. The "fixed-base" SMS was, as the name implied, fixed; it didn't move. It was used for orbit simulations. The "motion-base" SMS was used for ascent and entry training. Perched atop six hydraulic legs that could tilt, pitch, and shake the c.o.c.kpit to simulate launch and landing maneuvers, it looked like a giant mutant insect from a sci-fi movie. In both SMSes, computer-generated graphics appeared in the windows to provide representations of the cargo bay, robot arm, payloads, rendezvous targets, and runways. The simulators could be electronically linked to Mission Control for "integrated" simulations in which the astronaut crews would fly missions with the same MCC team that would watch over them during the actual mission.

The SMS training was orchestrated by a Simulator Supervisor (Sim Sup, p.r.o.nounced "sim soup") and his/her team. Sitting at computer consoles in back rooms, these engineers could input malfunctions and watch the responses of the crew and MCC. Sim Sups were virtuosos from h.e.l.l. Astronauts joked that simulation supervisors intentionally remained celibate for weeks prior to a simulation, wore shoes a size too small, and starched their underwear just to be frustrated and mean.

Within seconds after a simulated liftoff, a Sim Sup would introduce malfunctions that would have the crew scrambling to respond to a failed engine, an overheated hydraulic pump, a leaking reaction control system, and a shorted electrical system. Astronauts scheduled for "Ascent Skills" training jokingly referred to it as "Ascent Kills." It was an exaggeration. The simulation objective wasn't to kill the crew. Any mission that ended in a crash was considered poorly written or poorly executed. Instead, the Sim Sups and their teams designed missions that stressed the astronauts and MCC to their absolute limits. And their genius and dedication showed in the missions. No astronaut crew has ever been lost in flight because they were not adequately trained. No mission has ever failed to achieve its objectives because of a deficiency in training.

In my first SMS session I had a flashback to my arrival day at West Point. Then, an uppercla.s.sman had told me to relax and turn around to take in the magnificence of the campus. "Mr. Mullane, have a good look. Over there is Trophy Point and the beautiful Hudson River, and up there is the famous Protestant Chapel. Take it all in...because this will be the last time for eleven months that you'll see it. You have now died and gone to h.e.l.l. GET YOUR NECK IN AND YOUR EYES STRAIGHT FORWARD, MISTER!"

My first SMS experience was similar. The Sim Sup let us enjoy a perfectly nominal ascent into orbit. We felt the simulated rumble of engine ignition (delivered through the hydraulic legs), saw the computer-generated image of the gantry speed past the window, felt the Gs rise (simulated by increasing the tilt of the c.o.c.kpit), experienced the bang-flash of SRB separation, and enjoyed the ride all the way to Main Engine Cutoff (MECO). Then, as he was resetting his computers, Sim Sup said, "I hope you enjoyed it. It's the last one you'll ever see." He was almost right. In my twelve-year NASA career, I saw only three more malfunction-free SMS ascents. Each of those came just before departing to Kennedy s.p.a.ce Center for each of my three missions. In spite of rumors to the contrary, Sim Sups had hearts. They wanted us to leave for our missions on a high note, to see what we'd hopefully see during our real ascent a few days later...a completely nominal ride into s.p.a.ce.

There were other simulators besides the SMSes. Astronauts trained for s.p.a.cewalks in an enormous indoor swimming pool, the Weightless Environment Training Facility (WETF). The pool contained replicas of the shuttle airlock, cargo bay, and payloads. We dressed in 300-pound s.p.a.cesuits and were craned into the water, where scuba divers ballasted us with lead until we floated at a fixed depth. This "neutral" buoyancy provided a fair replication of what occurred on real s.p.a.cewalks, where a push on a tool would result in an equal and opposite reaction. The WETF facilitated the design of tools, handholds, and foot restraints for s.p.a.cewalkers, all necessary to complete weightless work.

There was also a simulator for MSes to acquire skills with the Canadian-built Remote Manipulator System (RMS). The Manipulator Development Facility (MDF) contained a full-scale mock-up of the shuttle cargo bay (60 feet long and 15 feet in diameter) and a fully functional 50-foot-long robot arm. Huge helium-filled balloons served as weightless payloads. MSes would stand in a replica of the shuttle's aft c.o.c.kpit, look through the aft windows, and operate the robot arm controls. We would lift the balloons from the cargo bay and/or stow them in the bay in simulations of orbit activities.

Robot arm operations were challenging. A camera at the end of the arm transmitted images to a screen in the c.o.c.kpit. MSes would look at these images and simultaneously use two hand controls to bring the arm's business end to a successful grapple with the target. Using these hand controls while tracking a moving target on a display screen (how we would grapple a free-flying satellite) was like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. It required lots of practice. To a.s.sist us in developing tracking skills, the engineers provided a moving target that hung from the ceiling of the building.

