Pilgrimage (The New World) (10 page)

Four days before the launch a new experience awaited Ross at Cape Canaveral, as the mission commander had asked him to come along on a short walk. The two men were not alone during the walk, as a few NASA technicians were also close at hand, but Ross knew very few others had been invited to take such a stroll. They walked along side, or sometimes behind, the giant crawler platform that moved the shuttle at a painfully slow pace out to the launch site. The wide road that leads from the VAB, or Vehicle Assembly Building, towards the two different shuttle launch pads is a few miles in length, and the journey takes the crawler several hours to complete. After a few hundred yards of the up close view, Ross and his commander had seen enough. They headed back inside the VAB as there were many other tasks to be tended to, and time was growing short.

Ross rubbed the emblem on his necklace one more time for good luck before being helped into his spacesuit, and had a quiet moment of thought with Grandpa Hank. A short time later a few technicians strapped the crew down tightly into their seats and Ross was grateful for the assistance. With the shuttle in a vertical position for launch, he thought the most difficult aspect of a mission was climbing into a seat that would have him on his back while wearing a spacesuit that was extremely cumbersome in full Earth gravity.

With a thumbs-up from each member of the crew, the hatch was sealed, the countdown was called out, and the shuttle began to vibrate as the attached rocket engines came to life. Slowly at first, and then with ever increasing velocity, the shuttle Atlantis tore away from Earth’s gravity. All systems were working according to specifications as they climbed higher and higher into the sky, and then the sky around them turned black as they entered space.

Three of the members of this six person crew were first-timers into space, while Ross was the only one who was on his second voyage. One mission specialist in the back seat was on his third ride, and Ross would help him with the spacewalk he was due to take in a few days. The mission commander was on his fourth, and by his own admission last, ride into space. He was ready to become an instructor for the younger generation of astronauts that was coming up, but had earned the right to command a mission before doing so.

The five days of the mission were extremely successful, and Ross flew the shuttle through the fireball of re-entry to a perfect landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California. This time at “wheels stop” he closed the official transmission of the flight with a sentiment of, “Man this thing is fun to fly”, which got a laugh from those seated around him.

Throughout the debriefing process of the flight, each member of the crew had praise for Ross and how helpful he was with their respective challenges while in space. They all had experiments to complete, or spacewalks to perform, but all the training in the world was no substitute for someone who had actually been there to do it. The mission commander had also privately informed the senior NASA staff that he believed Ross was a natural to someday command a future mission. Ross was unaware that the endorsement had just moved him to the top of what had already become a very short list.

After some well-deserved vacation time with Patty and their two little girls, Ross returned to work at NASA. The shuttle program was beginning to move along nicely, and several items on NASA’s orbital missions’ checklist were being accomplished. In early November of 1983, a few weeks before his daughter Aurora’s sixth birthday, Ross was called into an office to discuss a future mission. NASA intended to retrofit one of the space shuttles in the fleet of five for a different type of mission, and they wanted Ross to be the commander of the flight. He was overjoyed at not only the chance to go back into space, but also the chance to command the mission. Ross accepted the offer from the senior staff without waiting for any of the details, and then rose to shake their hands. The group of men smiled as they knew the correct choice had been made, but asked him to sit back down so they could inform him of the mission at hand.

Ross leaned forward in his chair as they told him of the planned retrofit to the space shuttle, and the secrecy of the mission that would be two years away in November of 1985. They continued by saying that the crew would consist of Ross and one other man yet to be determined, with a hopeful duration in space of twenty-one days.

With an eyebrow raised from the information he had just been given, Ross stated that “No other space shuttle mission to this point has exceeded a week in space.” He knew that the current design specifications of the space shuttles allowed a maximum of two weeks in orbit because of restraints on fuel and materials such as food and water. Ross had no doubt that longer human durations in space were possible, as both the Americans and Russians had proven in the past with their respective orbiting space stations, but not on a shuttle mission. The senior staff then informed Ross of the most exciting news he could ever receive, as the true intent of the mission was further laid out for him. Very little time would actually be spent in Earth orbit, as NASA had decided it was time to return to the Moon.

THROUGHOUT THE NEXT
eighteen months Ross kept the news of his pending mission from Patty and everyone else. All those on the outside of NASA who knew him thought he was helping train other astronauts for flights, while waiting his turn to hopefully be chosen for another mission himself.

During that time Ross had been promoted again to full Commander in the Navy, and his crew mate had finally been selected. It was his old friend Dennis Strickland from their days at Annapolis who had been accepted into the astronaut program about two years after Ross, and Ross had been the one who suggested him for the flight. As had been their mutual plan from those days of yesteryear, Dennis had also flown jets after graduation from the Naval Academy before the transition into NASA. He had been on one previous space shuttle flight as a mission specialist, and Ross knew Dennis had the qualifications necessary for this specific mission.

