Riding Rockets Part 7

She sobbed into my neck and I felt like s.h.i.t. I tried to calm her with comments about the shuttle's critical component redundancy, but that went over about as well as my "Let's make whoopee" comment. I wasn't going to talk her out of her fear. This was a woman who knew the cost of high-performance flight. She had held the decomposed hand of a friend at an aircraft crash site. She had seen the squadron commander and chaplain step from a car and walk to the door of a neighbor to deliver the "Your husband is dead" message. She had comforted the widows and children of how many friends? I could not guess. She was the woman who had seen through the NASA euphemisms to identify the astronaut family escorts as "escorts into widowhood." Nothing I could say was going to bury Donna's fears.

We sat for a while and just listened to the waves and watched pelicans kamikazeing after their meals. Donna broke the silence. "It's been a lot of water under the bridge to get here."

"Yes, it has."

"I can see you right now as a teenager launching your rockets from the desert. It's amazing where it led."

"I've got a rocket right here you can launch." There it was again, my shield of crude humor.

"Mike, can't you be serious?"

I forced myself to be the man she wanted at this moment. "Okay. I'm sorry. I will be serious. Whatever happens tomorrow," I felt her tense at the implication of the wordwhatever, "I'll be living a dream. It wouldn't have happened without you." It sounded corny but it was the truth. "I'll be living a dream. It wouldn't have happened without you." It sounded corny but it was the truth.

We embraced and kissed. It wasn'tFrom Here to Eternity pa.s.sion but it was sufficient for the moment. It was easier for me to convey my feelings in this physical contact than it was through words. I could taste the salt on her cheeks...tears, not ocean. pa.s.sion but it was sufficient for the moment. It was easier for me to convey my feelings in this physical contact than it was through words. I could taste the salt on her cheeks...tears, not ocean.

I thought of how many random, seemingly inconsequential events steered me through life. If my mom and dad hadn't ignored those "Danger, Unimproved Road" signs, where would life have taken me? If they hadn't settled in Albuquerque, where the sky had captured me, what path would I have journeyed? If I had married a different woman seventeen years before, would I now be sitting on this beach?

In a remarkable coincidence, Donna was born on the identical day and year of my own birth, September 10, 1945, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She was just a few hours older than me. (In her childhood, my youngest daughter was convinced that men and women had to marry someone who shared their birth date.) Donna's mom and dad, Amy Franchini and Joseph Sei, were first-generation Americans, born of Italian immigrants. Both spoke fluent Italian, argued incessantly, and smoked like forest fires. When Donna was born, the couple already had one child, a boy, ten years old. They had been trying to have a second child for nearly a decade, praying to a pantheon of saints for a daughter. Amy Sei was thirty-five years old when she finally conceived. In their minds Donna was a miracle and she quickly became the center of the couple's existence.

Donna's life was the polar opposite of mine, root-bound. She never moved. Throughout her youth she lived in the same home, only a few blocks from one of the major pathways of adventure for the Mullane clan, fabled Route 66. As a little boy, I had pa.s.sed within a few hundred yards of the little girl I would one day marry.

We were high school students when we first met. She attended the downtown Catholic high school, St. Mary's, while I was a student at the uptown school, St. Pius X. Her cousin was my cla.s.smate, and through this family connection, Donna and I were introduced in 1961 in our soph.o.m.ore year. This was a horribly insecure time in my life. My blemished face would have repulsed the Elephant Man. It looked as if I had lost a paint ball game in which the other side had been using Clearasil bullets. And, of course, there were my radar-dish ears to horrify the ladies. I could not imagine any girl finding anything attractive about me. When Donna was introduced I said "hi" and ran to hang with the guys. Destiny would have to wait for another four years.

I continued my tortured journey through high school, occasionally running into Donna at various teen functions, but never talking to her, much less asking her on a date. She wasn't beautiful. Attractive, with a bubbly personality, would be an honest description.

In May 1963, I graduated from St. Pius and several weeks later departed for the h.e.l.lish rigors of West Point. Donna was now two thousand miles away and nowhere in my mind. I was fighting to survive. Uppercla.s.smen were taking numbers to get in line to scream in my face. Even after putting plebe year and its hazing behind me, the pressure did not diminish. The academic workload was overwhelming. I couldn't imagine any other nineteen-year-old in America having it worse than I did. I was wrong.

In faraway Albuquerque, Donna was ill, suffering periodic bouts of nausea and vomiting. Since she had previously experienced a kidney infection, her mother a.s.sumed a reoccurrence and took her to the doctor. The blood test results came. With her mom sitting primly at her side the doctor delivered the diagnosis...pregnancy. The father was another teenager.