In one of my MDF sessions, I employed my newly acquired tracking skills to tease Judy Resnik. I knew from the schedule that she was next up for the training and watched for her to enter the building. When she did, I maneuvered the end of the robot arm so as to track her with the camera at its tip. She glanced up and saw the huge boom dipping and swaying and twisting to her every turn and knew exactly what I was doing. She stopped, and I flew the arm outward as if it were reaching for her, then slowly tilted the wrist joint so the camera scanned her body from head to toe. When she entered the c.o.c.kpit, she smiled and said, "You're a pig, Mullane." I smiled back and pretended not to understand, but of course she was right.

While I eagerly looked forward to SMS, WETF, and MDF simulations, there was one simulator I could have done without.... NASA's zero-G plane, nicknamed "the Vomit Comet." This was a modified Boeing 707 aircraft. Large sections of seats had been removed and the interior surfaces padded. After taking off from Ellington Field, the pilot would steer for the Gulf of Mexico, where he would fly the craft in a roller-coaster trajectory. While climbing toward the top of each "hill," he would push forward on the controls so the trajectory of the plane exactly matched the pull of gravity. The result was a thirty-second free fall in which everything in the plane was weightless. Unrestrained astronauts in the back would float in their padded chamber. At the end of the dive, the pilot would perform a 2-G pullout that would smash everybody to the padded floor. He would then advance the throttles, climb back to 33,000 feet, and start all over. On a typical mission the process would be repeated about fifty times.

It took only one flight in the jet to understand why it was named the Vomit Comet. The plane was a barf factory. Just climbing aboard, the nose would detect a faint odor of bile. Like cigarette smoke that cannot be removed from the drapes of a two-pack-a-day addict, the smell of stomach fluid had permeated the very aluminum structure of the machine. Even when its aged bones are someday sold for sc.r.a.p and melted down, the recycled aluminum will still bear the aroma of our stomach acid.

I quickly learned that the videos NASA released to the public of Vomit Cometborne astronauts laughing and tumbling were recorded on the first couple dives because by the tenth weightless parabola someone would have already retreated into his or her seat and be vomiting copiously. Like the chain reaction of a nuclear explosion, the odor of fresh barf would drift through the cabin and send a few more over the edge. Those new smells would combine to affect yet more people. Even those who tried to block the smell by breathing through their mouths could not shield their senses, for the guttural sounds of the d.a.m.ned would fill the volume like a pack of barking German shepherds. By the twentieth parabola there were few smiles remaining. By the thirtieth parabola, some would be wishing the flight controls would freeze and the plane would smash into the sea at 600 knots and put them out of their misery. But through it all there would be the lucky minority, the immune who would smile and whoop and tumble and ask for more. I hated them.

I never barfed on any of my Vomit Comet rides, but I had wanted to on all of them. From the fifth dive onward my gorge was continually at the back of my throat and only by a super-human effort was I able to keep it there. I sucked on Life Savers by the gross, hoping the constant swallowing reflex they generated would keep my stomach where it belonged. I knew I would have felt better had I periodically retreated to the rear of the plane and vomited, but that would have been a sign of weakness and a violation of rule number one: Better dead than look bad. Besides, there were female TFNGs unaffected by the maneuvers. The image of me strapped into the back with my head in a barf bag while Anna Fisher and Judy Resnik did loop-de-loops was too much for my t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es to take. So I faked it. When Judy suggested we do simultaneous somersaults I smiled through gritted teeth and nodded agreement, all the while cursing my b.a.l.l.s for their bravado.

Of all of NASA's simulators, none was more memorable than the toilet trainer. It occupied a room next to the fixed-base SMS so astronauts could practice on it when they were in those training sessions. And practice was certainly needed.

The shuttle toilet was basically a vacuum cleaner. (Do not try this at home.) The urinal was a suction hose with attachable funnels to accommodate male and female users. Because of its strong suction (one marine proposed marriage), the toilet checklist contained a warning for males not to allow the most cherished part of their anatomy to get too deep into the funnel. If an inattentive astronaut's appendage got sucked into the hose, he would find himself qualified for a second career as a circus freak working under a banner heralding, "See the world's longest and skinniest p.e.n.i.s!"

Urine was collected in a holding tank and dumped into s.p.a.ce every few days. I would later find these urine dumps spectacular to watch. The fluid would freeze into thousands of ice crystals and shoot into s.p.a.ce like tracer bullets.

The toilet solid waste collection feature also used airflow as a flush medium. A plastic toilet seat sat atop a "transport tube" approximately four inches in diameter and a couple inches in length. Users attached themselves to the seat with padded thigh clamps then pulled a lever to open the transport tube cover and turn on the steering air jets. The waste would be directed into a large bulbous container directly beneath the user. Astronaut solid waste is not dumped outside but is retained in the toilet, no doubt to the great relief of the rest of humanity. If solid waste is ever dumped into s.p.a.ce, it will give new meaning to the phenomenonmeteor shower.

