Riding Rockets (56 page)

Finally, our time was up. I hugged and kissed the kids. As I embraced my mom, she handed me a note. It was Psalm 91:
We live within the shadow of the Almighty, sheltered by the God who is above all gods…. Now you don’t need to be afraid of the dark any more, nor fear the dangers of the day; nor dread the plagues of darkness, nor disasters in the morning.
I wasn’t afraid of the dark or plagues. It was the “disasters in the morning” I feared.

Mom also handed me a card she had prepared and reproduced and was passing out to guests who had come to watch the launch. It was a prayer to Our Lady of Space.
Blessed Mary, Mother of our Savior and of mankind, watch over our men and women in space, and through your intercession, obtain for them protection from all harm and evil, grace to do God’s will, and the courage and strength to fulfill their mission for the honor and glory of God. Amen. Watch over the crew of STS-36.

That was my mom. She had the faith of ten people. Between her and Donna’s prayers I should have been bulletproof. I just hoped Mom, the papist, didn’t end up proselytizing to some Baptists in the family viewing area and find herself in a fistfight.

As they were climbing into the van for the ride back to the condo, Donna and Amy were wiping away tears. My mom, Pat, and Laura had their Pettigrew shields up. Their faces were pictures of worry, but they were dry-eyed.

Back at the crew quarters I went to the conference room to find that it had become a real bachelor pad. J.O., John, and Pepe had tossed money in the cash box, grabbed some beers, and were reviewing checklists while watching the Playboy Channel. I wondered how this was going to square with Our Lady of Space. Pepe’s EKG recorder was on the table. As part of a life-science experiment, which would continue in weightlessness, he had been wired for heart data for the past week. I was glad I didn’t have one. I could imagine what the docs would say when they saw my heartrate during one of my Prime Crew night terrors…
Holy shit!
They would never let me on the rocket. And I was
really
happy I didn’t have to wear a bowel sound monitor. In their efforts to solve the mystery of space nausea, experimenters had requested some astronauts wear a microphone taped to their gut and a recorder on their hip to catch all the wheezes, pops, growls, and gurgles in their intestines. When the monitors were carried on secret DOD missions, the tapes could not be released to NASA until a USAF security official listened to them to be certain they hadn’t captured a classified orbit discussion. That would be one heck of a job title to have on a résumé—bowel sound screener.

Pepe showed us his heart-activities log. The doctors had required him to record the time of every heart-affecting moment: bowel movements, meals, and each time he had intercourse. I noticed the “intercourse” column was blank. “Cheryl’s not giving you any, huh?”

Dave Hilmers entered our company just as the TV was showing a topless Iowa coed doing naked handstands on a boat dock in a feature titled
Farmer’s Daughter.
He was not happy. “Come on, guys…You shouldn’t be watching this.” I was surprised by Dave’s complaint. Before I had been excommunicated from the office Bible study, I had learned he was one of the more religiously conservative astronauts. He wasn’t the type of guy who would watch the Playboy Channel himself, but I had never heard him be openly critical of others who didn’t share his belief system. Maybe it was the looming prospect of meeting Saint Peter and having to explain away the naked nineteen-year-old on the TV. I knew Dave was as scared as I was. While jogging with him, he had quoted a Scripture passage that he found helpful in calming his fears. At one of our crew parties, when asked about some postflight activity, he had dismissively replied, “I have no plans past MECO.” Those six words spoke volumes. The threat to our lives was so real and immediate during the eight-and-a-half-minute ride to MECO, there was no reason to waste time with post-MECO plans. A post-MECO life was hypothetical.

Dave’s criticism of our TV channel selection hung in the air. Our choice was either to appease him or watch the coed do naked handsprings off the dock and into a lake. It was a no-brainer. Pepe dismissed him. “Dave, a woman’s body is a beautiful thing.”

Hilmers shot back, “But not to be laughed at.”

I defended Pepe. “We’re not laughing…. We’re lusting.”

Dave just shook his head in resignation that our sorry souls were beyond saving. He picked up a checklist and began his review.

