Mike Mullane - Riding Rockets

Our veteran astronaut escort had us take seats at the consoles and instructed us on how to wear the internal earpiece and microphone that were part of the MCC intercom system. He then began to explain the organization and function of each of the MCC stations. Every shuttle system, from the electrical system to the hydraulic system, from the environmental control system to the robot arm, had a controller who was an expert on that system and monitored its performance via the shuttle’s data stream. These MCC controllers were supported by their respective “back rooms,” which were filled with more specialists who had telephone access to the system contractors. In an emergency each controller had a wealth of brainpower to tap into.

Each MCC controller reported to the flight director, who occupied a console in the back of the room. “Flight” had overall responsibility for the conduct of the mission. They were the ones who faced the possibility of time-critical decisions carrying life-or-

death consequences for the astronauts. It had been Flight Director Gene Kranz who had issued the famous edict “Failure is not an option,” and had led his team in saving the lives of the Apollo 13 crew. In my dozen years as an astronaut I would never meet a flight director I didn’t think was cut from the same mold as Kranz. There are no superlatives too great to describe the MCC teams.

The escort shifted our focus to the CAPCOM position. This was the only MCC position that astronauts filled. CAPCOM was the “Capsule Communicator,” the term capsule a carryover from the days in which astronauts flew in capsules. Early in the space program it was correctly determined that only one person should be in voice contact with flying astronauts. To have each of the MCC controllers talking to a crew would be chaos. The logical person to be the astronaut “communicator” was another astronaut. It had been this way since Alan Shepard’s first flight when Deke Slayton had served as his CAPCOM. CAPCOMs, our leader explained, would work hand in glove with the flight director to make sure mission crews got the exact information they needed, nothing more and nothing less. As part of our training, we would all shadow a CAPCOM before filling that position ourselves.

The TV cameras mounted on the MCC walls were next brought to our attention. During missions these were always aimed at the CAPCOM and flight director positions. An indiscrete nose pick or crotch scratch might end up as material for one of the late-night comedy shows.

After answering some questions, our escort asked us to remain on the MCC intercom. He then called for a technician to “roll the audio.” What we heard were the voices of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. The tape was from January 27, 1967. The three astronauts were in their Apollo capsule going through a dry countdown with Launch Control. For a minute the audio was mundane, just the acronym-laden techno-talk that is part of any spacecraft checkout. Then one of the voices urgently cried, “There’s a fire! Get us out of here!” NASA had designed the Apollo capsules to fly with pure oxygen atmospheres. Somewhere in Grissom’s capsule a spark had set it ablaze. In seconds the cockpit was transformed into a furnace. The Apollo I crew was being burned to death. “We’re burning up! Get us out of here!” Screams were cut off as the fire destroyed the communication system.

We sat in silence, listening to the echo of the tape playing in our consciousness. “We’re burning up!” The motive of our teacher was clear. He was attempting to open our eyes to the reality of our new profession. It could kill us. It had killed in the past and held every potential to do so again. It was a lesson the civilian TFNGs in particular needed to be given. The military astronauts were well acquainted with the dangers of high-performance flight, but the post-docs and others were not. The instruments of their past careers, telescopes and microscopes, didn’t kill people. I wondered if the other TFNGs would have an MCC tour guide who would play the tape for them. I hoped so. But, even if he did, it was too late. It should have been part of the astronaut interview process. Every interviewee should have had the opportunity to hear that tape so they could have made a fully informed decision as to whether or not they wanted to assume the risks of the business. No TFNG was going to quit now. How would they explain it… I’m afraid ? We would all just have to pray that it wouldn’t someday be our voices crying in terror as a space shuttle killed us.

Chapter 11

The F***ing New Guys

In spite of the sobering wake-up call delivered by the Apollo I tape, the first year of our TFNG indoctrination was one of euphoria. We didn’t walk. We floated along the hallways in a weightless glory. You couldn’t have beaten the smile from our faces with a stick. We slept with smiles. If we had been served shit sandwiches we would have gobbled them down through smiles. To the tourists who strolled the byways of Johnson Space Center we must have looked like village idiots. If any of us had been struck dead during those months, the mortician would never have been able to remove the smile from our face. It would have been part of our rigor mortis.

At summer’s end the class hosted a party for the entire astronaut corps. The centerpiece of the entertainment was a skit that poked fun of the astronaut selection process, specifically the selection of the female and minority astronauts. The program starred Judy Resnik, Ron McNair, and some forgotten white guy. A bedsheet was hung from the ceiling in front of a chair. Judy was seated with just her face protruding through a hole cut in the sheet. Behind the sheet Ron stood at her right and extended his arm through another hole. The effect was that Ron’s black arm appeared to be Judy’s. Through a left-side hole, the white TFNG extended his excessively hairy arm as if it were also Judy’s. Clothing was pinned to the sheet to give the appearance the mutation was dressed. And what a mutation—a woman with one black and one white arm, an affirmative action wet dream. The skit continued as an “astronaut selection board”—fellow TFNGs, of course—interviewed this androgynous creature. All this time, the arm and hand movements, comically uncoordinated, brought howls of laughter. The final question posed was “What makes you qualified to be an astronaut?” With ebony-and-ivory arms waving, Judy replied, “I have some rather unique qualifications.” At that, the laughter hit max-q.

The skit obviously predated political correctness. For astronauts to perform such satire in today’s America would have Jesse Jackson sprinting to the NASA administrator’s office with a gaggle of lawyers in tow.

In fall 1978 we experienced our Astrodome welcome. Houston’s professional soccer team, the Hurricanes, invited us and our spouses to be their guests for a game in the famed Houston landmark. We would be introduced to the crowd during a halftime ceremony. As Donna and I drove to the event, I couldn’t help but imagine it would be like something out of The Right Stuff. When the seven Mercury astronauts had arrived in town they were welcomed with a Houston Coliseum BBQ. Thousands of cheering Texans filled the seats to catch a glimpse of their heroes. Battalions of Texas Rangers prevented them from being mobbed by the worshipers.

My first hint that TFNGs wouldn’t have quite as many worshipers came as I pulled into the Dome’s expansive parking lot. It was as empty as the Mojave. Had they canceled the game? Only after circling the lot did I finally see a clutch of cars, at least enough to have brought two soccer teams.

Donna and I rendezvoused with the other astronauts and spouses in our skybox. Skybox was an appropriate designation. We were in the stratosphere, perhaps even in the mesophere. Watching the game was like watching an ant farm from a block away. Most of us gravitated to the buffet at the back of the box and watched the match on TV.