Chasing Space Page 12
Part of the program’s mission was to select between three and six teachers to begin training to become “educator mission specialists,” much like Christa McAuliffe sixteen years earlier. Back then, NASA’s Teacher-in-Space program generated so much interest among teachers that 12,000 applied for one slot. The prospect of a teacher becoming an astronaut gave the space program a tremendous boost.
McAuliffe was a charismatic choice who would win the hearts of many as the nation’s first teacher-turned-astronaut. NASA selected the thirty-seven-year-old social studies instructor from New Hampshire to fly on the space shuttle Challenger. Barbara Morgan was selected as her backup and both women underwent training in Houston. But as we all know, McAuliffe never made it to space. On January 28, 1986, a ruptured fuel tank tore the shuttle apart just seventy-three seconds into the flight, killing everyone on board. A shocked nation mourned the loss of the crew, and the space shuttle program came under fire.
“We’ll continue our quest in space,” President Ronald Reagan said at the time. “There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and journeys continue.”
Twelve years later my Penguin classmate Barbara Morgan flew aboard space shuttle Endeavor. The Educator Astronaut Program was NASA’s proof that it was dedicated to sending more teachers to space. By the end of my first year, three more teachers had won slots in the Astronaut Corps.
• • •
I had been working on education programs for NASA for about four months when I decided to make a trip to Lynchburg to see my parents and Jake. It was a Saturday morning when I began the three-and-a-half-hour drive from Washington, DC. I had always loved the way Highway 29 South meandered gently along the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west, and I had been looking forward to the drive. I remember chatting on my cell phone with my friend Rudy King, a NASA colleague, when I noticed Adena Loston was trying to reach me. She was burning up my line, so I switched over to talk to her. The space shuttle Columbia was scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center in Houston, and she was calling to ask why the countdown clock was going up instead of down. Adena was NASA’s associate administrator for education, and she looked to me to explain the intricacies of the space shuttle program from an astronaut’s perspective. I suddenly felt sick and immediately pulled off the highway. Countdown clocks count down, not up.
I turned on the radio. It was unclear what had happened. NASA had not made an official announcement, but within a few minutes, news broke that the shuttle had broken up during reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere, sending debris in every direction. The unthinkable had happened, again. I turned around and headed back to my office in Washington.
The agency’s gears shifted immediately. We needed to take care of our families, and on the night of the disaster I was dispatched to provide support to the parents of Columbia Mission Specialist David Brown, a flight surgeon who had been among the crew. David had led the investigation of my hearing loss in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) two years earlier and I considered him a close friend. As I drove to the home of Paul and Dorothy Brown, a state trooper stopped me at the driveway, sent there to head off the swarm of reporters who had been arriving all day. Just a few hours after the accident, a reporter disguised as a flower deliveryman had surprised Dorothy when he pulled a microphone out of a bouquet and asked for a comment.
Nothing had prepared me for what I was about to go through helping to protect and console my friend’s family. I had never met Dottie and Judge Paul Brown, and this was not the way I wanted to see them for the first time. That night, I stayed with the Browns until they went to bed, not able to process the tragedy myself. My friends were gone, and suddenly I wasn’t the only astronaut grounded. The entire shuttle program was in jeopardy.
“My son is gone,” David’s father had said to me. “There’s nothing you can do to bring him back, but the biggest tragedy would be if we don’t continue to fly in space to carry on their legacy.” Hearing his words, I started crying. We all hugged and cried, and I felt such warmth and love for this amazing couple. The judge and his son shared the same sparkling eyes and compassionate temperament. At that moment, I realized why David was such a talented and selfless person. He was always willing to help others, as he did when he doggedly led the investigation to find out what happened to me in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory pool, all while training for his flight.
Judge Brown’s comments stuck with me and radically changed how I felt about my place in this world and what it means to think of others first. I wanted to do my part to honor his words.