On L-1 we drove to the beach house for a midnight lunch with our wives and some NASA support personnel. There were no other family guests this time, thank God. On the drive I noticed J.O.’s cough was getting worse. It had been bothering him for the past several days. I wondered if the flight surgeon was aware of it. Knowing aviators, I doubted it. He probably wouldn’t go to the doc until he coughed up a lung.

After the meal, the NASA guests departed and we were left with our spouses for the final good-bye. Donna and I bundled up and walked to the beach. Earlier at the crew quarters I had jogged under a crescent new moon, but it had set and the sky now offered a planetarium view of the winter constellations. There was enough starlight to illuminate the foam of the surf but the night air was chilly so we steered clear of the water. On the walk our eyes were continually drawn to the northern horizon. The xenon lights of Pad 39A sketched the salt air in shafts of white.
Atlantis
was being readied.

By now Donna and I were wizened veterans of shuttle launch good-byes. That’s not to say this one was easier. It was actually harder. We had already confessed to each other that we were more terrified of this mission than either of the others because now there was an end in sight. It was hard not to recall all those Hollywood movies where the hero died on his last mission, and our last mission loomed. For me there was just one more time to surrender myself to the terrors of ascent. For Donna there was just one more T-9 minute climb to the LCC roof (or so she prayed). There was just one more adrenaline-draining launch. And then it would be over. We would finally close the NASA chapter of our lives and begin to write the post-MECO chapter. It would be a chapter filled with the fun and beauty of southwest living, of getting back to the deserts and mountains of our youth. It would be a chapter that would record the joys of watching Patrick and Laura follow Amy’s lead into the bans of matrimony. And it would include the most wonderful part of life…grandchildren. Those were still glimmers in the eyes of our children, but we knew they would come. Yes, a wonderful post-MECO life awaited us. But to get there required one more “Go for main engine start.”

With only the stars as witnesses, Donna and I kissed in a long and passionate embrace that we both knew could be our last.

By noon on February 21, 1990, I should have been an hour into sleep, but instead I was staring into the dark of my room. Even a sleeping pill hadn’t done the trick. I could hear doors opening and closing, murmurs of conversation, J.O.’s worsening cough. I couldn’t imagine he was going to be able to hide it from the flight surgeon and prayed it wouldn’t generate a delay.

But it wasn’t the faint noises keeping me awake. I was suffering a full-blown case of “last mission syndrome.” I had experienced it in Vietnam. Then, the last mission had been identical to the other 133, but because it was my last, my fears had been magnified ten-fold. As I navigated the pilot to our reconnaissance target, I imagined every Viet Cong gunner in South Vietnam had my helmet in their sights. Now I envisioned every bug, glitch, and gremlin in
Atlantis
’s hardware and software was conspiring to end my life on STS-36. There was an SSME failure awaiting me, an APU fire, a turbo-pump ready to fly into a million pieces. My heart pounded in deep, thudding explosions. The adrenaline in my veins was eating the narcotic of the sleeping pill, like Pac Man munching through dots in his maze.

I got up, went to my desk, and switched on the light. I wrote to Donna and the kids:

21 Feb 1990, 12:22
P.M.

Dearest Donna, Pat, Amy, and Laura,

…I have no premonitions about this flight. I expect I will come home and we will pursue our other dreams in New Mexico. But there is no denying the danger. It is extreme, far beyond any other flying I’ve done. In spite of that I feel it is what I was born to do…. If it is God’s intention to call me, then I want you to know how much I have loved you before I leave. Darling, I have loved you. I haven’t always shown it but I love you with all my heart and soul. You are the first and greatest gift God has given me. The children are the second. There are many others—my health, your health, the kids’ health, my dreams, and the wings to reach those dreams. I want you and the children to remember that. I have been blessed beyond all human reason. Nobody should ever think that God was cruel to take me at this moment. Most people never come close to the self-fulfillment I’ve been blessed with.

I then wrote a separate letter to my mom:

21 Feb 1990, 12:47
P.M.

Dear Mom,

Just wanted to tell you for a last time how much I have loved you and Dad. You are the source of my mortal life and have filled it with such abundant love
.

Please don’t mourn my death. I’ve had the dreams of a thousand lifetimes fulfilled and died doing what I loved—to fly!