Donna's parents were destroyed. This was 1964 and it was a minor scandal for even a Hollywood starlet to be pregnant and unwed. For a traditional Italian-Catholic family to have a pregnant, unwed daughter was worse than a diagnosis of a terminal disease. For the first time in her life, Donna got to see her father cry.

It was her brother who organized a face-saving escape. Donna would stay in Albuquerque as long as possible. Before her belly could betray her, she would travel to an out-of-state Catholic home for unwed mothers. The baby would be given up for adoption. Extended family and friends would be fed the lie she had left town for college, but few would believe it. The daughters of traditional Italian-Catholic families did not leave home until they were married. But a priest, who was a family friend, taught at a nearby Catholic university so he willingly joined the conspiracy, prepared to cover for Donna if anybody inquired after her.

While I was thinking my life had ended at West Point, Donna was certain hers was also over. She had far greater reasons to feel condemned. She was making the first trip of her life away from her parents...as a social and family outcast. Joe and Amy made it clear she had shamed them. "Don't you dare look at that baby when it's born" had been her mother's send-off warning. "I don't want you getting attached to it."

For months Donna cried herself to sleep in a Catholic geriatric-care center operated by the Sisters of Charity. A portion of one floor of the facility had been converted into a dormitory that Donna shared with two dozen other scarlet-lettered women. In exchange for their room and board, the girls helped the nuns with the care and feeding of the aged. They carried trays through rooms and hallways scented with urine, feces, and death. Depression hung on them like a shroud. The mother superior proved to be the quintessential witch, treating them as morally flawed beings. There was no counseling, no trips, and few phone calls to or from loved ones. Donna wrote letters home, putting coded notes on the envelope to designate which mail could be shared with the extended family. In those she created a life at college. In the others she begged for forgiveness.

The girls found comfort only among themselves, but even that succor was transient. As quickly as friendships blossomed, they would end. Girls would give birth and move on to uncertain futures. Unlike other traumatic events that bond people for life, living in a home for unwed mothers was naturally terminal for friendship. None of the girls wanted continued communication for fear of discovery of their sinful secret.

Donna's moment arrived in the summer of 1964. When the baby came there were no exclamations of joy, no rush to take photos for grandparents, no happy tears. Instead, the child was immediately taken away.

Yeah. I had it tough at West Point.

Donna returned home to distrustful parents who watched her like wardens. She had no future but what her mom and dad would allow.

Meanwhile, I had become adept at shooting an M-14 with laserlike precision, getting across a ten-foot-deep pool in full combat gear, and enduring the s.h.i.t being pounded out of me in boxing cla.s.s. But none of it helped in my quest to attract a girl. I retained the romantic IQ of a snail. On second thought, snails have no problem being attractive to other snails. I was something else, maybe an evolutionary dead end. My genes would never go forward. I was alone and unwanted.

On January 3, 1965, destiny decided to reintroduce Mike Mullane and Donna Sei. We were partying with family and friends at Donna's cousin's home. My yearling (soph.o.m.ore) Christmas leave was ending and I had a plane to catch back to West Point. There is nothing more depressing than returning to West Point from a leave, particularly a Christmas leave. It's akin to going back to prison or perhaps dying and going to h.e.l.l, except this h.e.l.l is cold and gray and more depressing than anything Beelzebub could ever dream up. To top it off, my girlfriend had dumped me earlier that day. When I say "girlfriend," I exaggerate. I met her in my senior year of high school and throughout plebe year had pined for her. It was a one-way infatuation. To be "dumped" implies there was something that ended. There was not. It was more like she threatened to get a restraining order.

In my despair, I resorted to that cure of the ages, alcohol. There was plenty at the party and I drank to forget...to forget being alone and to forget a flight back into the ninth circle of h.e.l.l. As the moment of departure approached, I walked outside to get away from the fun. I wasn't having any and it was depressing to be around people who were. Donna observed my exit and minutes later followed me. We walked for a while making small talk about our friends and our new lives. Romance was nowhere on my mind-it was Donna who took the lead. She leaned into me and kissed me...on the lips, no less. And it was all her doing! I didn't have to beg or plot. It was as if the sun had risen, West Point had slid into the Hudson River, and I was on infinite leave! I was in love...well, l.u.s.t maybe, but it would do. Never in my young life had a girl shown any romantic interest in me. Never. I found heaven in Donna. She was a life preserver in the sea of my muddled adolescence and I grabbed her and held on for dear life.