One feature of the toilet made it particularly difficult to use...the narrow opening of the solid waste transport tube. This was an engineering necessity to achieve an effective downward airflow, but it made transport tube "aim" critical to waste collection success. A user not perfectly aligned in the center of the tube could find their feces stuck to the sides of the tube and smeared over their rear end. To help the astronauts find their a-holes, NASA installed a camera at the bottom of the toilet simulator transport tube. A light inside the trainer provided illumination to a part of the body that normally didn't get a lot of sunshine. A monitor was placed directly in front of the trainer with a helpful crosshair marker to designate the exact center of the transport tube. In our training we would clamp ourselves to this toilet and wiggle around until we were looking at a perfect bull's-eye. When that was achieved we would memorize the position of our thighs and b.u.t.tocks in relation to the clamps and other seat landmarks. By duplicating the same position on a s.p.a.ce mission we could be a.s.sured of a perfect "shack" (fighter pilot lingo for a perfect bomb drop). Needless to say, this training took a lot of the glamour out of being an astronaut.

The toilet design was essentially complete by the time TFNGs were undergoing waste management training, but an Edwards AFB Vomit Comet pilot told me of some of the early development efforts. These included female nurse volunteers who flew hundreds of weightless parabolas. They drank gallons of iced tea and during the thirty-second weightless falls would void into various toilet designs. Volunteers for the solid waste collection tests included a USAF lieutenant. The Vomit Comet would be parked near a taxiway with all the ground support equipment attached and ready to go, just like a Cold War nuclear bomber. And just like those bomber crews, the Vomit Comet pilots made sure they were ready for the scramble call...not from the president of the United States but rather from the bowel-distressed lieutenant screaming, "I've got to go!" At that, everybody would run to the plane, fire up the engines, and roar skyward. The weightless parabolas would begin and the test subject would have multiple thirty-second intervals to try a bowel movement. Where do we get such men?

Urine collection for s.p.a.cewalking females proved to be a particularly challenging engineering problem. Catheterization was quickly eliminated-too dangerous and uncomfortable. Diapers were messy. The most bizarre design was the brainchild of a gynecologist. He proposed that a mold of the inside of a woman's v.a.g.i.n.a could be used as an alignment tool for urine collection. Before dressing in the s.p.a.cesuit, the woman would insert her personal mold into her body, which would bring the exterior-mounted urine collector into a seal around the urethra. Urine could then be cleanly collected as it left the body. A test subject was needed to try the design and a call went out for volunteers. Kandy answered.

Kandy was a free-spirited Ellington Field flight operations secretary with a wonderful sense of humor. She easily tolerated the AD astronauts, as when she pulled up a chair to join a group of us waiting for the fog to lift so we could fly our '38s. Several of the navy astronauts were telling "beat this" stories about bizarre tattoos they had seen. One pilot recalled a photograph of a man's crotch in the window of a Filipino tattoo parlor. Tattooed on the thighs of both his legs were huge elephant ears that gave the man's p.e.n.i.s the appearance of the animal's trunk. (Who says we men aren't in touch with our inner feelings?) Kandy joined in our laughter.

It was later in my TFNG life when, at a party, she recounted being the volunteer for the v.a.g.i.n.al-insert urine collection design. The gynecologist had made the mold and she had tried it, but with limited success. Eventually the design was rejected and diapers were adopted as the best solution. Kandy finished her story: "I've got the mold sitting on my coffee table at home." Upon hearing that, I choked, shooting beer out my nose in the process. I had an instantaneous vision of a guest at Kandy's home picking up the object and asking, "What's this unique knickknack?" I told Kandy NASA should have given her a medal, or at least mounted the device on a plaque signed by the NASA administrator with an inscription,For service above and beyond the call of duty.

NASA is filled with thousands of men and women who have labored in anonymity to put astronauts in s.p.a.ce and make our lives somewhat comfortable once we get there. As I once heard an astronaut say, "We stand on their shoulders to get into orbit." In the case of Kandy and those other toilet testers, we stood on other parts of their bodies.

In our s.p.a.ce-wardrobe fitting sessions, we encountered one other waste collection detail, which included a man's worst nightmare. These sessions were conducted by white-smocked young ladies armed with tape measures, calipers, and clipboards. They measured our skulls, hands, limbs, and feet for helmets, gloves, and s.p.a.cesuits. During my session I was as witty and charming as Burt Reynolds. I was a brand-new astronaut being fitted for a s.p.a.cesuit. A bottle of tequila couldn't have gotten me higher.

At the end of the session a particularly sweet little custard walked me to a corner of the room that was screened from the rest of the facility. "Step inside and tell me what size fits you."

I pulled back the curtain and boldly walked forward, expecting to find a fitting room for underwear. But I was wrong. I had stepped into male h.e.l.l. Forget about blowing up on a s.p.a.ce shuttle. This wasreal fear. On a table, laid out like indictments, were four different-size condoms. fear. On a table, laid out like indictments, were four different-size condoms.

I would learn an open-ended condom was part of the male urine collection system worn under the pressure-suit cooling garment. One end of the latex slipped over the p.e.n.i.s, the other end was connected to a waist-worn nylon bladder. Urine could pa.s.s through the condom, through a one-way valve, and into the nylon bladder. After a launch, landing, or s.p.a.cewalk (the three times when the toilet was inaccessible) the bladder/condom combination, known as a Urine Collection Device (UCD), could be stripped from the body and thrown away. In a really cruel joke, G.o.d created different-size p.e.n.i.ses, so NASA provided different-size condoms. The cute little filly on the other side of the curtain needed my stud size on her clipboard so the correct condom could be loaded in my personal locker when I finally flew in s.p.a.ce.