Your Psalm 91 was beautiful and I thank you for giving it to me and for praying so hard for me. Though in your grief you may feel God did not fulfill the promises of that Psalm, I think He did so wonderfully. He fulfilled every word of it
.

Please continue to pray for me, as I will for you. I hope God allows me to get back to Dad. There’s so much I would like to tell him. Also, tell Tim, Pat, Chipper, Kathy, and Mark that I loved each of them and wish them all the blessings I have known. I love you, Mom. Mike

I folded the letters and slipped them inside a pocket of my T-38 flight coveralls. Those were packed in my EOM bag and would be held for me at Edwards AFB. If I didn’t make it back to claim the letters, I knew they would find their way to Donna and my mom. I climbed back into bed and somewhere in midafternoon a shallow sleep finally took me.

I awoke to the depressing news that the mission had been postponed for forty-eight hours. J.O. had been diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection. It marked the first time since
Apollo 13
that a mission had been delayed for crew health reasons. That J.O. had gotten sick didn’t surprise me—we were all exhausted. The week of JSC quarantine to progressively shift our sleep cycle had been completely inadequate. And the sleeping pills were useless at inducing good periods of refreshing sleep. I was certain all of our immune systems were in chaos.

To prevent J.O. from infecting the rest of us, he was moved out of the crew quarters and into an unused room next door. He was being quarantined from the quarantine. At our 6
A.M
. supper the rest of us put on germ masks and took him his meal. His room was an abandoned Apollo-era spacesuit facility painted brilliant white and illuminated with a full ceiling of intense fluorescent lights. Except for a small table, chair, and bed, the room was deserted. J.O. was seated at the table and, in the supernova lighting, he appeared remarkably like the old astronaut at the end of
2001: A Space Odyssey.
We wished him a quick recovery but none of us wanted to go anywhere near him. We placed his food tray on the floor and used a long-handled push broom to shove it close to his table and then immediately retreated from the room. He croaked a laugh at that.

J.O.’s sickness was just the beginning. John Casper began to feel poorly and went on medication. Dave Hilmers quickly followed. Then one of the mission support astronauts rushed from a briefing to vomit. The crew quarters had suddenly become a biohazard. Health-and-safety technicians entered in full-body moonsuits to swab the quarters for viruses. The flight surgeons also ordered urine and stool samples from all of us. I tried to ignore the turd request but I couldn’t escape. I returned to my room from a briefing to find doctors Phil Stapaniak and Brad Beck had left me a not-so-subtle reminder—a Baby Ruth candy bar inside a collection container. My next bowel movement was into a Cool Whip dish. While I was forking a sample of the mess into a smaller container I screamed at the bathroom door, “This wasn’t in the brochure!”

I sealed the smeared collection container in a plastic bag and dropped it in the garbage can. That contained more medical waste than a New Jersey beach: snotty tissues, other fecal collection bowls, packaging for antibiotics and decongestants, and an empty Pepto-Bismol bottle. STS-36 was being crewed by the walking wounded.

Pepe and I were the only healthy ones remaining. I prayed it would stay that way. If the bug slowly worked its way through all of us, there was the potential for a significant delay. If I was the last to be infected, I could get the giant screw. I could envision being pulled from the flight and a substitute MS taking my place. My old paranoia was back with me…that I would get to within hours of launch only to have the mission snatched away. In spite of the fact it was my third mission, that it wasn’t going to make my astronaut pin any more “golden,” and that I was scared out of my wits, I still
needed
this mission as desperately as a heroin addict needs his fix. The flight surgeons were going to have to pry my jaws open to get a tongue depressor in my mouth.

Chapter 39

Holding at Nine and Hurting

Due to a bad weather forecast, the February 24 launch attempt was canceled before the gas tank was even filled. It was just as well since J.O. was still deathly ill. February 25 looked as if it would be the day. The weather forecast was good for the midnight opening of our launch window. J.O. looked and sounded like a consumptive, but he somehow managed to convince the flight surgeons he was okay. We headed for the suit room. For this flight I was wearing the diaper instead of the condom UCD. I was tired of worrying if the latex had slipped off. Maybe in my next life God would give me a penis more suited for spaceflight but for now I had to make do with what was there. The diaper was a more dependable choice.