Donna drove me to the airport, as I was in no condition to do so myself. As we parted, she kissed me again. It was all I could do not to propose marriage. She asked me for something to write her address on. SHE ASKED ME! Again, I didn't have to beg. Shewanted me to write. It was truly a night of firsts. I fumbled in my wallet for a piece of paper and found my Army Code of Conduct card, a card that detailed how a soldier was to act if captured by the enemy: "If I am captured, I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape, etc., etc." Why I was carrying this, I have no idea, but if there was ever a signature of what a nerd I was, this was it-giving an Army Code of Conduct card to a girl to write her address on. Donna should have known right then and there what a doofus she was hooking up with. me to write. It was truly a night of firsts. I fumbled in my wallet for a piece of paper and found my Army Code of Conduct card, a card that detailed how a soldier was to act if captured by the enemy: "If I am captured, I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape, etc., etc." Why I was carrying this, I have no idea, but if there was ever a signature of what a nerd I was, this was it-giving an Army Code of Conduct card to a girl to write her address on. Donna should have known right then and there what a doofus she was hooking up with.

How quickly one's heart can change. Now I couldn't wait to get back to West Point. I couldn't wait to send a letter. I flew to Colorado Springs, where I connected with an Air National Guard flight to a field near West Point. The plane was filled with returning cadets who were slumped in their seats in near suicidal depression. But not me. As the C-97 droned eastward, I wore a permanent smile, the dopey smile of young love. Other cadets stared at me, certain I had lost it, certain at any moment I would rush the door and leap to my death. No sane cadet smiled while returning to the granite asylum.

I penned my first letter within an hour of arriving in my room. As I sealed the envelope, I stared at the photo of my imaginary girlfriend. I thought of how long I had defined happiness as getting this girl to love me, how long I had prayed she would send me letters (none ever came). As Garth Brooks sings, some of G.o.d's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. I tossed the photo in the garbage.

Donna's and my relationship continued through the mail. I sent out more letters than Publishers Clearing House. I needed continual a.s.surance she was still there, that she wasn't as imaginary as my prior girlfriend. Her letters arrived by the truckload. We had "known" each other for a total of two hours, yet in our correspondence, we each professed our everlasting love.

Donna's entry into my life probably saved me from expulsion from the academy. While my academic grades were satisfactory, my "military bearing" was seriously lacking. I had loathed the hazing of plebe year, never understanding how it could possibly contribute to the development of a leader. (I still don't.) Uppercla.s.smen sensed my contempt for the tradition and I was rewarded with a steady stream of demerits for various infractions, such as scuffed shoes, unpolished bra.s.s, and failure to satisfactorily render plebe knowledge. As a yearling I was rated near the bottom of my cla.s.s in leadership skills by senior cadets. I was certain some of those cadets interpreted my lack of zeal at enforcing the plebe system on the latest cla.s.s as further evidence of my disdain for it. Before Christmas leave, I was warned by my tactical officer that I could be terminated if my att.i.tude didn't improve. My parents received a letter from that same officer, saying that I was floundering, and my dad called in an attempt to rally me. But I remained indifferent to the warnings. I was rudderless, not sure I even wanted to stay at West Point. Then Donna stepped into my life. In her I found clarity and focus. I had to succeed-not for myself, but for her. Almost overnight my att.i.tude and behavior changed. While I'm certain my superiors thought it was their great leadership that had turned me around, it was really Donna. I still had discipline relapses, such as when I was caught skipping a senior cla.s.s's graduation ceremony, a transgression that earned me another tactical officer rebuke and forty-four hours of "walking the area" with a shouldered rifle, plus a two-month confinement to my barracks. But I was on the road to graduation, guided unerringly by a star two thousand miles away-Donna.

In February 1965, I sent her an "A-pin" (A forArmy ), which was West Point's version of a fraternity pin. It was another blitzkrieg escalation of our relationship. ), which was West Point's version of a fraternity pin. It was another blitzkrieg escalation of our relationship.

In March 1965, I flew home for a three-day spring leave. Donna and I were inseparable. We grew more emotionally-and physically-intimate. At age nineteen, at the Silver Dollar drive-in theater in the backseat of a 1954 Chevy Bel Air, I finally got to second base with a girl. It was also in this pa.s.sion pit that Donna told me of her dark secret, that she had had a baby. I didn't care. It didn't change anything between us, I said. This might sound mature and n.o.ble except, at the time, I had my hand in her bra. She could have told me she was a wh.o.r.ehouse madam and it wouldn't have mattered.

Then, as the dialogue of some forgotten film squealed and popped through the window-mounted speaker, I proposed marriage and Donna accepted. There was no ring, no romantic dinner, no months of wonderful antic.i.p.ation. It was as spontaneous as a heartbeat. I was mad to legitimize my claim to this woman andmad was the correct word. was the correct word.

