Mike Mullane - Riding Rockets

Olan also reminded us to pack our clothes and wallets and mark the bag EOM (End of Mission) before leaving for launch. The items would be delivered to us at Edwards AFB after landing. “Also, include some civilian clothes in case of an abort.” This was a standard request, but I knew some astronauts refused to pack their civvies out of a superstitious dread that to do so would cause an abort. I was one. If an abort occurred, I would just have to walk around Zaragoza, Spain, in my underwear.

As the VITT briefing ended, the family escorts arrived with our wives. They would be joining us for our midnight lunch. Unlike STS-41D and STS-27, both of which had banker’s hours for launch windows, STS-36’s window was from midnight to 4A.M . This necessitated a killer sleep/awake schedule. We were going to bed at 11A.M . and waking at 7P.M . Breakfast was at 8P.M ., lunch at midnight, and supper at 6A.M . A vampire kept better hours.

The wives were exhausted. Besides being Prime Crew spouses and wanting to see their men in the few opportunities remaining, they were also family entertainers for the week. Relatives and friends who were on a normal sleep schedule sought them out for KSC tour information, weather forecasts, and information on launch-day bus schedules. Cheryl Thuot and Chris Casper also had young children to deal with. If our wives were getting three hours of sleep a night, I would have been surprised.

They certainly didn’t get much sleep this night. We met them again at the beach house for an L-2 barbecue dinner…at 8A.M . Each of us was allowed an additional four health-screened guests, so this was a real crowd. In fact the gathering was too much. Introductions consumed a significant part of our time. The guests were also frantic to use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get photos in every imaginable permutation: the STS-36 crew alone, the crew with wives, the crew with parents. All of this was being done on the outside deck so a billion no-see-um bugs also wanted to be in the picture. Photos were delayed while we slapped and danced and scratched them away. Inevitably we would pose for one shot and be into the next permutation when some old lady would scream, “I forgot to take off my lens cap. We’ll have to pose that one again.” Or, “I need to change film, so hold on.” Or, “I left Aunt Betty’s camera inside. Wait while I get it.” Meanwhile I was thinking, This is bullshit! I had no patience for the extended families of the others and, no doubt, the other crewmembers were thinking the same thing as my mom jumped into firing position and started fiddling with her camera. I just wanted to be alone with my mom and children and Donna. I didn’t want to share this time making small talk with people I had never met before.

During our first break from the Kodak moments I pulled my family to the beach. I would see Donna again, so I devoted my time to my mom and children. The kids were now old enough to make the beach house visit after being cleared by the flight surgeon. As I had been in previous launch good-byes, I was honest with them now about the risks. I didn’t talk up the danger, but neither did I paint a Potemkin village for them. Since Challenger ’s loss I was even more determined to keep them informed. I had heard that one of the older children watching Challenger ’s destruction from the LCC roof had screamed, “Daddy, you said this could never happen!” I wanted my children and mom to know it could happen and to be prepared as much as possible.

I was filled with a father’s pride as I watched my children. Pat was in the final weeks of his senior year at Notre Dame. He had attended the school on an ROTC scholarship and upon graduation was to be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the air force. He had matured into a real leader. He had also developed a wonderful wit. Friends who knew Pat and me would frequently joke, “The nut doesn’t fall far from the tree.” They were right. In many ways Pat was my clone—the most notable exception being his very good looks. But we did share the same crappy eyesight. As it had for me, his less than 20/20 vision was keeping him from air force pilot training. I had made calls to some general officer friends hoping they might know of a way for Pat to gain a medical waiver, but the Berlin Wall had come down, the Cold War was over, peace was going to reign forever, the air force had too many pilots, blah, blah, blah. All I heard were excuses. But I hadn’t left it there. The Challenger disaster had shown me that dead astronauts had more cachet than live ones. Astronaut widows were consoled by presidents who told them to call if they needed anything. If I died on this mission I intended to posthumously use my celebrity status to get Pat into pilot training. Before leaving Houston, I had written a letter to fellow TFNG and USAF colonel Dick Covey on that topic. “…I’d like to thank you for taking care of Donna and the kids. I’ve always hated paperwork and I imagine dying generates more of it than anything else. At least I don’t have to worry about it…I’ve told Donna to tell the president himself of Pat’s desire to serve his country as a pilot. You might tell General Welch he’s going to be getting the order from above, so he might just want to get ahead of the game by approving Pat’s application right now…” Donna was holding the letter with my instructions to give it to Covey in the event of my death. (Visual acuity defects that are correctable have no flight safety impact—many military pilots wear glasses—and waivers have been given in the past for officers with glasses to enter pilot training.) There was also one other favor I had already asked of Covey: “If I die on this mission and there’s anything left of my body, I don’t want any of the female docs in the office doing an autopsy on me. I worry they’ll get back at my sexist bullshit by telling everybody in the office I had a little dick.” (A damnable lie!) Covey had a great laugh at that, but he promised to make my wishes known.

Amy, Pat’s twin, was now married and living in Huntsville, Alabama. I didn’t need to write any letters on her behalf. She was completely fulfilled as a wife and looking forward to the day she would be a stay-at-home mom. I had only recently come to accept her as she was. As obsessive-compulsive-West Point-engineer-astronaut fathers are apt to do, I attempted to fashion her into my own image and was frustrated by my repeated failures. I wanted her to graduate from college, but she dropped out after just one semester. I wanted her to have skills that would make her financially independent, if ever that was required, but she acquired none. Donna set me straight. “She’s a sweet, good-hearted young woman. She doesn’t want what you want. You just have to accept that.” I finally had and was happy for her.

Laura was now nineteen and a freshman at DePaul University in Chicago majoring in the single degree field most guaranteed to drive an obsessive-

compulsive-West Point-engineer-astronaut father into madness…theater. Laura wanted to be an actress. At least I had the experience of my older daughter to learn from—I accepted Laura’s dream and enthusiastically supported her. I knew most theater degrees ended up being degrees in waiting tables, but it was her dream, and—as a man who had made a similar journey toward a long-odds prize—I wasn’t about to discourage it.

As I walked the beach with my children beside me I was struck by the swiftness of life. The Fiddler on the Roof song “Sunrise, Sunset” came to mind. “Is this the little girl I carried? Is this the little boy at play?” It seemed like just yesterday I was running alongside bikes as the kids made their first no-training-wheels rides. Now, I walked with adults who would be doing the same thing with their children in the not-too-distant future. How swiftly fly the years.