Mike Mullane - Riding Rockets

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.

T-5 minutes. “Go for APU start.” Mike acknowledged LCC’s call and flipped switches to start Discovery ’s three hydraulic pumps. The meters showed good pressure. Discovery now had muscle. The pumps tickled our backs with their slight vibrations. The movement was the first indication the vehicle was anything but a fixed monument.

The computers ordered a test of the flight control system and Discovery shuddered as her SSME nozzles and elevons were moved through their limits.

T-2 minutes. We closed our helmet visors. Hank reached across the cockpit to shake Mike Coats’s hand. “Good luck, everybody. This is it. Let’s do it like we’ve trained. Eyes on the instruments.”

T-1 minute. Please, God, if something bad is to happen on this flight, let it be above fifty miles. My prayer was specific for a reason. By NASA’s definition you had to fly higher than fifty miles altitude to be awarded a gold astronaut pin. If I died below that altitude, Donna and the kids would only have my silver pin for a memorial shadowbox.

T-31 seconds. “Go for auto-sequence start.” Discovery ’s computers assumed control of the countdown from LCC’s computers. She now commanded herself. The cockpit was a scene of intense, silent focus. Again, I was glad my vital signs weren’t on public display. My heart was now a low hum.

T-10 seconds. “Go for main engine start.” The engine manifold pressure gauges shot up as valves opened and fuel and oxidizer flooded into the pipes. The turbo-pumps came to life and began to ram 1,000 pounds of propellant per second into each of the three combustion chambers.

At T-6 seconds the cockpit shook violently. Engine start. This is it, I thought. In spite of my fear, I smiled. I was headed into space. It was really going to happen.

5…4…The vibrations intensified as the SSMEs sequentially came on line.

Then, the warble of the master caution system grabbed us. “We’ve had engine shutdown.” I don’t know who said it, but they were stating the obvious. The vibrations were gone. The cockpit was as quiet as a crypt. Shadows waved across our seats as Discovery rocked back and forth on her hold-down bolts.

We were all seized with a What the hell? wonderment. Something was seriously wrong. Hank punched off the master caution light and tone. The left and right SSME shutdown lights stabbed us with their red glare, meaning they were off. But the light for the center SSME remained dark. Surely it couldn’t still be running? There was no noise or vibration. But if it was still running, we wanted it off. Whatever was happening, we wanted everything off. Mike repeatedly jabbed his finger onto the shutdown button. But there was no change in the light status.

Paramount on everybody’s mind was the status of the SRBs. We had gotten to within a few seconds of their start. If they ignited now, we were dead. Generating more than 6 million pounds of thrust, they certainly had the muscle to rip out the hold-down bolts and destroy the vehicle in the process.

The diagnosis quickly came from LCC. “We’ve had an RSLS abort.” Discovery ’s computers had detected something wrong and stopped the launch—a Redundant Set Launch Sequencer (RSLS) abort. But what had gone wrong? Had a turbo-pump disintegrated? Had an engine exploded? Had hot shrapnel been hurled around our engine compartment? We were strapped to 4 million pounds of explosives and didn’t have a clue what was happening a hundred feet below us.

And neither did the families. I would later learn how the abort had played out on the LCC roof. A thick summer haze had obscured the launchpad. When the engines had ignited, a bright flash had momentarily penetrated that haze, strongly suggesting an explosion. As that fear had been rising in the minds of the families, the engine start sound had finally hit…a brief roar. It had echoed off the sides of the Vertical Assembly Building (VAB) and then…silence. Donna had been convinced she was seeing and hearing an explosion. Fortunately the astronaut escorts had been there to ease her fear with an explanation of a shuttle-pad abort. No doubt they had done so with some private reservations. There had never been a shuttle engine-start abort.