Much later in life Donna and I would recount a PG-13 version of this story to our teenage children and warn them that if they ever did what we did, we would kill them. It was insanity. We were engaged to be married after knowing each other for a total of three days and a hundred letters. I was marrying for s.e.x. Donna was marrying to escape her parents.Oh, yeah. This is gonna last.

For her birthday in 1965 I mailed Donna an engagement ring. That's correct...Imailed it. I couldn't wait until we were together again. This woman had become my life. I couldn't let her escape. But marriage was going to have to wait until after my graduation, two long years away. West Point cadets were forbidden to be married. it. I couldn't wait until we were together again. This woman had become my life. I couldn't let her escape. But marriage was going to have to wait until after my graduation, two long years away. West Point cadets were forbidden to be married.

We were able to wait for marriage, but not the honeymoon. On my summer leave of 1966-in my twentieth year of life-I finally slid into home plate with a girl. It happened in Donna's bedroom. Her parents were away for a few hours, which established opportunity. Motive had long been raging. Two hours later Donna and I were in the confessional admitting our sin to the tobacco-breath shadow behind the curtain. The priest reminded me that having premarital s.e.x was a violation of the temple of G.o.d (our bodies) and I would burn in everlasting fire if I didn't change my ways. (I guess it was okay to smoke in G.o.d's temple.) Donna and I shared the same kneeler as we prayed our penance and promised G.o.d that in the future we'd keep our hands and the rest of our bodies to ourselves. Even under penalty of losing our immortal souls, we couldn't keep that promise. On every leave we'd end up in that Chevy, parked in a drive-in theater or the wilds of the desert, the windows steamed over and our sacred "temples" in rhythmic collision. The next day we'd be in the confessional hearing more dire warnings of h.e.l.l-fire ahead. I have no doubt we frustrated that priest into a three-pack-a-day habit.

At my graduation from West Point I took a commission in the USAF, something I was permitted to do because my dad was a retired USAF NCO. But I was not released to the commissioning ceremony until my tactical officer made one last effort to get me to pledge my life to the U.S. Army. "Mr. Mullane, going into the air force is the dumbest thing you could ever do. Your background is all army. You'll never get far in the air force." Thank G.o.d I tuned him out.

Donna and I married one week later in the Kirtland AFB chapel in Albuquerque. She made a lovely bride. In high school she had never worn the tiara of the homecoming queen or the uniform of a cheerleader or played the lead in the senior cla.s.s play. She didn't possess the beauty of girls who typically captured those honors. But seen through the lens of my young love, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

Three of my West Point cla.s.smates served as groomsmen. We were all in uniform-they in their army dress blues and I in my black-tie air force livery. Military weddings are timeless. With the carefree smiles of youth and the lights glistening from our polished bra.s.s, the scene could have been lifted from WWII, or even a Civil War daguerreotype. We were still too intoxicated by our recent release from West Point to hear the guns of our war...Vietnam. But they were waiting for us. Mike Parr, one of my groomsmen, would be killed in action seventeen months later.

Donna and I took a honeymoon to someplace. I hardly recall where. We never left the sheets. I only remember that the rented room had hardwood floors and the bed was on castors. If there had been an odometer on the bed frame, the instrument would have recorded a couple thousand miles during our short stay. By the time we returned to Albuquerque, Donna was already morning sick, pregnant with twins. (This was before the days of ultrasound. We wouldn't know she was carrying twins until two weeks prior to her delivery.) As we had done everything else, we had children spontaneously. There had been no real thought or discussion. We were Catholic. You got married and had kids. What was there to discuss?

In July 1967, we drove from Albuquerque to begin our life as military nomads. In that car was a social r.e.t.a.r.d...me. It is true what cadets say about West Point: "It takes eighteen-year-old men and turns them into twenty-one-year-old boys." Did it ever. I had learned to drive tanks and fire a howitzer and field-strip a machine gun, but I had never used a Laundromat or cooked a meal. I couldn't dance. I had never written a check. I had never made a stock investment or shopped for a car or clothes or groceries. I had no clue about home ownership.

G.o.d only knew what this woman at my side saw in me. But throughout my journey toward the prize of s.p.a.ceflight, Donna never wavered in her support. Even ten minutes into that drive from Albuquerque, she was there for me. I was still trying to come to grips with the fact that my bad eyesight had blocked me from pilot training and thrown me into navigator training instead. To be an astronaut I would have to be a test pilot and that wasn't going to happen if I couldn't get into pilot training. Donna knew how bitterly disappointed I was and gave me her shoulder to cry on. "It'll all work out for the best, Mike. G.o.d has a plan. You'll see." That was Donna's hallmark, the faith of the pope. She would turn every house we would ever occupy into a mini-Lourdes, with wall-mounted crucifixes and Virgin Mary statuary everywhere. In our bedroom she always had candles burning for one saint or another. She would send cash gifts to various orders of nuns and ask them to pray for us. Priests would get checks asking that they say Ma.s.ses on our behalf. If the Mike Mullane family had a connection to G.o.d, it was certainly through Donna, not me.

