Twice in the history of the shuttle program—the final launches of Challenger and Columbia—the wave across the ditch was the last time astronauts’ loved ones saw them alive. Everyone on both sides of the rope—astronauts, wives, siblings, cousins, parents—was aware of that.
Claudia and Claire were allowed to cross the rope line and give me a hug goodbye. Those were long hugs. Then it fell to me to end the goodbye ceremony.
“OK,” I said to my crew. “Time to go.”
We all got back into our convertibles, waved goodbye, and sped away to crew quarters.
That night, alone in our quarters, my crew and I watched The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson. Gabby doesn’t like Mel anymore, since his infamous anti-Semitic remarks a few years back. I understood that. But I had watched The Patriot on the evening before my first launch in 2001, and that mission went well. I thought it would be good luck to rewatch the movie.
A lot of astronauts are prone to superstition and ritual. My brother in 2010 flew into space aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. He talks about the half-century-old tradition in which cosmonauts urinate on the right rear wheel of the bus used to take them to the launch site. They do this because Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, did that before his first flight—and lived. Some female cosmonauts have tossed a cup of their urine on the right rear wheel. (Scott joined his comrades by the back wheel of the bus before his mission, but he couldn’t go.)
By the time I woke up on the morning of launch day, I wasn’t thinking superstitiously. I was thinking pragmatically.
While Prince William and his new wife, Kate Middleton, were parading through the streets of London, I put a chair on my bed. Then I got into the bed, on my back, and put my feet on the chair for a while. I’d always do this before a mission. I was trying to get the fluid to shift so my kidneys could get rid of some of the urine that otherwise would soak my diaper during the launch, scheduled for 3:47 p.m. I didn’t want a wet sock like I had at the Terminal Countdown Test.
All I had to do after that was jump in the shower, shave, and then it was off to the races.
As it turned out, the race never got started. Just before noon, my crew and I were all suited up and set to depart for the launchpad when we got word that there was an electrical problem. It was a glitch affecting the hydraulic power system that would move the shuttle’s engines and flight controls during ascent and reentry. We still boarded the astrovan and headed for the pad, but halfway there, the mission was scrubbed. We were disappointed, as were an estimated 700,000 people who were already lining the beaches or were on their way to viewing sites.
While we were making the U-turn to return to crew quarters, President Obama was in Alabama, visiting areas devastated by tornadoes. He and his family had planned to fly from there to Cape Canaveral. Even though the launch had been postponed, they decided to come anyway.
When the president arrived at the Kennedy Space Center, I joked with him. “I bet you were hoping to see a rocket launch today,” I said.
He said he’d come to see me, my crew, and Gabby.
Because we were still in quarantine—it was still possible the launch would go ahead three days later—the NASA physician Joe Dervay had to make a request. “Mr. President, is it OK if I examine both you and your wife?”
“Absolutely,” the president said. “We don’t want the astronauts getting sick.”
Joe took their temperatures, looked down their throats, looked in their ears, and listened with a stethoscope. They were healthy.
Before the president and First Lady entered the room where Gabby was waiting, I prepped them. “Gabby is going to feel like she wants to say a lot, but she won’t be able to,” I said. “She’ll be a little nervous. She might say things more than once. She might repeat what you say to stay engaged.”
The president thanked me for the heads-up.
When the Obamas entered the room to see Gabby, she was sitting. She thought it appropriate to get to her feet, but she stood up so quickly that she almost fell. My brother, Scott, had to reach over and grab her. It was lucky she didn’t hit the ground because she wasn’t wearing her helmet. (She had asked to leave it off when the president visited, and for that special moment, her nurse had said it would be OK.)
Once Gabby was steady on her feet, the president hugged her and told her she looked great. The last time he’d seen her was in the hospital in Tucson, several days after the shooting, and she had been comatose. The time before that was at the White House, when he noticed her new haircut.
“How are you feeling, Gabby?” the president asked.