When I got back to the office, I attended an Educator Astronaut Program meeting. I was exhausted and emotionally spent from the sudden loss of my seven friends and the evening I had just shared with Dave Brown’s grieving parents. In Houston there were meetings where astronauts were briefed and offered medical and psychiatric care if needed. In addition, they had the benefit of a shared experience to aid in their recovery. As the only astronaut in the education program and perhaps the only current astronaut at NASA headquarters that morning, I felt as if I were on an island. That feeling was heightened when one of my colleague’s first words about the accident were “I can’t believe this is happening to me.” I looked up for a moment, thinking that my bad ear was pointed in her direction and that I didn’t hear her correctly. But she repeated it over and over. I was so upset that I wanted to leave the room. She had turned an opportunity to rally the team to honor our fallen heroes into a moment of startling selfishness. We all left that meeting feeling sad and dejected. I felt certain that no one around me could possibly understand what it meant to be an astronaut and have seven of your astronaut buddies die all at once, in a flash.
One of them, Willie McCool, had been very patient with me from my earliest days as a Penguin. Once, he was flying to Florida to do a Space Flight Awareness event, where astronauts give awards to employees and thank them for their contributions to helping us fly safely. Willie asked me if I could go but technically I couldn’t. He got me a waiver to go from the chief of the office. We flew the jet down and had a great conversation on the way. While in Florida, he left our rental car in my capable hands while he went to run an errand. I ended up locking the keys in the car. As a result, he was late for an appointment while employees from the rental agency retrieved the keys. During your AsCan year you are barred from doing any type of media. They don’t want you to get out there and say something you have no knowledge about, or aren’t authorized to say. The media ban forced me to keep my mouth shut at the event while Willie handed out the awards. The next day we drove the rental car to a designated place for them to pick it up and then take us to our T-38. A few hours later, we landed at Ellington Field and for some reason went straight to the ready room where Shelly asked, “Do you guys know where you put the keys to the rental car?” I told her I left them on the visor. “They’re looking and they can’t find them,” she said. I tapped my flight suit and, to my distress, the keys were sitting in my pocket. I had committed all these rookie mistakes but Willie was very gracious and didn’t get upset, which was the coolest thing about the whole trip. I really appreciated being his friend and knowing him. His demeanor defined the crew that perished. There was this civility, this kindness that all of them possessed.
• • •
It had been seventeen years almost to the day since the 1986 Challenger disaster. The second tragedy involving the space shuttle Columbia sent the NASA community into indescribable grief and changed the course of the nation’s space program.
A two-year investigation revealed that a large piece of foam dislodged from an external fuel tank during takeoff and damaged the wing of the shuttle. Nothing seemed amiss until the shuttle re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere on February 1, 2003, when the damaged wing caused the shuttle to break apart. As the nation grieved its second shuttle disaster, Congress began questioning whether space travel was too risky and i
f the shuttle program was the best way to continue human space flights. A commission was set up to examine the root cause of the Columbia disaster, and the finger pointing on Capitol Hill and within NASA began in earnest. The president had to decide if NASA would continue the shuttle program or scrap it because of its old technology and rising concerns about safety.
In truth, nobody really knew what would happen next. The five shuttles—Atlantis, Challenger, Columbia, Discovery, and Endeavor—had flown 111 successful missions. But the Challenger and the Columbia disasters would become the two flights seared into the public’s memory. Though we all knew the shuttle program would begin winding down eventually, this was not the ending we wanted.
The abrupt end to the shuttle program coincided with my own uncertainty. All at once, I was dealing with the loss of friends, the realization I might always be hearing impaired, and the painful probability that I would never fly in space. A few days later, President George W. Bush went to Johnson Space Center to deliver a memorial speech in honor of the Columbia crew.
“Our whole nation was blessed to have such men and women serving in our space program,” he said. “Their loss is deeply felt, especially in this place, where so many of you called them friends. The people of NASA are being tested once again. In your grief, you are responding as your friends would have wished—with focus, professionalism, and unbroken faith in the mission of this agency.”