A small cinder-block house on Mather AFB in Sacramento, California, was our first home. While we waited for our few possessions to catch up, we enjoyed Uncle Sam's furniture. We sat on metal folding chairs and ate our meals off a card table and made love on a one-man canvas cot. It was the richest we've ever been. We had each other and that was all we needed.

My immediate goal was to graduate from navigator training into the backseat of F-4 Phantoms, so I worked like a Trojan to finish high in my cla.s.s. It wasn't going to be easy. Flight a.s.signments were given in order of cla.s.s rank, and the group was filled with Air Force Academy wizards who had been through much of the coursework during their academy years. But Donna was there for me. I would hang a s.e.xtant from a neighbor's child's swing and practice shooting three-star "fixes." She would be at my side, teeth chattering in the cold night air, holding a flashlight to illuminate the instrument bubble chamber and recording my observations on a clipboard. When the twins were born on March 5, 1968, she a.s.sumed full parental duties to allow me to continue to focus on my studies. Never once did she hound me to get up for a 2A.M . feeding or wash the diapers or prepare formula. No new father of a single child, much less twins, had it as easy as I did. . feeding or wash the diapers or prepare formula. No new father of a single child, much less twins, had it as easy as I did.

I graduated first in my cla.s.s and took an a.s.signment to the backseat of RF-4C Phantoms, the reconnaissance version of that fabled fighter. I had never finished first in anything in my life and it wouldn't have happened without Donna.

Meanwhile, I continued to make calls to air force HQ begging for a pilot training position, but the requests were repeatedly denied. At my annual flight physical I hounded the surgeon about ways I might improve my eyesight. He said there were none. "Mike, your astigmatism is caused by a physical defect in the lens of your eye. There's nothing that will correct that defect." I refused to believe him and searched the library for a miracle...and thought I had found it in a book t.i.tledSight Without Gla.s.ses. But after practicing the recommended eye exercises for months, my visual acuity did not change. I remained physically unqualified for pilot training. As I cursed my bad luck, Donna continued to preach patience. "G.o.d has a plan." But after practicing the recommended eye exercises for months, my visual acuity did not change. I remained physically unqualified for pilot training. As I cursed my bad luck, Donna continued to preach patience. "G.o.d has a plan."

From Mather AFB we were transferred to Mt. Home AFB, Idaho, for my transition training to F-4s. It was here I had my first aviation near-death experience, not from an engine fire or hydraulic failure, but from airsickness. I was dying in the c.o.c.kpit. I couldn't complete a flight without my head in a barf bag. I would come home and collapse in depression. The writing was on the wall: The squadron commander was going to eliminate me from training, if I didn't barf up my duodenum and die first. But Donna was there for me. Her shrine blazed like a sunspot. She circled her rosary like a Tibetan monk on a prayer wheel. But my situation was so perilous she wasn't going to leave it just to heaven to deliver a fix. Having suffered months of morning sickness while carrying the twins, she was an expert on puking and was convinced I could be cured with the right breakfast. The specifics of the meal she cooked for me have long left my memory, but it worked. No doubt it was just a placebo effect, but I didn't care. I got through a flight without seeing that breakfast again. And then another. And another. My self-confidence roared back. My flying career was saved by Donna.

From Mt. Home I was directed to Saigon, Republic of Vietnam. I would be flying with the 16th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron from Tan Son Nhut Air Base. Donna and the babies would wait out my tour in a Kirtland AFB house in Albuquerque. During my Christmas leave before departure we were initiated into the reality of war. A sobbing Jackie Greenalch called to tell us her pilot husband, a close friend from Mt. Home, had been shot down and killed while flying his RF-4C. He had been in-country only a few weeks. With this grim news hanging over us Donna drove me to the airport. We stopped for coffee at a doughnut shop and she cried while a teenage server gawked. The good-bye was made even more painful by the strains of "I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane" coming from a back room radio. But there were no ultimatums or threats or pleading that I abandon the air force upon my return. She would give her all for me and my career, wherever it took us.

