Mike Mullane - Riding Rockets

In multiple meetings I examined every aspect of the design of the RSS and the selection and training of the RSOs. (I would learn that RSOs routinely declined invitations to attend KSC social functions with astronauts. They did not want their launch-day judgment impaired by a friendship with crewmembers they might have to kill.) The system was as fail-safe as humanly possible. In these same meetings I also learned that the Range Safety Office was proposing some changes to shuttle launch abort procedures. They worried that in some aborts, pieces of the jettisoned gas tank could land in Africa. Their suggested solution was to have astronauts burn the OMS engines during these aborts. The additional thrust produced in the burn would result in an ET trajectory that would drop the fuel tank into the Indian Ocean.

When I brought this request to John Young, he became as hot as a reentering ET, arguing it was a dumb idea. The OMS propellant was the gas used for the final push into orbit, for maneuvers while in orbit, and for the braking maneuver to get out of orbit. The RSOs were asking us to burn gas during ascent that we might later need—just to put another zero behind their already conservative risk-to-Africans probability numbers. I agreed with Young. But then the trajectory planners at MCC did their own studies and found that igniting the OMS engines pre-MECO (burning them at the same time as the SSMEs) would actually improve nominal and launch abort performance. In other words, it would improve the crew’s chances of reaching orbit or a runway. When I brought this data to Young, I expected him to enthusiastically endorse it, but I was stunned when he didn’t. His position was that we would never do an OMS burn on the uphill ride. I assumed I hadn’t made myself clear and tried again. “John, I’m not suggesting this be done to satisfy the RSO. This is our own FDO recommending it. The data shows it will improve performance during the abort.” John would hear none of it.

Over the next several weeks, in multiple meetings in Young’s office, I continued to bring him the results of various meetings on the pre-MECO OMS burn issue. The ball was rolling. It was going to happen. *Young was beyond angry at this news and focused his anger at me. Again and again I tried to make him understand the pre-MECO OMS burn was something FDO wanted to do to protect the crew. But he was deaf to my logic. Instead he remained focused on the fact the Range Safety Office wanted the OMS burn to keep the ET off Africa.

I appealed for help from the JSC office pursuing the OMS burn change, the office of Flight Director Jay Greene. Jay had cut his teeth as a young MCC flight controller during the Apollo program. I held him in great esteem. He was heart-and-soul dedicated to crew safety. If he and FDO were saying that an uphill OMS burn was going to make things safer for the crews during some aborts, then it would. I asked him to come to Young’s office with the supporting engineers to make their case to Young. He would be happy to was his reply. I felt good about what I had arranged. Jay was a well-regarded flight director. John would have to listen to him.

At the appointed hour I rendezvoused with Jay and his entourage of engineers and we walked to Young’s office. It was empty. When I asked where he was, his secretary sheepishly replied, “He went to get a haircut.” I wanted to scream. He had stiff-armed me. His mind was made up. He didn’t want to hear any contrary arguments from anybody.

In an attempt to gain the support of other astronauts, I presented some data on the RSS situation at the September 15, 1986, Monday morning meeting. I was hardly able to finish a sentence. Young heckled me at every turn. I was humiliated. Over a beer I mentioned my travails to Hoot Gibson. Hoot exploded, “I’ve had the same problem with him on the issues I’m working and I’ve just quit listening and talking to him.”

As the weeks passed I fell further into the depression that had started with Challenger ’s loss. I had lost friends. I had lost a mission into polar orbit. Now the core of my professional life, my work ethic, was slipping away. All my life I had been intent on getting the job done. When the first psychiatrist of my TFNG interview had asked me what my personal strength was, I had truthfully replied, “I always do my best.” It was my hallmark. I knew I wasn’t the smartest astronaut. But I was solid, reliable. I always got the job done…until now. I hated my job. I hated my boss. When I slept, which wasn’t much, I had dreams of Judy’s necklace and exploding shuttles and writhing SRBs and walking through the gore of a crash site.

My distress had long been known to Donna. Every evening I would recount my stories of abuse to her. As always, she listened and lent her support…and lit more bonfires of votive candles to send her prayers heavenward for my delivery from Young. We talked about leaving NASA. I could return to the air force, but I knew I wouldn’t be happy there. The only thing awaiting me in the USAF was a desk. I would never see the inside of a cockpit again. I was too old and too senior in rank. I would end up buried in the bowels of the Pentagon. I didn’t want to leave NASA. I wanted to fly again. My Discovery flight couldn’t compare with what some of my peers had done on their missions. Pinky Nelson, “Ox” van Hoften, Dale Gardner, and Bob Stewart had all done tetherless spacewalks. They had donned MMUs and, like real-life Buck Rogerses, had jetted away from their shuttles into the abyss of space. Kathy Sullivan, Dale Gardner, Dave Griggs, and Jeff Hoffman had done traditional tethered spacewalks. Sally Ride had used the robot arm to deploy and retrieve a satellite. Rhea Seddon had used the robot arm in an attempt to activate a malfunctioning satellite. I wanted to do similar things that challenged my skills as a mission specialist. I wanted a spacewalk flight. I wanted to fly a mission with an RMS task. I wanted a high-inclination orbit so I could see my Albuquerque home from space. And there was only one place on Earth I could do these things…at NASA. As much as I wanted to walk into Young’s office and tell him, “Take this job and shove it!” I couldn’t. There was no place else to go and ride a rocket into space. I would have to endure.

On September 19, astronauts celebrated for the first time since Challenger with a party at a local club. I had been looking forward to it. After nine brutal months, it would be good to erase my brain with a few drinks and have some fun with my fellow TFNGs. Donna and I sat at a table with the Brandensteins, Coveys, and Boldens (class of 1980). After dinner, Bob Cabana, the class leader of the latest group of astronauts to arrive at JSC (class of 1985), walked to the stage and invited George Abbey to step forward and receive an autographed photo of their class. The image immediately brought to mind our TFNG efforts to brownnose Abbey back in 1978. Kathy Covey let out a “woo, woo, woo” catcall. We all understood her sarcasm. Every astronaut class prostituted itself to Abbey thinking it was going to help them. The class of 1985 would soon learn what we had all learned—shoving your nose up Abbey’s behind didn’t get you anywhere. In a year they would all be cursing him and Young like everybody else.

Others at the table were soon speaking of their disgust with our leadership. At that, Kathy, a very successful and hard-nosed businesswoman, began to mock our impotence. “I’ve listened to this shit for years. You guys are so gutless you deserve what you get” was her message. Of course she was right. But it all went back to that incontrovertible fact…there was no other place on the planet where we could fly a rocket. If Satan himself had been our boss and demanded we take a fiery pitchfork up the wazoo before we could climb into a shuttle cockpit, all of us would have long ago become acrobatic in our ability to bend over and spread our cheeks.