Burnout: the mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281 (44 page)

Parsec
A celestial unit of measure equal to a parallax of one arc second, or 3.26 light years

Petrol
Australian term for gasoline

Photometry/ Photometric
Literally, measuring light; an astronomical technique for measuring the brightness of an object, and how that brightness may vary over time

Piranypa
Australian Aboriginal term for white people

P/L
Payload

P/L B
Payload Bay

PLT
Pilot; Shuttle crew member

POCC
Payload Operations Control Center; see MSFC

POW
Prisoner Of War

PS-1, -2
Payload Specialist 1 or 2; Shuttle crew members

Pulsar
Astronomical object that produces regular radio pulses; generally considered to be a spinning neutron star, the core of an extinguished star. See LGM

RAF
Royal Air Force

Raw data
Unanalyzed, sometimes uncalibrated data, straight from the instrumentation

Rattlesnake
Fighter jet audio alert of incoming missile, so named due to its buzzing sound

RCS
Reaction Control System; Shuttle maneuvering jets

Redshift
The displacement of the spectrum of a celestial object toward longer (red) wavelengths, as a consequence of the Doppler effect, or due to the intense gravitational field of the source object

RHAW
Radar Homing and Warn Receiver

RHC
Rotational Hand Controller; control or joystick

Roll reversal
"Swinging" maneuver used to shed velocity during Shuttle re-entry

RTLS
Return To Launch Site; usually used (in Shuttle program) as a type of emergency abort of ascent

SAM-II
Surface to Air Missile 2

Servo
Australian slang for service station

SETI
Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence

Shit handle
The handle installed above the passenger side door of some vehicles, intended to help stabilize the passenger in rough or emergency situations; so called because it is most often used as the passenger exclaims, "Oh, shit!" Sometimes also referred to as the God handle, for identical reasons

Smash
Pilot slang for airspeed

SOPG
Science Operations Planning Group

Spectral Class
A way of categorizing stars by their spectra; the categorizations include a rough temperature designator (O, B, A, F, G, K, M, with O being hottest and M coolest) and size designator (I, II, III, IV, V, with I being largest [supergiant] and V being smallest [dwarf])

Spectrograph
An instrument which disperses electromagnetic radiation into a spectrum for photographic or mapping purposes; based on the concept of a prism. Varieties include echelle and coudé

Square corner
Sharp, high angle turn maneuver; can cause missile to lose target lock

SRB
Solid Rocket Booster

SSL
Space Sciences Laboratory; lab division at Marshall Space Flight Center

STS
Space Transportation System; i.e. Space Shuttle

SUV
Sport Utility Vehicle

T-38
Variety of fighter jet, usually flown by astronauts

TACAN
TACtical Air Navigation; an HSI mode

Tally/Tally-ho
Visual sighting

TIg or TIG
Time of Ignition

Tjukurpa
Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime

Traj
Trajectory

Truckie
Australian slang for truck driver

Tumbleweed
Pilot slang for no backup aircraft

Uluru
Australian Aboriginal proper name for Ayers Rock; a huge red sandstone natural monolith, deep in the Australian Outback desert, very nearly at the center of the continent. The monolith, as well as several nearby formations, is sacred to certain tribes of Aborigines

UN
United Nations

Uplink
Reference to any electronic transmission from ground to orbit. Opposite of downlink

U.S.S.R.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; old communist Russia

Vernier thrusters
Steering jets

VFR
Visual Flight Rules; set of rules used by pilots whose aircraft does not possess instrumentation or whose instrumented craft are flying below an altitude of eighteen thousand feet. High altitude, instrumented aircraft normally operate by Instrument Flight Rules, or IFR

Vid
Video

VLA
Very Large Array; radio telescope "farm" in New Mexico

VTOL
Vertical Take Off and Landing

Wilco
Short for Will Comply

Wizzo
Short for WSO

WSO
Weapons Systems Officer; see GIB

Afterward

First and foremost, let me say this: I know nothing personally about "Area 51," nor is any part of this book based on any actual occurrences, other than a few references to well known historical events; e.g. the
Challenger
disaster, Tethered Satellite flights, the Roswell crash, etc.

I say this because I do not wish it said that I am a conspiracy theorist, or that I know something to which the general public is not privy, merely because I have worked in the space program. I am not a conspiracy theorist, and I know none of these things. What little I know of "Area 51" comes from two sources: television documentaries on UFOs, and internet web searches. This book in your hands is a work of fiction. Nothing more, and nothing less. Granted, it is a work that I've enjoyed writing, but still--the contents sprang totally from my imagination.