I returned from Vietnam in November 1969, and was transferred to RAF Alconbury in England, where I crewed RF-4Cs, now as part of the NATO forces confronting the Soviet Union. I continued to press air force HQ for entry into pilot training, but my requests were denied. Not only were my eyes a problem, but now I was too old. "Give it up, Lieutenant Mullane. Pilot training is out. It's not going to happen for you" had been the personnel officer's unvarnished a.s.sessment. Except for a handful of civilian scientists selected for the Apollo program, every NASA astronaut had been a test pilot. They had never selected a GIB-or guy in back-in fighter jets. At age twenty-six my dream of s.p.a.ceflight had ended. When I told Donna of this final rejection, she was unbowed in her faith. "It will all work out for the best."

England was a bittersweet four years for us. Every several months there were training accidents, some of which were deadly. We attended memorial services for Jim Humphrey and Tom Carr, killed in their takeoff crash. Another crew disappeared over the sea on a night mission. A pilot died when his Phantom caught fire.

But there was also the fun of traveling through Europe on our vacations. We left the kids with a nanny and rented a sailboat with two other couples and sailed the Aegean Sea for two weeks. We sipped wine while watching the rays of a setting sun pierce colonnaded ruins, and we swam in water as clear as s.p.a.ce. While anch.o.r.ed in deserted coves and cloaked in nights so black we couldn't see each other even while kissing, Donna and I made love as quietly as a prayer. We walked the streets of Rome and Edinburgh and Florence. We played in the snow in the Austrian Alps and watched London stage plays. On a visit to the coast of Spain, Donna became pregnant with our third child, daughter Laura. On this same trip I volunteered to take up a cape and fight a one-ton bull at an organized tourist function. Alcohol was involved in both moments.

Our European a.s.signment was the first time Donna and I had enough long-term stability in our lives to really get to know each other. And two more different people have rarely been pledged in the banns of matrimony. Donna was a lady. She was polite, sober, and soft-spoken. I, on the other hand, was as coa.r.s.e as a convict. The all-male experiences of West Point, the air force, and Vietnam made it impossible for me to form a sentence without the F word in it. I was loud, frequently obnoxious, and an out-of-control joker. On our sixth anniversary, at a squadron party, I presented Donna with a gift-wrapped painting. She was certain of the contents. For a year she had been hinting at how much she wanted an oil portrait done of her in her wedding dress. Not one to disappoint, I found an English artist, gave him a photo from our wedding, and asked him to capture Donna. But I also included a Polaroid photo of a topless Donna I had taken in our bedroom. I requested a watercolor of that shot too. It was the latter painting I first presented her at our anniversary party. She ripped into the wrapping, breathless to see herself in bridal splendor. When she peeled away the last paper and found two nipples staring her in the face, she nearly fainted. She clutched the painting to her body while the bewildered audience asked, "What did Mike give you?"

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 Inst.i.tute 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 a.s.signment, NASA announced it would begin accepting applications for the first group of s.p.a.ce 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. G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce mission-but none as significant as the night a teenage girl stepped out from a party to kiss me.

*NASA uses the term L(p.r.o.nounced "L minus") to indicate the days remaining to launch. Within twenty-four hours of launch, the term T(p.r.o.nounced "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-9-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 a.s.s was so tight I could have cracked walnuts between my b.u.t.t cheeks.

As I pumped iron, I chuckled at the sight of the straw-filled archery bull's-eye in one corner. What candy-a.s.s 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.

Judy and I pa.s.sed the black hulks of several alligators on the opposite banks of drainage ditches. I had once seen one of these creatures explode out of the water in a chase after an armadillo. Why they never chased jogging astronauts was a mystery to me. Even when we teased them, they did not react. I once watched Fred Gregory toss sh.e.l.ls at a twelve-footer hoping to see it stir. As the missiles ricocheted from its scales, I warned Fred, "Those things can run twenty miles per hour when they're riled and that's a lot faster than you." But Fred continued his reptile target practice while answering, "Yeah...but that's on firm ground. If they're chasing me, they'll be slipping and sliding through s.h.i.t and they can't run nearly as fast."

Judy and I discussed an issue we had heard about just before leaving the crew quarters. An engineer had found a potential flaw that could result in the failure of the burned-out SRBs to separate from the gas tank. Such a scenario would be fatal. The shuttle would never make it to orbit or achieve a successful abort dragging along nearly 300,000 pounds of useless steel. The good news was it would take several simultaneous failures in the circuitry for the SRB separation failure to occur. When the launch team asked Hank whether he was comfortable flying the mission with this failure mode in place, his answer was yes. That didn't surprise me. They might as well have asked a three-year-old if he wanted to eat his candy now or wait until tomorrow. If the engineers said, "We forgot to install the center engine. Do you still want to launch?" Hank probably would have said, "No problem. We'll just burn the two we have." Nothing was going to get in our way.