With all the enthusiasm of a prisoner walking to the gallows I dropped my pants. Until this moment in my life I had worn a condom only during brief periods in my marriage when my wife had stopped her birth control pills. On those occasions there had been a sense of urgency and enthusiasm about donning the one-size-fits-all latex scabbard. Not now. I looked down at an appendage that was in the process of renouncing circ.u.mcision and finding some heretofore unknown foreskin to hide behind.

I reached for the largest condom. Astronauts are the most compet.i.tive people in the world. From supplying an autograph to fitting a rubber, we're out to be the best, the fastest, the smartest...thebiggest. If there had been a hula hoop on that table, male astronauts would have seized it with hope in their souls. If there had been a hula hoop on that table, male astronauts would have seized it with hope in their souls.

I grabbed my cowering little friend and began work. "Don't you have anything bigger?" I nervously joked to the cutie on the other side of the curtain. I'm sure she had never heard that one before.

Why didn't they have a man collecting this information?I wondered. Then, I thought,That would be even worse . .

Putting a flaccid p.e.n.i.s in a condom is like shoving toothpaste back in the tube. I finally managed to corral the beast and did a few jiggles to see if the rubber would stay on. It fell to the floor. My t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es might as well have joined it. I had been emasculated. Clearly, I wasn't going to place first in this compet.i.tion. Of course I could have lied and said I needed theannihilator size, but to do so would have been to invite disaster during a s.p.a.cewalk. If the condom didn't fit, it would leak or even come off altogether, in which case the cooling garment would become a urine sponge. As uncomfortable as that sounds, it would be the least of the victim's problems. An astronaut would never outlive the teasing. size, but to do so would have been to invite disaster during a s.p.a.cewalk. If the condom didn't fit, it would leak or even come off altogether, in which case the cooling garment would become a urine sponge. As uncomfortable as that sounds, it would be the least of the victim's problems. An astronaut would never outlive the teasing.

I finally made a fit and gave the technician my size, wanting to add, "I'll have you know I've fathered three children with this!"

Many years later astronauts were outraged when a pilot's medical records were compromised to the press. Some in the media were questioning his suitability to command an important shuttle mission since he had been treated for kidney stones. Astronauts were livid that the flight surgeon's office had somehow leaked this private medical information. As the brouhaha raged, I told a fellow TFNG, "I don't care if they publish my medical records in theNew York Times. I just hope the record of my condom size is locked up in a vault in Cheyenne Mountain." He understood. There are worse things to read about in the paper than the fact that you have pa.s.sed a kidney stone. I just hope the record of my condom size is locked up in a vault in Cheyenne Mountain." He understood. There are worse things to read about in the paper than the fact that you have pa.s.sed a kidney stone.

Chapter 14.

Adventures in Public Speaking.

With the astronaut t.i.tle came two duties few of us had ever performed in our past careers: giving public speeches and press interviews. While NASA didn't force astronauts onto the speaking circuit, they did expect everybody to voluntarily take about a dozen trips a year to represent the agency at the head tables of America. The astronaut office received hundreds of requests a month for speakers, so there were plenty of events to pick from.

Like the majority of people, most astronauts fear public speaking more than death. As the joke goes, "Most people would rather be in the casket than delivering the eulogy." I witnessed this hierarchy of terrors one dark and stormy night in the backseat of a T-38. My pilot was Blaine Hammond (cla.s.s of 1984). After finishing a day of practice shuttle approaches at the White Sands shuttle runway, we were making a night takeoff from El Paso's airport for our return to Houston. Our eastward departure was sending us into an ink black sky over a similarly darkened desert. Just as Blaine pulled the nose from the runway, I noticed a yellow flickering in the c.o.c.kpit rearview mirrors and was about to comment on it when the El Paso tower interrupted. "Departing NASA jet, you're on fire. There's a flame trailing from your aircraft." We were already airborne and well beyond our maximum abort speed. We had no choice but to continue our climb. I quickly informed Blaine of the flickering yellow in the mirrors. Clearly, our jet was burning behind us. Blaine yanked the engines out of afterburner (AB) and declared an emergency. El Paso tower immediately cleared us to land on any runway we could make. My thoughts were on ejection. The checklist was clear: In bold lettering it read, "Confirmed Fire-Eject." You don't get better confirmation than having the tower tell you you're riding a meteor. I cinched my harness to the point of pain and placed my hands on the ejection handles and mentally reviewed the bailout procedures. As I was doing so, I continued to watch the engine instruments. The nozzle position on the left engine was the only off-nominal indication. At the power setting of the throttle the nozzle should have been more closed than what was indicated. There were no firelights and the fire-warning circuitry checked okay. I s.n.a.t.c.hed my mask from my face and breathed the ambient air. There was no odor of smoke. The tower was telling us we were on fire, but there was no indication of it in the c.o.c.kpit.

