Riding Rockets (28 page)

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.

As
Discovery
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 against
Discovery
’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.

There was little to do in the cockpit. After some radio checks with the Launch Control Center, they moved on with their prelaunch activities. We were left alone. Others complained about the state of their bladders. Judy and Charlie joined in from downstairs. I didn’t envy them their position. They had no instrument displays or windows. They would be riding an elevator with no idea of what floor they were passing. Judy reminded us she did not want to hear any sentences ending in the word
that,
as in, “Did you see
that
!” or “What was
that
!” We all laughed. When you are blind to the
that
being referenced, it would be very disconcerting to hear any such exclamations.

We fell silent and just listened to the LCC dialogue. When the Range Safety Officer’s (RSO) call sign was heard there were some joking comments on the intercom to cover the fear his grim function generated. The RSO would blow
Discovery
from the sky if she strayed off course. If the RSO ever transmitted the Flight Termination System ARM command, a red light on Hank’s instrument panel would illuminate as a warning. I wondered what sick engineer had thought that would be helpful.

With each passing minute the mood in the cockpit grew more intense. Then we heard the dreaded word
problem.
At T-32 minutes a problem was noted with the Backup Flight System (BFS) computer. The launch director informed us he would stop the countdown at the planned T-20 minute hold point while the experts sorted it out. There was a communal groan on the intercom. The flight rules would never let us launch without the backup computer working properly. After all the emotional capital we had invested to this point, the thought of getting out of the cockpit and repeating that investment tomorrow was enough to make us physically ill. We all prayed that the offending circuit would fix itself. But God didn’t hear us. Following several minutes of troubleshooting, the LCC called, “
Discovery,
we’re going to have to pull you out and try again tomorrow.”

I was crushed, totally spent. We all were. Our nerves had been in constant tension for four hours and we had nothing to show for it. I looked forward to a repeat of this tomorrow like I looked forward to a root canal.

Within the hour we had been extracted from the cockpit and were on our way back to the crew quarters. The spouses were driven out for lunch. Donna put on a brave face but it couldn’t mask her exhaustion. The other spouses looked similarly beaten.

Then, the script was replayed. The tearful good-byes. Another review of checklists. Hank’s political commentary. A fitful sleep. The nauseating smell of cooking bacon. The wake-up knock on the door. Olan’s mumbles.

Once again we entered the elevator to be joined by the same two maintenance men. Another couple of launch scrubs and we’d be old friends. We exited the building into the same camera lights, heard the same enthusiastic applause from our friends, and boarded the same chilly astro-van. Even the extreme fear of death that had accompanied me yesterday was back again. The first launch attempt had done nothing to mitigate it. And so was the greater fear…that I would never make this flight, that at the last second something would happen to steal my chance. I would be forever damned as an astronaut in name only. My astronaut pin would remain silver.

As Jeannie Alexander worked at my crotch to fasten the seat harness I joked, “I’m getting tired of this foreplay.” She didn’t have time to do more than just smile.

The hatch was closed and we were back into the wait. After yesterday’s urinary challenges, I had been even more aggressive at dehydrating myself. But it didn’t help. With my legs elevated there was a whole lake of fluid heading downhill into my bladder. Within an hour I felt as if I were going to burst.

The intercom fell silent earlier than it had yesterday. We were all too exhausted to continue our lame jokes. The whooshing of the cabin fan was the only sound. I watched the sky grow lighter and seagulls soar past the windows. I could tell by the way Hank’s head lolled to the side that he had fallen asleep. How some astronauts could do that amazed me. I could no more have nodded off than could a man strapped to an electric chair. I was scared. But at that moment there was nothing in the world, including celebrity, wealth, power, and sex, that could have motivated me to give up that seat. Sitting in it, being an hour from orbit, I was the richest man on earth.

T-32 minutes came and went. Yesterday’s comment about a glitch in the BFS computer was not repeated.

Hank woke up. “Did I miss anything?”

I thought of telling him he had slept for four years and Ted Kennedy was now president, but decided otherwise. If he had a stroke, it would surely delay the flight.

We entered the T-20 minute hold. This was as far as we had gotten yesterday.
Please, dear God, let the count continue.
Each of us had our ears hypertuned to the LCC dialogue, praying we would hear nothing about an off-nominal condition. We didn’t. Right on time, we came out of the hold.

At T-9 minutes we entered our last planned hold. Again, there were no discrepancies and the LCC released the clock. I thought of Donna and the kids. They would now be walking the stairs to the roof of the LCC.
God help them,
was my prayer.