The president went on to proclaim that the space program would go on. “This cause of exploration and discovery is not an option we choose; it is a desire written in the human heart,” he told the gathered mourners. “We are that part of creation which seeks to understand all creation. We find the best among us, send them forth into unmapped darkness, and pray they will return. They go in peace for all mankind, and all mankind is in their debt.” His words resonated with me. They gave me hope that the program would endure.
As a crew astronaut casualty officer, whose responsibility is to support colleagues’ families in times of crisis, I attended the memorial services of the Columbia astronauts with NASA leaders and other astronauts, crisscrossing the country on the NASA plane. The entire agency was in shock, not only from the catastrophic loss of so many of its own, but also because of the possible shutdown of future shuttle missions and the uncertainty of the nation’s space program.
What I didn’t know was the toll it was taking on me. From the minute I’d learned of the Columbia accident I’d been helping the families of the crewmembers. I was there to help them endure unbearable grief, but I didn’t allow myself to mourn at any of the memorials because that wouldn’t help anyone. I was in serious caregiver mode.
Several weeks passed before I had flown to Houston, the first time since the shuttle accident. By that point, I had attended memorial services for most of the Columbia crew. I took a commercial flight from Washington, DC, to the airport in Houston and rented a car. I will never forget the feeling I had as I turned onto NASA Parkway and headed toward the Johnson Space Center entrance. There on the side of the road, in front of the space center sign, was a spontaneous memorial of hundreds and hundreds of American flags, Bibles, bouquets of flowers, letters, and handwritten prayers.
I pulled my car to the side of the road and the grief that I had long avoided caught up with me. I cried uncontrollably, for my deceased buddies, their families and friends, the space program’s future, and for myself—a broken, grounded astronaut.
It didn’t register at the time, but it turned out the agency’s chief flight surgeon, Dr. Richard Williams, had been watching me closely as we flew from town to town to see the families, assessing how the flying was affecting my ears. I noticed he routinely took notes on takeoff and landing, but I didn’t know what for.
A few weeks after we returned from traveling to one memorial after another, Williams summoned me to his office at NASA headquarters. I had no idea why he wanted to see me, but when I walked into his office, he stood and extended his hand to me.
“Leland,” he said. “I’m going to sign a waiver so you can fly to space.”
8
Training for Space
Normally, astronauts know when they’re going to have a significant conversation about their status because it takes place according to a timeline. For example, new classes report over the summer so that they can start training in the fall. After going through the entire selection process, applicants know they will receive a thumbs-up or thumbs-down call in May or June. I had no clues to prepare me for my conversation with Rich Williams. Becoming medically qualified to fly was the last thing I thought we would ever discuss.
Williams gave me the news, but I suspect that Jon Clark and John Locke had also played a pivotal role in his decision. They had always wanted to push the envelope in terms of my recovery, advocating experimental procedures that might have helped me heal faster. My conversation with Williams thrilled me; I was finally going to get a chance. I thought of Jeannette’s prophecy and marveled that it was now coming to pass. I called my dear friend Mary and told her the news. I think she was even more excited than I was because she saw it as an affirmation of faith and testimony. Diligence, prayer, and belief in oneself could indeed make good things happen.
Shortly thereafter, I spoke with Bill Ready, astronaut in charge of human exploration. I told him I had done all I could at NASA headquarters, especially since the Educator Astronaut Program candidates would be transitioning to the selection process in Houston. In late May, I left HQ in my Jeep Grand Cherokee, pulling a U-Haul trailer behind me. I picked up Jake in Lynchburg and continued south to my home in El Lago.