"Something's wrong with the left engine. I'm going to keep it at idle and make a single-engine approach." Blaine stated his intention and immediately banked the plane toward the nearest runway.

I challenged the decision. "That's not what the checklist says we should be doing." I didn't have to say the wordeject. Blaine knew the emergency procedures as well as I did. Blaine knew the emergency procedures as well as I did.

"I know, but she's flying fine." I could tell in his voice Blaine was as frightened as I was about our predicament. The planewas flying fine and neither of us wanted to leave the security of his c.o.c.kpit for the black outside. The thought of pulling those handles was absolutely terrifying. But, by staying with the plane, we were in clear violation of the emergency procedures. flying fine and neither of us wanted to leave the security of his c.o.c.kpit for the black outside. The thought of pulling those handles was absolutely terrifying. But, by staying with the plane, we were in clear violation of the emergency procedures.

I heard the tower wave off an airliner to give us every option for landing. We had the field to ourselves. I wondered if we would soon be putting on a fireworks display for a planeload of TWA pa.s.sengers.

As the runway lights came into view, I followed Blaine through the landing checklist, including making a computation of our touchdown speed...nearly 180 knots. We were full of gas, making a high-speed, single-engine landing on a high-elevation runway. To complicate things a thunderstorm had just pa.s.sed over the field. The runways were sodden.This could get ugly was my thought. a.s.suming we made the runway, there was an excellent chance we were going to blow some tires. To run off the runway would probably result in death. That a.s.sumed we made the runway at all, which was far from guaranteed. The fire had already damaged the engine nozzle positioning system, which put it in the vicinity of the tail-control surfaces. If those failed while we were deep into our landing attempt, we would probably die. The ejection seat wouldn't be able to save us in an out-of-control situation close to the ground. was my thought. a.s.suming we made the runway, there was an excellent chance we were going to blow some tires. To run off the runway would probably result in death. That a.s.sumed we made the runway at all, which was far from guaranteed. The fire had already damaged the engine nozzle positioning system, which put it in the vicinity of the tail-control surfaces. If those failed while we were deep into our landing attempt, we would probably die. The ejection seat wouldn't be able to save us in an out-of-control situation close to the ground.

The annals of military aviation are filled with stories of aircrews that died doing exactly what we were about to do...ignore the "Fire-Eject" rule, play the heroes, and attempt an emergency landing. "Crewmember death occurred when ejection was attempted out of the ejection seat envelope." I had read that conclusion in accident reports a hundred times in my career. I could imagine the comments of our peers at the next Monday meeting: "If they had followed the checklist, they would be alive today."

Eject? Stay? Eject? Stay? The runway lights were looming and I was in the agony of indecision. Finally I decided that I would stay. I put the checklist aside and resumed my death grip on the ejection handles. If the master caution light illuminated or there was any other indication of ongoing fire damage, I was gone. It might be too late by then, but that was my decision.

Throughout this period, which had been less than two minutes, I could hear Blaine's breathing through the intercom. He had the respiration of a marathoner. He was stressed to the max.

We touched down and within seconds the right-side tire blew and the aircraft started a drift to the right. In correcting our trajectory Blaine blew the left tire. We were riding on shredded tires but at least we were skidding straight down the runway. Fire engines followed us.

It was soon a story for the ready room. We came to a safe stop. The firemen used handheld extinguishers to spray the smoking wheels. Blaine and I climbed from the c.o.c.kpit and immediately walked to the back of the plane. Sure enough, we had been on fire. There was a hole burned in the bottom of the fuselage near the left engine nozzle. Later we learned a piece of the afterburner plumbing had failed and had served as a blowtorch when the throttle had been in AB. The problem was far enough aft to be out of the range of our fire sensors, which explained the lack of any firelights. When Blaine had pulled the left throttle from afterburner, the fuel source for the fire had been isolated. It was the remaining fuel in the engine compartment that had been burning as we made our landing. We had ignored the checklist and lived to tell the tale.

As we were being driven back to the operations office, I was thinking of what a great job Blaine had done. It wasn't the stuff of legends, but it was a fine testament to his piloting abilities. He had handled a serious threat with confidence and poise. But then, that was to be expected. He was an astronaut and test pilot and he had merely been dueling with death. A far greater menace was about to leap from the shadows.

The radio scanner at a local TV station had picked up the words "NASA jet on fire" and a reporter had been dispatched to the scene. As we walked into operations, we were blindsided by the lights of a camera. A microphone was shoved in our faces. There was to be film at ten and we were to be the stars. Speaking into the lens of a camera was the most fearful form of public speaking. Fumbling for words in front of a Rotary Club didn't compare with having your deer-in-the-headlights, fear-twisted face and b.u.mbling dialogue transmitted into the living rooms of tens of thousands.

I quickly extricated myself. "I was the backseater," I told the reporter. "Blaine was the pilot. He landed the plane. He's the one to talk to." The reporter fell on him like a hyena on a wildebeest carca.s.s. I scuttled off camera.