“Fine, how are you?” she answered. She had mastered that simple exchange.
President Obama told her that the country was wishing her well, that he was proud of her, and that she needed to get back to Washington. It would have been more intimate if they could have sat together. Everyone standing there was a little awkward. But Gabby wanted to stand to show respect to the president and to show she could do it.
The Obamas stayed about ten minutes. “Thank you for coming,” Gabby said as they were leaving.
After that, the president met my crew and toured the facilities with his family. He was in good spirits, relaxed and friendly. None of us knew it at the time, but that very morning, he had made one of the most important decisions of his presidency. He had secretly authorized the military operation that would lead, two days later, to the death of Osama bin Laden. Looking back, the president’s poker face was perfect. He’s obviously a man who can compartmentalize things.
His daughters, Malia and Sasha, spent some time that afternoon with Claudia and Claire. I later texted Claudia, asking what it was like meeting them. She texted back: “One tall. One short. Both nice.”
Gabby later said she was “bummed” the launch was scrubbed, but we both agreed that, despite the disappointments, it had been an exciting day. I was confident that NASA technicians would figure out the electrical issues, and soon enough, my crew and I would be on our way.
Gabby’s recovery had taught me a few things about patience, so I wasn’t too antsy about this flight delay. I knew it was a decision made for safety. As the shuttle-launch director, Mike Leinbach, said that afternoon, “I’d rather be on the ground wishing I was flying than be in the air wishing I was on the ground.”
The mission was delayed another seventeen days. So I was able to spend time with Gabby at TIRR, before heading back into another week of quarantine.
After we returned to Houston, Gabby and I went out publicly for the first time, joining our friends Tilman and Paige Fertitta at one of Tilman’s restaurants, the Grotto. We drove Gabby over from TIRR, and when patrons in the restaurant saw her, they nodded politely and didn’t disturb us. News did get out, however.
Later, Gabby and I were back at the hospital watching The Office on TV. A promo came on for the 10 p.m. news, with the big story of the day: “Gabrielle Giffords was seen out for the first time at a Houston restaurant . . .”
Gabby looked at me with this what-the-hell expression on her face, as if she and I had just arrived in an alternate universe.
Gabby was also able to go on an outing for Mother’s Day, May 8, at another one of Tilman’s restaurants, Landry’s, down in Kemah. I’d bought her an orchid to give to her mom, and had her sign a card with her left hand. My girls came to the dinner, too, and for the first time ever, they gave her a Mother’s Day card and a gift, a nice plant. Their gesture meant a lot to Gabby.
Still, I saw that Gabby had been feeling down that entire day. I didn’t want to bring her down further by talking about it, but I thought she was depressed because Mother’s Day had her thinking about her future. She’d likely never have children of her own. I held her hand at dinner, and she was mostly quiet and subdued.
The next day, May 9, I had to say goodbye to Gabby yet again and head back into quarantine. This stay in quarantine was harder. The launch was set for May 16 at 8:56 a.m., meaning my crew and I would have to wake up at 11:30 the night before t
o start getting ready. It was important for us to begin “sleep-shifting,” adjusting our internal clocks, so by week’s end we were sleeping from 4:00 to 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time, a schedule that would continue during the mission. It’s not easy to change sleep patterns. It has to be done gradually, over days.
Luckily, there were no new mission delays, and we flew to Cape Canaveral on May 12. Gabby came three days later. The traditional family events this time were very limited since we’d already been through them before the scrubbed launch. But Gabby and I did meet again at the beach house, where we exchanged our wedding rings. Mine was too big for her to wear, so she decided to put it on a chain. “I’ll see you in two weeks,” I told her. “Call if you need me.”
On the morning of the launch, a team of firemen helped carry Gabby, in her litter chair, up an external flight of stairs to the roof of NASA’s Launch Control Center. She was joined there by Gloria, Claudia, Claire, Pia, my brother, Scott, and Piers Sellers. My crew members’ wives and kids were there, too. It was a nice place to privately view the launch.