Soon after the intent of returning to the Moon had been divulged to Ross, he began to lobby for Dennis. NASA wanted to have Ross land the space shuttle on the Moon near the axis that defined the near and far side. Although the Moon orbits the Earth, it has no rotation of its own. The same side or half of the Moon, where all the previous Apollo missions had landed, always faces the Earth. It never changes, so nothing was currently known about the outward half other than the brief glimpses from above as the Apollo missions orbited the surface. The new intent was to establish a base at that axis point and explore, via rover vehicle and walking large sections of, the outward half of the Moon’s surface. That would include collecting deep core samples of the rock strata to determine where follow-up missions could safely build a permanent structure for a lunar base. Ross knew of the multi-generational mining background that Dennis had, and that he excelled in the field of geology, so he seemed like the perfect fit.

NASA, like most other big business, needs to know how to play the media in the proper way. The shuttle program was going well, but it would only be a matter of time before some people started to ask questions about why a certain shuttle wasn’t being used for any of the multiple flights now scheduled each year.

The unveiling of the big news came at the perfect time. The national economy was back on solid ground, so there was less concern about cutting the space program budget, and ambition was once again at the forefront of people’s thoughts. In May of 1985 NASA revealed to America, and the rest of the world, of their intent to return to the Moon with a manned space flight. Some details of the modified space shuttle Discovery were given to the press, and they ran with it like wildfire. NASA didn’t have to spend a dime on publicity; they just let the world media do it for them.

Patty excitedly watched the news on the television, and couldn’t wait to discuss it with Ross when he came home that evening, but she soon discovered that conversation would take on a different angle. After showing photos of the newly revamped shuttle, the cameras within the NASA briefing room in Houston came to life. Patty dropped her glass of ice tea and put her hands over her mouth, as her husband Ross and their old friend Dennis were introduced to the world as the crew of the upcoming mission. Her excitement gave way to a moment of anger as Ross had never mentioned any of this to her, but that was soon replaced by forgiveness as the senior NASA administrator informed the world that the Moon mission had been kept a secret intentionally.

Within minutes the phone began ringing off the hook, as wives of other astronauts called to make sure Patty was watching. That was followed by knocks on the door and hugs from some of her close friends, as the entire world seemed to know within hours of the announcement. Patty even received a call from her old friend and maid of honor Betty Collina, who was still living in the Washington D.C. area with her husband and young son.

When Ross finally made it home from work that evening, the girls met him at the door. As usual he gave them each a big hug, and picked them both up as he smiled in the direction of Patty. She returned the smile as he walked towards her, and then gave him a kiss before he put the girls down. Ross said he was sorry that she had to find out that way, but he had been ordered to not tell anyone. There was even a faction of people at NASA that didn’t know about the planned mission, because there was concern about a potential security breech.

Luckily for Ross and Dennis, the majority of their necessary training had already taken place during the previous eighteen months. It seemed that everybody wanted a piece of them, and NASA knew how to ride the wave of popularity by making the two astronauts available for publicity events whenever possible. In the midst of all the ensuing chaos that occurred during the subsequent months, Ross had to explain to his daughter Aurora that he would have to miss her eighth birthday party in November. She didn’t take the news well, but he promised to make it up to her by taking her wherever she wanted to go when he returned from the Moon. Although that promise gave her temporary comfort and stopped her tears, Aurora also made him promise to never miss another one of her birthdays because he was flying in space. Ross thought about her terms for a moment, realized the chances of him going on a subsequent mission in November were scarce at best, and reached out to shake her hand to seal the deal.

Soon the time had arrived for the final press briefing before the launch, and this one had considerably more members of the media in attendance. Ross had never seen the room so full of cameras and microphones, but he once again took it in stride by saying that it was wrong to place the two astronauts in the spotlight while literally thousands of people had worked very hard to make this mission to the Moon a reality. He and Dennis expertly navigated their way through the maze of questions whose answers dictated political correctness, and somehow tried to explain to the media how they couldn’t possibly know how it would feel to walk on the Moon until they were actually there. In time a NASA administrator stepped in to field the ever increasing level of ridiculous questions, while Ross and Dennis were swept away into a secure location.

Later that day the two of them arrived on the Florida coastline for a few final days of training away from the eyes and ears of the media, and during that time they had a special visitor. President Ronald Reagan had come down from Washington D.C. in as quiet a manner as was possible for the leader of the free world, so that he could meet with the two astronauts privately. Ross and Dennis were both still active members of the military, so they snapped to attention as their Commander and Chief entered the room. A senior NASA administrator then introduced the two men who would be going on the historic flight by saying, “Mr. President may I present Commander Ross Martin of the United States Navy and Lieutenant Dennis Strickland of the United States Navy.” There were no members of the media in attendance, and only a handful of secret service and high ranking NASA administrators were present as he motioned for Ross and Dennis to sit down before conversing with them for roughly thirty minutes.