With the reporter in his face Blaine became living proof that fear of public speaking far exceeds fear of death. In a span of twenty minutes he had faced both and it was the blazing camera spotlight that was killing him. His eyes dilated in fear. His nostrils flared open and closed like a bellows. Everything in his body language screamed, "Eject! Get me out of here!"

Blaine wasn't unique. Most of us were equally terrified of TV cameras and public audiences. And NASA was no help. There was nothing in our TFNG training to prepare us for the great unknowns of the press and the public spotlight, an astounding oversight given the fact that astronauts were the most visible amba.s.sadors of NASA. Apparently the agency thought our talents with machines extended to the lectern. They did not.

One of the most egregious examples of an astronaut abusing the microphone occurred when a pilot, who was renowned for a sense of humor even Howard Stern would have found offensive, attempted to hide his nervousness by opening his speech with a joke. With a hushed and expectant crowd of hundreds awaiting pearls of inspiration from one of American's finest sons, he threw out the following: A golfer walks into the clubhouse with a severe injury to his neck. He can barely talk. His buddies rush to him: "Bill, what happened?" Bill goes on to explain. "I teed off on number eight and sliced my shot into the rough. As I was looking for it, I noticed this woman searching for her ball in the same area. When I couldn't find mine, I walked up to a cow grazing nearby thinking the ball might have ended up between its legs. But again, it wasn't there. Finally out of frustration, I lifted up the cow's tail to see if maybe it had hit there. Sure enough, a golf ball was stuck in its rear end. I looked closely and noticed it was a t.i.tleist. Since I was. .h.i.tting a Top-Flite, I knew the ball wasn't mine. So, with the tail of the cow upraised in one hand and my other hand pointing at the animal's a.s.s, I shouted at this woman, "Hey, lady, does this look like yours?" That's when she hit me across the throat with a seven-iron."

The joke might have been appropriate for a group of golfers or military pilots or any similar crowd of crotch-scratching, crude, and coa.r.s.e males. Unfortunately, that wasn't the audience. The astronaut in question delivered this joke to open a high school commencement address! Only if it had been delivered at a NOW convention could it have generated more outrage. One can only imagine the horror on the faces of parents and faculty, the snickers of the students, and the subsequent crucifixion of the person who had suggested, "Let's get one of America's finest to speak at graduation. Let's get an astronaut. It'll be a commencement address to remember." Indeed, it was.

NASA got what it was looking for in this astronaut's presentation, a lot of visibility with the gra.s.sroots taxpayer. Unfortunately that visibility was, well, a little negative. Cards and letters rolled into NASA. The general message was something along the lines of, "Where did you get this bozo?" The answer was simple. NASA had plucked him from Planet AD.

Most of the military astronauts had no idea what const.i.tuted an appropriate sense of humor in a public setting. I once attended a dinner with a marine fighter pilot (not an astronaut) who rose from his seat with gla.s.s in hand and offered this toast to the ladies and gentlemen present: "Here's to gunpowder and here's to p.u.s.s.y. One I kill with, the other I'll die for, but I love the smell of both." You would think even the most AD-affected of the military TFNGs would probably have concluded such a toast would be inappropriate at a Shriners' dinner, but I wouldn't have put any money on it.

Lacking any other real-life experience, military males just a.s.sumed everybody had our perverted sense of humor. I certainly did. At one of my very early public appearances, I showed a slide of the six TFNG females intending to make a statement about the diversity of the new NASA cla.s.s. But instead my alcohol-lubricated words came out as "pigs in s.p.a.ce," a reference to a popular Jim Hensen Muppets' skit of the same t.i.tle. Actually, I didn't say, "Pigs in s.p.a.ce." Rather, I mimicked the Muppet announcer's overly enthusiastic call: "Piiiiiiiigs innnnnnnnnnn spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!" The only reason NASA didn't get protests from my performance was that my audience was a U.S. Army "Dining Out," a black-tie gathering of army officers and their spouses. Most of them had similar disturbed senses of humor. The audience loved my wit.

At another military formal dinner, Rhea Seddon and I were cospeakers. In my comments I used the wordgirls in reference to the female astronauts. I had done so without malice. It was just as natural as breathing for me to refer to the women as in reference to the female astronauts. I had done so without malice. It was just as natural as breathing for me to refer to the women asgirls or orgals. Afterward, a wife from the audience approached me with a smile that would have chilled Hannibal Lecter. She asked, "Do they call you a Afterward, a wife from the audience approached me with a smile that would have chilled Hannibal Lecter. She asked, "Do they call you aboy astronaut?" I was baffled by the comment...but not for long. She enlightened me while tearing me a new fundamental orifice. "How dare you refer to Dr. Seddon as a girl! Where is your PhD? Are you a surgeon? She has better credentials than you." She stormed off. It was one of my earliest lessons in political correctness. astronaut?" I was baffled by the comment...but not for long. She enlightened me while tearing me a new fundamental orifice. "How dare you refer to Dr. Seddon as a girl! Where is your PhD? Are you a surgeon? She has better credentials than you." She stormed off. It was one of my earliest lessons in political correctness.