This time, everything went flawlessly.
My crew and I arrived at the launchpad three hours before liftoff. As I went about my many duties in the orbiter, I was able to take a few glances at the mirror on the glare shield. I could look back to where Gabby was on that rooftop, and think about improvements she might make over the next two weeks, while I was gone. She was scheduled to have surgery in the days ahead to reinsert the missing piece of her skull. Her head would have to be shaved again, of course, but the good news was that when a patient’s skull is reattached, her cognition and ability to speak often improves. I wondered how I’d find Gabby on my return.
Just before liftoff, strapped into the commander’s seat, I said a few words that were broadcast publicly. “On this final flight of space shuttle Endeavour,” I said, “we want to thank all the tens of thousands of dedicated employees who have put their hands on this incredible ship, and dedicated their lives to the space shuttle program.
“As Americans, we endeavor to build a better life than the generation before, and we endeavor to be a united nation. In those efforts we are often tested. This mission represents the power of teamwork, commitment, and exploration. It is in the DNA of our great country to reach for the stars and explore. We must not stop . . .”
Mike Leinbach, the launch director, replied, “Thank you, sir. And to do that, you are clear to launch Endeavour.”
“Copy that,” I said. “Thank you.”
After that, we were off, in an earthshaking rumble through heavy cloud cover, burning fuel at the rate of one thousand gallons per second.
I was told that Gabby smiled through the launch but she didn’t say much. Claudia and Claire had shouted out the final ten seconds of the countdown, and then there were a lot of smiles and tears. Everyone felt relieved that we’d made it safely into orbit.
Part of the bond that Claudia and Claire have with Scott’s kids, Samantha and Charlotte, is rooted in a shared understanding of what it’s like to watch a father go off into space. STS-134’s liftoff inspired Claire to later send me a beautiful e-mail about her feelings at all four of my launches. “When I hear the roar of the engines,” she wrote, “tears start streaming down my face. Am I happy or am I sad? I watch you turn into a little white dot high in the sky, until I can’t see you any longer. I’m not sure what state of mind I’m in. I just can’t stop crying. I can’t say whether I’m nervous, scared, excited, proud. It’s everything bundled up and shaken up together. It’s an emotion with no name.”
Gabby knows well that nameless emotion. And, since January 8 especially, she knew well the inability to describe it. Minutes after the launch, searching for words, she said, “Good stuff.”
Maybe that’s as good a description as any.
After the shuttle was safely in space, my brother presented each of my girls with a single rose. He gave Gabby red tulips and a note from me reminding her how much I love her. On her neck, she was wearing my wedding ring on a silver chain. She vowed to wear it until my return.
By then, I was already in zero gravity, hurtling through space at 17,500 miles an hour. Gabby’s wedding ring, on a leather string around my neck, was soon floating in front of me. It would float like that, a nice reminder of my marriage, for the entire mission.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
From a Distance
Thirty-two minutes after we were safely in space, traveling at a speed of five miles per second, my crew and I changed the shuttle’s orbit by firing maneuvering engines. We had to get on the right path to meet the International Space Station two days later. Meanwhile, on the ground, Gabby would soon head to the airport for her return to Houston. Two days later, she’d be undergoing surgery to replace the missing piece of her skull. We both had a big week ahead of us.
As I settled in on the shuttle, I received my first e-mail from Gabby since January 8. She had painstakingly typed it out herself, with a nurse at her side. It read: “Hi Mark, Sweetie Pie. Feel fine. Proud. Tulips, thank you. KISSES. GABBY.” I also found a handwritten letter from her packed with my belongings: “Come back soon and don’t forget to bring me a star. Thanks for all you do. Love, Gabby.” I knew Gabby hadn’t come up with that line herself; a nurse had helped her compose the letter. And because Gabby was writing with her left hand, the letter looked like it was penned by a first grader. Still, it reminded me of how hard she was trying to communicate with everyone, and especially with me.