Judy and I continued into the KSC wilderness. The only sound was the buzz of cicadas. The dusk was deepening and an occasional firefly flickered over the ditches. Judy voiced concern that we might trip over an alligator. I told her the Fred Gregory story and she laughed. But in a rare moment of prudence, we decided to turn back.

We gradually slowed into a cool-down walk. I had come a long way...and I don't mean during the run. There was a fox of a woman at my side and I could actually think of her as a friend and equal. Those six years ago when we were standing together on the stage being introduced to the JSC workforce, I saw Judy with three strikes against her: She was civilian. She was a woman. She was beautiful. At the time I wondered how her beauty had played in her pa.s.sage through the wickets of life to become an astronaut; wickets that, for the most part, had been male tended. Had she been waved through some of those gates because her smile had melted a professor or perhaps her dynamite body had influenced a male astronaut sitting on the selection committee? We males are suspicious of female beauty because we know ourselves too well.

But, over the years, Judy had proven she wasn't an astronaut because of her s.e.x appeal or because of an abuse of the affirmative action program. She was an astronaut because she was qualified to be one. I had watched her fly formation from the backseats of T-38s and lead instrument approaches in bad weather and do it as well as me (and my backseat fighter and T-38 time had made me a d.a.m.ned fine instrument pilot). I had seen her expertly operate the robot arm. I had watched her rappel off the side of the orbiter mock-up in our emergency training, parasail into the water in our survival training, work 20 feet underwater in a 300-pound s.p.a.cesuit. In simulation after simulation, she had instantly and correctly reacted to countless emergencies. I think the best testimonial for Judy's proficiency was the fact it was never a topic of astronaut scuttleb.u.t.t. In a strange way, that was the best compliment an astronaut could achieve, not being discussed behind his or her back. And I never heard Judy's name attached to a "Who let that bozo in the door?" comment. Over a beer or in a jog with a TFNG, I would hear comments about the misadventures of other astronauts. When one TFNG MS was removed from being a robot arm operator, it took about ten milliseconds before the reason was being shared in whispers. He maneuvered the arm like a fifteen-year-old kid learning to use a stick shift. There was locker-room gossip about an MS jeopardizing the deployment of a satellite because of a failure to follow the checklist. One TFNG accidentally engaged the shuttle backup flight system during a prelaunchpad test and caused a delay in the countdown. Judy's name was never in any of these conversations, the ultimate testimonial to her competency. She wasn't the smartest or quickest TFNG-Steve Hawley held that position. Judy was like me. We weren't stars. But we were solid, dependable. We could be counted on to get the job done.

Until my STS-41D a.s.sociation 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 s.e.x 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. 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 s.e.x, but don't expect other men to believe it. 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 s.e.x, 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. "G.o.ddammit, 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 s.p.a.ce."

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 s.p.a.ce, 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. 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 m.u.f.fled, 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, G.o.d bless him.

At least I had done a good job of financially protecting my family in the event of my death. I had three insurance policies on my life. Months earlier I had written each insurance company explaining my pending shuttle launch and asking if there was any fine print on the policies that would negate the payout if I died on the shuttle. Each company had replied in writing that its policy would be unaffected by death by rocket. I had stapled each of those letters to the respective policies and put them with my will. Donna wouldn't have to deal with any surprises there.

What were the chances there was a Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer? I wondered. There was not, thank G.o.d. It would have scared the s.h.i.t out of me if NASA thought we needed one. "We're not sure this rocket will work, so here's our ultimate emergency backup, a Bible."

I didn't need a Bible to talk to G.o.d. I prayed for my family. I prayed for myself. I prayed I wouldn't blow up and then I prayed harder that I wouldn't screw up. Even my prayers reflected the astronaut credo, "Better dead than look bad."

At some point in the night, exhaustion overpowered fear and excitement, and I fell into a shallow sleep. The smell of cooking bacon woke me. The dieticians had arrived and were making breakfast. My stomach turned in disgust. The thought of food was nauseating.

I could hear the wake-up knocks on the doors of the other crewmembers and wondered how many of them were actually asleep. I could believe Hank had slept well. Anybody who could read a newspaper and deliver political commentary on the eve of a shuttle launch must have their s.h.i.t together. But I imagined the rest of the crew had spent much of the night as I had, counting holes in the ceiling tile.