Besides contracting with Miss Manners, Toastmasters, and NOW for remedial training, NASA should have also reviewed with its astronauts the various songs they might be asked to sing during a public appearance. Many of the requests for astronaut speakers came from organizations planning patriotic-themed events. Nothing was bound to excite more pride in the American soul than a trim, square-jawed, shorthaired, steely-eyed war-veteran astronaut poised next to Old Glory leading the audience in the singing of a patriotic song. Every Rotary Club, VFA, and Elks Club in America wanted that Norman Rockwell scene on their stage. But that a.s.sumed the astronaut knew the song in question.

At one of my appearances I was blindsided by a request to lead the audience in the singing of "America the Beautiful." I was prepared for my speech. I had it on my notecards. What I didn't have on my cards was "America the Beautiful." As the master of ceremonies beckoned me to the podium I could feel my bowels liquefying. I held on to his handshake just to keep from collapsing. My brain was logjammed with every patriotic lyric I had ever heard:for-purple-mountains-majesty-our-flag-was-still- there-the-caissons-go-rolling-along. Retrieving "America the Beautiful" from that mess was going to take a miracle. Retrieving "America the Beautiful" from that mess was going to take a miracle.

The MC handed me the microphone. I wished it had been a gun so I could have blown out my scrambled brains. They were all looking at me, hands on hearts. Hundreds of them. Only a lone cough disturbed the silence.It doesn't get any worse than this, I thought. But I was wrong. As a courtesy to a group of hearing impaired who were sitting in the front row, there was a signer at the edge of the stage staring right at my lips. Her hands were poised to record my every utterance. How I didn't wet myself (or worse), I'll never know. I thought. But I was wrong. As a courtesy to a group of hearing impaired who were sitting in the front row, there was a signer at the edge of the stage staring right at my lips. Her hands were poised to record my every utterance. How I didn't wet myself (or worse), I'll never know.

I placed my hand on my heart and turned to face the flag. I could feel my pulse through my suit pocket. The MC punched "play" on a boom box and the first strains of the melody flowed into the room. I sang the only words I was absolutely certain of, "Oh beautiful..."

Those words proved enough. Everybody joined in and my voice was lost. Actually, I lowered the microphone from my mouth so my incoherent babbling couldn't be heard. I had pulled it off. Or so I thought. Then, the signer caught my eye. She was focused on my mumbling lips with the precision of a laser. Not a syllable was getting by her. If I could have read sign language, I knew what those flying fingers would have been saying. "Hey, everybody! This guy is a fraud. He doesn't know 'America the Beautiful.'"

I wasn't the only astronaut to be surprised on the way to a stage. Hoot Gibson once served as a last-minute replacement speaker for Judy Resnik at a women's event. The MC began the introduction by reading Judy's entire biography. Hoot was dumbstruck. Judy wasn't there. Everybody in the audience knew he was to be the subst.i.tute speaker, yet the MC droned on with Judy's bio as if she were going to step out of the wings to give the program. Only after it was completely rendered did Hoot realize the MC's purpose in reading it. It was to establish Judy's irreplaceable importance to NASA. The MC went on with Hoot's introduction in words that loosely translated, "Judy is so important to NASA there was no way she could be spared to come to speak at today's event. But NASA could easily do without this useless dirt bag of a man so they sent him. We'll just have to be disappointed and listen to his forgettable comments." Then, after Hoot's speech, the MC presented him with a plaque inscribed to Judy.

As my NASA career continued, I discovered new land mines to step on while in front of the public. In the Q&A that followed one of my speeches, a woman asked, "Have you seen any aliens?"

I answered, "No, but I believe there is alien life elsewhere in the universe. There are so many trillions of stars it's easy for me to believe there will be planets around some of those stars that harbor intelligent life." I should have quit right there, but like a fool, I continued. "However, I don't believe any UFOs have landed on earth. Why," I rhetorically asked the audience, "would an advanced civilization go to the trouble of building an interstellar craft, fly to earth to find it teeming with life, and then only hover over lonely women and beer-drinking men?" The crowd laughed. The woman asking the question did not. If looks could kill, I was a dead man.

The next week I received an anonymous letter postmarked Salt Lake City, Utah, viciously attacking my position on aliens. It was clear the writer believedthe truth is out there and that I was part of the cover-up. I suspect the letter was from the woman who had asked the alien question. and that I was part of the cover-up. I suspect the letter was from the woman who had asked the alien question.

This question was just one of many that could turn a public appearance into a gut-wrenching torture. "What happens when you fart in a s.p.a.cesuit?" or "Do women have periods in s.p.a.ce?" were the easy ones to answer. But questions like "Are there gay and lesbian astronauts?" and "Has there been s.e.x in s.p.a.ce?" had the potential to put a TFNG's name in a Johnny Carson monologue.