I didn’t have time to dwell on any of this, of course. It was time to get to work.
For astronauts, the first day in space always felt tenuous. We were trying to adjust to weightlessness, and there was a long list of duties to address. Space shuttle missions were incredibly complex and very busy. It was easy to get behind schedule. I got my crew in the habit of saying, “If you’re not early, you’re late.” We tried to stay ahead of the timeline, constantly working to build up some padding in the day’s schedule for when things went wrong.
I admired each member of my crew, a talented group of veteran astronauts, and it meant a lot to me that they were wearing “Gabby” bracelets. The rubberized wristbands, sold to benefit a scholarship fund in memory of Gabe Zimmerman, had come to be called “Peace-Love-Gabby” bracelets. I didn’t need my crew asking all the time about how Gabby was doing. Their wristbands let me know that they, too, had her in their hearts on the mission.
Each crew member had taken his own circuitous route into space and onto STS-134. But for all of us, our yearnings to be astronauts began in childhood.
Mission specialist Greg Chamitoff had been in Florida on a family vacation in July 1969 and actually saw the liftoff of Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11. Then six years old, he announced he wanted to be an astronaut and never wavered, getting a PhD in aeronautics and astronautics. He spent ten years applying for the astronaut program before being accepted. (The title of “mission specialist” is given to astronauts who are not the commander or the pilot. NASA wanted to give them a title, and that’s what they settled on.)
Pilot Greg “Box” Johnson was also inspired to be an astronaut by Apollo 11. As a seven-year-old in 1969, he watched the launch on a black-and-white TV at his grandparents’ home in Michigan. Box became a U.S. Air Force colonel, and like me, served in Desert Storm. He was one of the astronauts on the team that investigated the cause of the Columbia accident in 2003.
Mission specialist Mike Fincke loved watching spacewalking astronauts as a boy. “That’s it!” he’d say. “That’s what I want to do with my life.” On STS-134, Mike would break the record for most time spent in space by an American astronaut—382 days. (A Russian cosmonaut holds the world record at 803 days.)
When lead spacewalker Drew Feustel was young, he assumed that most humans would be astronauts in the future, and he’d be one of them. He thought, mistakenly, that space-faring would be commonplace. He grew up wanting to study rocks, especially moon rocks, and eventually got a PhD in geology. (A spacewalker is t
he astronaut who ventures outside the spacecraft. The technical term is an EVA astronaut. EVA stands for “extra-vehicular activity,” which is one of many examples of how NASA uses technical acronyms to make the most amazing activities sound boring.)
Mission specialist Roberto Vittori landed a seat on STS-134 through the European Space Agency. A colonel in the Italian Air Force, Vittori was one of my students at the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Maryland. His space dreams also began when he was young, but he figured, “I’m an Italian. How will I ever be able to go?” Lucky for him, the Italian Space Agency was established in 1988. He is now one of five Italians to have flown in space.
The six of us, all adventurers, our boyhood dreams achieved, had now grown into men on a mission. We needed to find our way to the International Space Station, an outpost the size of a football field, but a mere dot in the universe.
We approached the space station on Wednesday, May 18. While I would be manually flying the later parts of the approach and docking, the rendezvous required a meticulously choreographed effort by the entire crew. It was a six-hour process that required tremendous focus, attention to detail, and coordination between the crew and the team in the mission control center. It’s a high-risk event to bring one spacecraft together with another spacecraft, when both are moving at 17,500 miles per hour. Though I knew Gabby was in surgery, I had to set aside my worries about her for those hours, so we could complete this procedure safely. It wasn’t easy. A few times I had to say to myself: “Gabby will be fine. The doctors know what they’re doing. She has people looking out for her. Focus, focus, focus.”
I’d long ago learned to compartmentalize. More than one hundred times in my career as a naval aviator, I had to land on aircraft carriers in the dark of night. Doing that, you figure out fast that you can’t let thoughts about the rest of your life interfere. Distractions could be deadly.
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