I'm also sure many people will try to say this book is about what happened to the shuttle
Columbia
. Rest assured, this book, and that chapter in particular, was begun many, many years before the
Columbia
disaster. In fact, I was finished with the entire original manuscript draft when the disaster happened. And because
Columbia
was the bird with which I had worked the most, and because I had a friend aboard her when she went down, I had to put this manuscript away for awhile. I had to allow myself the time to grieve.

It took some little time before I was able to pick it up again, and resume where I had left off, sadder but wiser. Frighteningly, I had next to nothing to change in the manuscript, as a result of what I'd learned from the loss of
Columbia
. I suppose it says something positive about the quality of my knowledge and research that I had been able to so closely predict the actual course of events with respect to the disintegration of the bird. But it does not feel positive, and it is still something about which I cannot talk readily.

In point of fact, however, when I began this book so many long years ago, my frame of reference was the
Challenger
disaster (and in order to differentiate my plot from that event, I deliberately chose an incident occurring in the re-entry, rather than the ascent, phase). That particular "off-nominal situation" occurred mere weeks after I had moved to Huntsville, Alabama to begin my career in the space program. I went from being a young college professor to being an astrophysicist on the research and development phase of a project that, in Phase 2, intended to fly a prototype on the Shuttle. I was a payload specialist candidate for the prototype testing.

The day of the
Challenger
accident was eerie, surreal, leaving a powerful impression on my psyche, one that I suppose I will never forget--nor would I want to. The normally-bustling corridors of my office complex were deathly, almost unearthly, silent, punctuated here and there with the quiet, dispassionate, modulated tones of an announcer reporting the event on someone's portable TV; contrasted occasionally with the counterpoint soft sound of someone in tears. You could tell whose offices had the televisions--they were the ones where scientists and engineers spilled out the doors into the hallways. Little was said.

But within a few months, the fleet was grounded. Seven astronauts were dead, and along with them, Phase 2 of my program.

Thus ended my dream of going into space myself. I suppose I should have applied to the astronaut corps; I considered it on many occasions. I can't really tell you why I didn't. It wasn't because I was afraid. If die I must, and one day I shall, I can think of no better, no more fitting, way to do so than in the pursuit of one's lifelong passion. Rather, I suspect it had something to do with the silent way my mother's eyes welled up with tears when I mentioned it, or my husband's pale face and set jaw as I enthused over the concept of space flight.

So I did the next best thing. I became a payload flight controller. Working with the astronauts and scientists enabled me to be present and to assist during ground-breaking discoveries, while minimizing potential traumas in my family, as well as avoiding the dreaded plague of Space Adaptation Syndrome (space-sickness).

I was a good flight controller. I say that with little egotism, but rather a sense of quiet confidence, because I lived my job. Sometimes that living was a bit too intense for others, but I make no apologies. Space mission operations is an intense field, and sloppy work leads to eventual catastrophe.

I adopted what I laughingly referred to as the "Hawkeye Pierce Method of Stress Management," to handle the high levels of tension a mission could produce. That is to say, when I was in the control center and all hell was breaking loose, I operated at 125%. When an anomaly occurred, I usually worked hard to have at least one contingency plan in place, coordinated and ready to be presented and implemented, before mission management had even finished reviewing the situation. I fondly recall one mission when the Payload Operations Director (or POD, as the position was known) on my shift entered into an amiable competition with me, and we strove to see who could analyze change requests first.

Mind, anomalies were seldom actually dangerous. I want to stress this. We ran a safe program, at least as safe as space exploration can be. Usually it was a case of resetting a power supply to an experiment, or cleaning up after an overexcited frog, or perhaps maneuvering the orbiter into position to take advantage of an unexpected earth observation, such as a volcanic eruption. Sometimes a lot of things decided to go haywire at once, and the entire schedule had to be reshuffled, like a deck of cards at a table in Vegas.

But when the event had resolved, when the orbiter was on the ground once more, like my method's namesake, my reaction was usually offbeat, often irreverent, and not infrequently, side-splitting. In this fashion, I became an "old-timer" in the world of space, outlasting many of my colleagues in the field.

So why am I no longer working missions? Why did I finally get out?

No one ever said the space program was easy, just like no one ever promised it would be safe. It's incredibly intense, and it's amazingly stressful. It takes long, hard hours of focused concentration, often on odd shifts. I could, and did, go for weeks at a time, living in the same house with my husband, yet never seeing him. In the end, no matter how good one's coping mechanism, sooner or later, everyone succumbs to one affliction, the one for which this book is named.

Burnout.

-Stephanie Osborn

Huntsville, Alabama

April, 2006

Thanks

There are so many people to thank for the book you hold in your hands, I scarcely know where to start. So I'll start at the beginning, and work my way out.

God has to be Number One on the list, I think. Without the Divine Watchmaker of the Universe, there wouldn't be anything of the sort to write about, let alone the ability to write it.