The prizewinner in the category of fielding the most difficult question was Don Peterson (cla.s.s of 1969). After one of his speeches, several members of the audience came to him with their questions. One asked, "Is there privacy on the shuttle to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e?" Don was immediately thrown into a panic. It was like being asked, "Do you feel better since you've stopped beating your wife?" It was impossible to answer. He considered saying no, but that implied astronauts had searched for such privacy. He imagined his face on a supermarket tabloid under the headline "Astronaut Complains: No Privacy to Spank the Monkey." A yes reply held equally embarra.s.sing possibilities: "Astronaut Admits to Five-Knuckle Shuffle in s.p.a.ce." He mumbled an incomprehensible answer, praying whatever it was it wouldn't come back to haunt him in theNational Enquirer.

As Blaine Hammond learned in the El Paso flight operations office, the most dreaded form of public speaking was a TV interview. A streak of antiaircraft fire pa.s.sing your wing doesn't get your heart rate up like looking into a black camera lens and hearing, "Three...two...one...you're live." For me, it was a cadence that always brought on nausea. Once, as I was listening to this on-the-air countdown, the anchor leaned in to me and said, "It's just like a shuttle launch. When you hit zero, there's no going back." He was right. Hearing, "You're live," was just like hearing the rumble of SRB ignition. You were flying. The camera was scattering your image and words into the living rooms of America and there would be no do-overs. I was sure my Adam's apple was dancing like a bobblehead on a dashboard and my fear-widened eyes were darting like minnows. I imagined people at their breakfast tables laughing as I choked, trying to respond to a simple question like, "What's your name?"

Live interviews could be made even more torturous by the AD antics of other astronauts. Several of us were in a Houston bar one evening when the TV caught our eye. A local station was airing a call-in interview with Ed Gibson (cla.s.s of 1965) and TFNG Kathy Sullivan. One of our group immediately asked the bartender to borrow the phone and called in his questions: for Kathy, "How do girls pee in the toilet?" and for Ed, "What does Mrs. Gibson think of Mr. Gibson flying single women around the country in a NASA jet on overnight business trips?" We all hooted and hollered as the victims struggled with their answers.

Interviews with the print press were much more relaxing but still held the potential to screw an astronaut. During one interview I explained to the reporter my feelings of boundless joy and visceral fear while being driven to the pad for my first launch. I said, "To see the xenon-lightedDiscovery and know it was my shuttle, that I was only hours from the culmination of a lifetime dream come true, nearly had me crying with joy." But I was quoted as having said, "Astronauts cry from and know it was my shuttle, that I was only hours from the culmination of a lifetime dream come true, nearly had me crying with joy." But I was quoted as having said, "Astronauts cry fromfear as they are driven to the launchpad." The story was picked up by Paul Harvey and repeated to a huge national audience on his radio show. I was outraged and excruciatingly embarra.s.sed. as they are driven to the launchpad." The story was picked up by Paul Harvey and repeated to a huge national audience on his radio show. I was outraged and excruciatingly embarra.s.sed.

Experiences like this explained why the astronaut office bulletin board occasionally displayed news articles in which an offending quote was circled with "I didn't say this" written next to it by a p.i.s.sed-off astronaut.

On August 31, 1979, Chris Kraft came to the astronaut office to tell us NASA was dropping thecandidate suffix from our t.i.tles. Apparently we had impressed the agency enough for them to designate us suffix from our t.i.tles. Apparently we had impressed the agency enough for them to designate usastronauts nearly a year earlier than originally planned. We were no longer Ascans. I was happy to hear it. Even though I wouldn't consider myself an astronaut until I got into s.p.a.ce, I was tired of having to explain the t.i.tle on PR trips and watching the crestfallen faces of event planners as they realized I wasn't the nearly a year earlier than originally planned. We were no longer Ascans. I was happy to hear it. Even though I wouldn't consider myself an astronaut until I got into s.p.a.ce, I was tired of having to explain the t.i.tle on PR trips and watching the crestfallen faces of event planners as they realized I wasn't thereal astronaut they had been expecting. At our next office party we were each given silver astronaut pins to go with our new t.i.tle. These were lapel pins fashioned in the shape of the official astronaut symbol, a three-rayed shooting star pa.s.sing through an ellipse. When we finally flew in s.p.a.ce, we would be given gold pins. Actually, we would then be allowed to purchase, at a cost of $400, a gold astronaut pin. (The silver pins were paid for out of the office coffee fund.) astronaut they had been expecting. At our next office party we were each given silver astronaut pins to go with our new t.i.tle. These were lapel pins fashioned in the shape of the official astronaut symbol, a three-rayed shooting star pa.s.sing through an ellipse. When we finally flew in s.p.a.ce, we would be given gold pins. Actually, we would then be allowed to purchase, at a cost of $400, a gold astronaut pin. (The silver pins were paid for out of the office coffee fund.) After returning from the party, I took my pin off, put it in a drawer, and never wore it again. To me it was a meaningless token, like the plastic pilot wings that stewardesses give to children. Those Delta Airline wings weren't going to make a child a pilot and a silver pin and t.i.tle weren't going to make me an astronaut. Only a ride into s.p.a.ce could do that.

Chapter 15.

Columbia.