Mike Mullane - Riding Rockets

Weeks later, during a STS-51B simulation, the Sim Sup introduced a simulated monkey “malfunction.” It wasn’t a herpes outbreak, but a monkey death. This was to help prepare the MCC PR people to deal with nightmare antivivisectionists scenarios. (A group of these people were protesting NASA’s Spacelab animal experiments.) Per Sim Sup’s instruction, the crew reported the simulated monkey was sick and bloated. A short while later they made the “monkey has died” call. At about the same time in the simulation, Sim Sup also introduced a human medical problem for the MCC flight surgeon to work—pilot Fred Gregory was ill with a fever and a urinary tract infection. The nearly simultaneous monkey illness and Fred’s simulated infection had Fred vigorously defending himself in the simulation debriefing: “I did not violate the monkey!”

The herpes-infected monkeys made the flight and, as far as anybody knew, none of the crew caught the virus, not even the marines. And neither did any of the monkeys later give birth to an air force pilot’s simian bastard. Nor did Fred come back with a urinary tract infection.

At another meeting one of the female physician astronauts presented some life-science findings derived from Spacelab animal experiments. “Newly born mice appear healthy but, in weightlessness, they are unable to stay on their mother’s teats to nurse.”

The comment elicited a Beavis and Butt-Head reaction from the Planet AD crowd. “Dude, she said teats.” A wave of giggles swept through our ranks. One USMC astronaut whispered, “Sucking tit in zero-G sounds like a job for a marine.”

Another life-science experiment presented to astronauts involved the insertion of an instrumented hypodermic needle into an astronaut’s body to measure zero-gravity veinous blood pressure. A Spanish Inquisitor would have blanched at the size of the experiment needle. I asked, “Where are you going to find a vein large enough to stick that ?”

Physician (and former marine fighter pilot) Norm Thagard joked, “The dorsal vein of the penis will work.” On Planet AD everybody was a comedian.

The briefer assured us the penis would not be a target, but wherever the needle was destined it wasn’t going to be fun. Needle-oriented experiments always seemed to be part of Spacelab missions, a fact that generated this office joke.

Question: “Why do Spacelab missions require a crew of six MSes/PSes?”

Answer: “Five are needed to hold down the experiment victim.”

At yet another Monday meeting the topic was the STS-51F space cola war between Coke and Pepsi. That mission carried experimental zero-G-functional cans of each soft drink. The crew was to evaluate them in the hope carbonated beverages could be added to the menu. Not surprisingly, both soft drink companies wanted theirs to be the first cola consumed in space and called for their political connections to make that happen. Astronauts would hear the issue had reached all the way to the White House. A disgusted John Young returned from one management meeting and said the first-cola-consumed-in-space topic had occupied hours of the committee’s time. That prompted a growl from the back ranks: “Sure hope they’re spending as much time working on the things that can kill us.”

As the Coca-Cola Company was the first to come to NASA with the suggestion of flying their product, they won the battle. The 51F crew was ordered to take photos of the consumption of the drinks with the date/time recording feature of the NASA cameras in the on position. That data conclusively established that Coke was the first cola consumed in space. But since shuttles have no refrigerators, the beverages had to be consumed at room temperature. That fact doomed the experiment to be a disappointment. STS-51F was the first and last cola flight.

On January 27, 1986, I jumped in a T-38 and, along with the rest of the STS-62A crew, flew to New Mexico for some payload training at Los Alamos National Laboratory. While the primary business of the lab was nuclear weaponry, it was also involved in passive military space experiments. Some of these were to be payloads on our Vandenberg flight.

We landed in Albuquerque and took a lab-chartered flight to the small Los Alamos airport. After checking into a motel, I called Judy at the KSC crew quarters to wish her good luck on tomorrow’s mission. I also teased her about the black cloud of delay that seemed to follow her. Her mission had already recorded two launch scrubs, one on January 25 for bad weather and then the next day for a problem with the side hatch.

“So you’re the bad-luck person who caused all our Discovery scrubs.”

“I don’t think so, Tarzan. It was Cheetah.” She was right about Hawley. Steve now had the unenviable record of nine strap-ins for two flights. Judy was only working on her sixth strap-in.

I asked her how the launch looked for tomorrow. “Good, except it’s supposed to be cold, down in the twenties. We’re worried about ice in the sound suppression system.”

“It’s all these shuttle launches that are changing the weather.”

She chuckled at my reply.

I kept the call brief knowing she probably had others to receive or make. “I just wanted to say good luck, JR. Please tell the others the same for me.” These were the last words I would ever speak to her.

“Thanks, Tarzan. I’ll see you back in Houston.” These were the last words I would ever hear from her.

The last hope to save Challenger passed that night. When the Thiokol engineers learned of the extremely cold temperatures forecast at KSC, they convened a special teleconference with their NASA counterparts and argued that the mission should be delayed until the temperature warmed. Their justification was the fact that STS-51C, launched a year earlier with the coldest joint temperature yet—53 degrees—had experienced the worst primary O-ring blow-by of any launch. They suspected the cold temperatures had stiffened the rubberized O-rings and adversely affected their ability to seal. With an estimated joint temperature of about 30 degrees for Challenger, the same thing could happen tomorrow, they argued. They recommended the launch be delayed until the joint temperature was at least 53 degrees. The suggestion brought a fusillade of objection. One NASA official responded, “My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch, next April?” Another said he was “appalled” by the recommendation to postpone the launch. They correctly pointed out that there had been blow-by observed after launches in warm weather, a fact that suggested there was no correlation between temperature and the probability of O-ring failure. The arguments continued for several hours but, in the end, Thiokol management caved in to NASA’s pressure and gave the SRBs a go for launch. The Golden Age had only hours remaining.

Chapter 26

Challenger

After waking on January 28, I flipped on the TV to see what was happening with Challenger. The STS-51L countdown was running two hours late. I had plenty of time for my morning run so I dressed in my sweats and stepped into the crystalline twilight.

Few cities in America are more beautifully sited than Los Alamos, New Mexico. Set on a shoulder of a dormant volcano at an elevation of 7,200 feet, it commands a godly view of the Rio Grande Valley and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east. The city is built upon multiple mesas separated by dramatic mini-grand canyons. The soil is soft volcanic tuff and eons of erosion have sculpted the terrain into bizarre and breathtaking shapes.

While Los Alamos was a joy for the eye, it was a pain for the lungs. In its thin air I was unable to keep the pace I regularly ran at sea level and I throttled back to a more leisurely jog. The dawn was pinking the eastern sky while a nearly full moon graced the west. I steered myself on a path through a forest of ponderosa pine, the scent of their needles perfuming the air. A herd of white-tailed deer, long accustomed to humans, didn’t bolt at my appearance.