Riding Rockets Read online

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

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

  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 God. It would have scared the shit 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 God. 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 shit 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 participant 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 hell andDiscovery 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 spacewalkers had painfully torn their nails on the inside of the suit gloves and had suggested contingency spacewalkers 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 appetite, 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. Nobody 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 (JAP), she would be giving herself a manicure during the countdown. With the nail file I included my latest JAP joke: “What does a JAP 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 space 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-assisted 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 penis. It looked incredibly small. Not the condom…my penis. 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 glasses, pencils, pressurized space 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 space sickness? I had been sick so many times in the backseats of various jets, I couldn’t believe I would be spared in space. 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 Space 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 space. 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.”

  “Screw you, Tarzan.”

  How different from reality were all those science fiction movies of my youth. As Lloyd Bridges (Colonel Floyd Graham ) and Osa Massen (Dr. Lisa Van Horn) boarded theirRocketsh
ip X-M in the 1950 Hollywood classic of the same title, I don’t recall them commenting on the condoms and diapers they were wearing.

  A group of NASA employees welcomed us with applause on our exit from the crew quarters. I wanted to embrace them and say, “Thank you for giving me this moment.” They were the best in the world.

  We stepped into the elevator and two heavyset men wearing tool belts followed us. I was shocked. We were on our way to fly the space shuttle and two blue-collar workers had decided to hitch a ride with us. When the elevator opened and the photographers got this picture, it was going to be a hoot. A bewildered Hank had to ask, “What are you guys doing?”

  “We’re elevator repairmen. There’ve been reports this elevator is giving you guys problems. We didn’t want you to get stuck on your way to your rocket.” We all laughed. NASA thinks of everything. A comforting thought at this moment.

  But the workers were not needed. We creaked to ground level without a problem and exited the building to cheers and more applause from a larger group of the NASA team.

  Outside, I immediately looked to the sky hoping to see stars, hoping for proof the weather was good. But the lights of the cameras filming our departure had ruined my night vision.

  We climbed into the astro-van and began the drive to Pad 39A, the same pad from which Neil Armstrong had embarked on his historic journey to the moon fifteen years earlier. I wondered what his drive had been like. The van air-conditioning was making ours frigid. My skin was clammy and I was shivering. Nervous small talk occupied us. I hoped nobody could hear my heart. Each pulse seemed like a detonation.

  We passed successive security checkpoints where the guards saluted or waved or flashed a thumbs-up. They had trucks parked nearby for their own evacuation to more remote points. Closer to the pad we passed several fire trucks and ambulances. Their crews were clad in silver firefighting suits and hovered near their vehicles. When the launchpad closeout crew departed, these men and women would remain in a nearby bunker, ready to race to our rescue if there was a problem. I couldn’t imagine any problem involving 4 million pounds of propellant leaving anything to rescue. There were certainly six body bags in those ambulances.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  I made the observation that it was scary looking over the railing from two hundred feet up. “I’ve got a fear of heights, JR. I can’t get any closer.”

  She laughed. “Well, Tarzan, you’re screwed. We’re headed to two hundred miles.”

  We continued with small talk, each of us trying to distract ourselves from our pounding hearts. Then the two-minute warning call came for my strap-in.

  I embraced her. “Good luck, JR. I’ll see you in space.” Since she would be in a mid-deck seat, I wouldn’t see her until after MECO. It was the first time I had ever held her and I was struck by how petite she was.

  “Roger that, Tarzan.” She returned my squeeze and we parted.

  I detoured to the pad toilet for a last go at urinating. The bowl was a pond of unflushed filth and toilet paper. The plumbing had been turned off hours earlier as part of the checklist for launchpad closeout. The workers had no option but to use this facility. I added my urine to the mess, reattached my UCD, then walked to the white room.

  The closeout crew quickly harnessed me. We shook hands and I dropped to my knees and crawled through the side hatch. The cockpit was as cold as a meat locker. It occurred to me the chill was going to shrink a critical part of my body even further. If my UCD condom stayed attached, it would be a miracle.

  I stood on the temporary panels
covering the back instrument panel and struggled to put myself in the chair behind Mike Coats. Once in, Jeannie Alexander, another of the closeout crew, helped me with the five-point harness. As she worked at my crotch to make the buckle connections, I teased, “I’ll give you all day to stop that.” She had probably heard the same joke a hundred times. She connected my communication cord and emergency breathing pack, then clipped my checklist to a tether. Everything had to be secured. Anything that dropped during launch would be slammed into the back instrument panel by the G-forces, irretrievable until MECO. Finally she gave me a big smile and a pat on the shoulder and turned to help Steve Hawley.

  I looked around the cockpit. Everything appeared as it had in the countless simulations except for the sparkling newness.Discovery even smelled new. Every piece of glass gleamed. There were no wear marks on the floors or on the most frequently used computer keys. There were no vacant panels or panels with somebody else’s payload controls as we had frequently encountered in the JSC simulators. This was our bird. It was our mission software humming in her brain. We would be driving a brand-new vehicle from the showroom floor.

  About ninety minutes to go. With each vanishing second my heart shifted into yet a higher gear. Thank God we weren’t wired for bio-data. That had ended back in the Apollo days. I would have been embarrassed for anybody to have seen my vital signs. I envisioned Dr. Jim Logan looking at them and saying, “It must be a bad sensor. Nobody’s heart can achieve those rates without exploding.”

  Jeannie finished with Hawley’s strap-in. Judy and Charlie Walker were belted in downstairs. The closeout crew wished us good luck, unplugged from the intercom, and was gone. We heard the hatch close. A moment later our ears popped as the cockpit was pressurized. The wait began.

  It quickly became an agony, physical and mental. I wiggled under my harness to restore some circulation to various pressure points. In spite of my dehydration efforts and earlier toilet visits my bladder quickly neared the rupture point. What were the chances my UCD condom was still attached? It had been on too long for my body to still feel it and I was convinced all the crawling and wiggling I had done, not to mention the effects of fear and cold, had caused my penis to disengage. If so, I would be urinating into my flight suit. And I was certain there would be a lot of urine. I could imagine it soaking my coveralls, dripping from the seat onto the back instruments, and shorting out an electrical circuit. My “accident” would be a gossip topic for decades. “Remember that Mullane guy? He pissed his pants on the launchpad. They had to delay the launch to dry out the instruments.” God, I’d rather blow up. I tried to hold on, but soon realized that would be impossible. Praying for a miracle that I was still safely ensconced in latex, I decided to give it a shot. But I quickly discovered it was impossible to urinate on my back. Even though the urge was overwhelming, painful, even, I strained but nothing happened. There are some things even the world’s best training program can’t prepare you for. In desperation I loosened my harness and struggled to roll slightly to my side. In that new position I was finally able to open the floodgates. After a moment I tried to put on the brakes to determine if I was leaking, but I would have had better luck damming the Atlantic. Urine poured from me like water into the flame bucket. I felt no spreading wetness so my miracle had been granted. The condom was still attached. I collapsed in glorious relief. You would have thought I had already reached MECO.