The knock came on my door and I opened it to Olan Bertrand's smiling face. Olan was one of the Vehicle Integration Test Team (VITT) members and would be a partic.i.p.ant in our final prelaunch briefing. He was also a Louisiana Cajun with an accent as thick as a bowl of jambalaya. He mumbled something I interpreted as "The weather and the bird are looking good," but could have been "It's raining like h.e.l.l andDiscovery blew over." Only his smile told me it was the former and not the latter. blew over." Only his smile told me it was the former and not the latter.

I showered and shaved, then trimmed my fingernails. Some of the early s.p.a.cewalkers had painfully torn their nails on the inside of the suit gloves and had suggested contingency s.p.a.cewalkers cut them short, too. I did so and filed them to snag-free crescents.

For breakfast I dressed in a mission golf shirt. I had no appet.i.te, but it was a mandatory photo opportunity. A NASA cameraman entered to film us sitting around the table. I faked a carefree smile and waved. Most of us ate nothing or very lightly. I had a piece of toast. As a teenager I had always heard the "voice of NASA" say the astronauts were enjoying a breakfast of steak and eggs before launch. One bite of that fare and I would have vomited. n.o.body drank coffee. That would have been bladder suicide.

After the cameraman was gone, I gave Judy my emery board. "You can do your nails during ascent." She laughed. It had been a running Zoo Crew joke that, as a Jewish American Princess (j.a.p), she would be giving herself a manicure during the countdown. With the nail file I included my latest j.a.p joke: "What does a j.a.p say when she inadvertently knocks over a priceless Ming dynasty vase, it shatters on the floor, and museum officials rush to the scene?"

Judy sighed in resignation. "What does she say, Tarzan?"

"She shouts, 'I'm okay! I'm okay!'"

After the meal, we collected in the main briefing room for a teleconference to review the launch countdown status and the weather forecast. Everything looked good. The weather for Dakar, Senegal, Africa, was covered. It was our primary transatlantic abort site, just twenty-five harrowing minutes away from Florida via a wounded shuttle. I really didn't want to make my first visit to Africa in a s.p.a.ce shuttle.

Next, we visited flight surgeons Jim Logan and Don Stewart in the gym for a cursory last exam. They checked our ears, throat, temperature, and blood pressure. I put myself in a happy place to ensure the last was within limits. Both doctors were good friends of the Zoo Crew, but if they had raised any medical issues at this moment, others would have later found their arrow-riddled bodies spread-eagled to the archery hay bale. We wouldn't have missed.

We then cycled through the bathroom for a next-to-last gravity-a.s.sisted waste collection. We'd have one more chance at the launchpad toilet. My self-imposed fast from liquids was working. I had no urges, but nevertheless I took advantage of the moment to squeeze out a few drops of urine.

I returned to my room and began to dress. While we had been at breakfast, the suit crew had arranged our wardrobe on the bed. The first item I donned was my urine collection device. I stepped through the leg openings and pulled the condom toward my p.e.n.i.s. It looked incredibly small. Not the condom...my p.e.n.i.s. I coached the recalcitrant appendage into the latex. It promptly slipped from my body. Apprehension had sucked every molecule of blood from my crotch. I doubted even a naked Bo Derek doing jumping jacks in front of me would have stirred life into this lizard.

I made a second attempt to get my sword into its sheath, this time taking the weight of the UCD bladder in my hand so I would stay attached. I Velcroed the device around my waist, accepting the results whatever they might be. I had no choice. There was a countdown clock ticking.

I finished dressing in my flight suit, then filled my pockets with spare prescription gla.s.ses, pencils, pressurized s.p.a.ce pens, and barf bags...lots of barf bags. I put one in each of my chest pockets and a couple spares in other pockets. Would I be a victim of s.p.a.ce sickness? I had been sick so many times in the backseats of various jets, I couldn't believe I would be spared in s.p.a.ce. I toyed with the idea of taking one of NASA's antinausea pills, a mixture of scopolamine (a downer) and Dexedrine (an upper), but decided otherwise. I wanted to know my s.p.a.ce Adaptation Syndrome (SAS) susceptibility and drugs would camouflage it. Besides, I didn't think the pill would work. Months earlier I had been on a deep-sea-fishing trip with a group of astronauts, several of whom had taken the capsule. Some had still gotten seasick. Another guest on the same trip, who had also swallowed a ScopeDex, had been so suddenly struck with nausea he had vomited before getting to the rail. The memory of NASA's miracle SAS pill floating in a puddle of barf on the fantail of a fishing boat did nothing to inspire confidence that the pills would help me in s.p.a.ce. I left them behind.

Fully dressed and with pockets loaded, I stepped from my room and joined the rest of the crew in a walk to the elevator. Judy was in front of me and I could hear the whooshing sound of her diaper plastic rubbing against her coveralls. I teased her, "You're getting a little broad in the beam, JR."