In mid-June, Jake and I loaded up and hit the road again. The trip included visits to the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Yosemite National Park, and other places of interest in the Southwest. I borrowed a storage unit to go on top of the Jeep from Duane Ross, head of astronaut selection for thirty years and the man who saved me from falling off my chair during my interview. Behind the wheel, I was pumped by a new sense of optimism. My waiver didn’t clear me to get back in the T-38, or resume training in the buoyance laboratory pool, which meant I was ineligible for long-duration flight and the required spacewalks. Still, I was back in line for a coveted space shuttle flight, and that alone was reason enough for joy.
As I drove, my thoughts drifted to the past six months I’d spent in the Educator Astronaut Program and the loss of the Columbia before returning to my new opportunity. I could still hear Judge Brown’s remarks about the importance of continuing the space program despite our catastrophic losses. He was right, of course. The best way to honor our fallen comrades was to take their place in the cosmos and embody, as they did, peace, love, and hope for a better world.
Jake and I took in the beauty of the natural environment as we visited the sites on my list. Along the way, connections we made with nature and humanity confirmed my hopeful sentiments. And we had adventures in the midst of it. In Yosemite, we met two women who had just graduated from college and were driving across the country. That evening, we sat by a campfire and reflected on the future while looking up at the night sky seeing the twins Castor and Pollux and Orion’s Rigel and Betelgeuse. Jake lay by my side and slept as we engaged in pleasant conversation. Later, after I had crawled into my tent and fallen asleep, Jake woke me. He was not barking but trying to open the tent with his nose by putting it on the zipper. He wanted to get outside and protect me from a bear that had wandered into camp. I kept him in the tent, and in the morning we assessed the damage. Park rangers told us the bear not only had gone after improperly stored food but also had attempted to break into cars in search of things to eat. I was glad that Jake had shown himself capable of knowing when to bark and when to stay silent. He may be a city dog but I guess he got his instinct from his genes.
Recharged by my experiences in the great outdoors, I returned to Houston, and from September to December I served on the Astronaut Selection Committee. I was now on the other side of the table, listening to why applicants thought the
y had the right stuff to join the Astronaut Corps. The committee usually consisted of about twelve members, a mix of astronauts and senior NASA leaders at Johnson Space Center. I remember when one candidate came in and I initially thought we would have to coax his accomplishments out of him. Instead he unleashed them on us, relying heavily on the use of “me” and “I” as if teamwork had played no part in his successes. He told us his wife had advised him to check his humility at the door. It was pretty bad advice.
It was such an honor to make decisions that influenced the future of the U.S. space program. I couldn’t believe how accomplished some of the candidates were, with multiple PhDs, advanced pilot and scuba qualifications, and some that had hiked ten of the world’s ninety-six mountain peaks with an elevation of at least 14,000 feet. We met Type A personalities, ready to do whatever it took to climb into a rocket and take off to the heavens. Others had communication skills that didn’t match their other achievements. I remember many times locking eyes with other board members and wanting to ask particular candidates, “Why the heck would you say that to us if you are trying to get hired?” I wondered if I sounded that way when I interviewed. Judging by the way things turned out, I guess not.
In January, my NASA duties included serving as an Astronaut Potted Plant (APP) during a trip to Washington to help promote President Bush’s vision for space. I use the term to describe when astronauts are required to lend their presence to speeches that refer to the program. In such instances, the president or NASA official would gesture in our direction when he or she came to the relevant passage. Speakers and audiences like having astronauts in the room. The allure of space heightened considerably when actual space explorers were standing nearby in the flesh. Fortunately, I shared the stage with a diverse pool of astronauts, including Ed Lu (Asian), Stephanie Wilson (African American), Ellen Ochoa (Latina), John Grunsfeld (Caucasian), and Peggy Whitson, a Caucasian woman who would soon become the first female commander of the space station. President Bush outlined a course for additional missions, including the development of a new manned space vehicle and a return to the moon. “With the experience and knowledge gained on the moon,” he said, “we will then be ready to take the next steps of space exploration: human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond.”