Space: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  Shortly before dawn on the morning of the twenty-fourth the Tulagi was hit by a chain of squalls that deposited a great amount of rain and caused some of the reporters to file disheartening stories, but by 0900 the storms had departed and the ocean had assumed a character so benevolent that one newsman said, ‘Hell, he can water-ski over to us,’ and at that moment the powerboats that would deliver the frogmen to the capsule flashed by, throwing spray. It was a glorious morning, the kind that Columbus must have known when sailing these waters.

  Now the Tulagi began to receive reassuring messages from the control center at Cape Canaveral: ‘Aurora-7 on target. All systems go. All stations reporting favorably. Splashdown as scheduled.’

  But when the flight was about an hour from its completion, ugly little uncertainties began to intrude, and once Pope heard Cape Canaveral asking: ‘How much fuel?’ He did not hear the answer, but the Cape said: ‘Check again. How much fuel?’

  Thirty minutes out it became apparent that something had gone badly wrong, because the Cape was signaling ships far distant from the Tulagi to prepare for possible recovery maneuvers, and when Pope checked to see where those vessels were—although he knew perfectly from his studies—he saw that they were two hundred and three hundred miles distant.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he demanded of a NASA specialist aboard the carrier, but that man could give no definite explanation: ‘Fuel problem, apparently.’

  ‘Isn’t he going to land here?’ Pope asked.

  ‘Splash down,’ the NASA man corrected, and he said the words so mechanically, as if using the right terminology was important, that Pope wanted to slug him.

  ‘Is he going to splash down here?’ he asked, emphasizing each word, but before the NASA man could respond, the radio crackled: ‘USS Intrepid, prepare to recover.’ The Intrepid was 250 miles away! Shepard had landed almost on target. So had Gus Grissom, while Glenn’s landing had been marvelously good. This one was a fiasco, and as the minutes passed with nothing in the sky, John Pope stood by the railing of his carrier and came as close to cursing as he ever had.

  Why did we have to be the ones they cheated? he asked himself again and again. He had practiced how he would greet Carpenter when he came aboard: ‘Good afternoon, Scott. Some distance from Pax River.’ For two days on the trip out he had been unable to remember Mrs. Carpenter’s name, although he knew her well, and the papers given him did not state it, so he had TWXed the Cape: ‘WHAT NAME MRS. CARPENTER?’ and they had replied ‘RENE’ and then of course he remembered.

  He had planned to end his greeting with: ‘They assure us Rene is fine.’ It would have been a nice touch.

  And now it was all down the drain. The minutes passed and the surface of the Caribbean remained unruffled. No boats were launched. No helicopters left the deck. The great carrier rolled almost imperceptibly on the bosom of the sea, and John Pope became more and more outraged.

  When the radio announced that the Intrepid had made a good, routine recovery and that Carpenter was in fine shape despite his misadventure, Pope’s confusion reached an apex: he was wildly furious at having been robbed of an experience he had planned for, but he was also torn with longing: God, I want to fly again! I want to test every plane in the world. The Moon … He bit his lower lip until the pain startled him: The Moon. I know every crater on the Moon. He remained by the ship’s railing, tears of desire flooding his eyes, and then he stormed down to his cabin, where with trembling fingers he typed out a dispatch to a friend at BuPers in Washington:

  I’m informed that before NASA selects its first contingent of astronauts trained in science, it’s going to enroll a special group of six with intensive flight-test experience. I fulfill their specifications as to age, weight, height, combat duty and flight-test. I seek permission to apply and will clear personally with my commanding officer, Admiral Crane.

  To his surprise, the admiral flew personally to the Tulagi, where in the flag quarters he delivered a message from the Navy brass which astonished Commander Pope:

  ‘John, I gave you bad advice at Jacksonville, and I apologize. When I cautioned you then against becoming an astronaut, I was thinking selfishly only of the Navy. I failed to realize how immense this space thing was, and how vital it’s going to become in the future to the Navy’s interest.

  ‘NASA is going to pick six men in the special draft, we’re told, and it’s of maximum importance that at least two of them be Navy men. I know that the Army is grooming some of its likely candidates and the Air Force is frantic. They feel space belongs to them and that they’ve been short-changed. We have to get in there fighting. We’ve got to put our best men forward, and we all agree that you’re our prime candidate.

  ‘The head of the selection committee is an Air Force astronaut you may have known at Edwards. Deke Slayton. This gives them a leg up, but they assure me he’s very fair. You know anything about him? Well, study up. Find out what he likes to drink, what planes he flew, everything, because his veto is fatal. I suppose you know he was scheduled to take the flight that Carpenter took. Heart trouble scrubbed him. I wouldn’t blame him if he were bitter about it. But he’s the man you have to satisfy.’

  Admiral Crane arranged for Pope to be relieved of duty aboard the Tulagi and flown to New York, where a selected group of Navy and civilian types briefed him and seven other Navy applicants on how men of promise conducted themselves when applying for important assignments. A psychologist stationed at Annapolis identified the body signals which indicated whether a man was a hard driver, or, God forbid, a born loser.

  ‘Lean forward from the knees, not the waist. Always look as if you were prepared to step into a major task or belt someone right in the nose. Do not cock your head. It indicates indecision. If you have an unusually dark beard, shave twice a day, but never, never use powder. Real men use soap.’

  He specified some fifty signs which other men check for when seeking prime movers, and the young Navy men listened, but they remembered longest the less highly structured advice given by an Annapolis man who had left the Navy to become head of a large corporation:

  ‘Men of substance, and that’s what the committee will be looking for, wear socks which reach to the knee. There’s nothing worse than to see an executive showing ten inches of bare leg. Not one of my assistants has a pair of brown socks or brown shoes. The work of the world is done by men who wear neatly polished black shoes.

  ‘And for God’s sake, if they ask you to dinner, which I’m sure they will, remember three things. Do not drum nervously with your fork or spoon. Pick them up only to eat with, then put them down. Second, if drinks are ordered, don’t ask for wine. Men drink whiskey, never rum, that’s for exotics, and gin only in martinis. Third, it can be very effective if you eat English style, knife in right hand, fork in left. It lifts you out of the ordinary.’

  A football coach had been invited, not from Annapolis, whose teams were pretty awful, but from one of the Big Eight universities, which took education seriously:

  ‘I’ve talked with men who were on the earlier selection committees and they have the widest possible interests. Look at the great job they’ve done. Sixteen choices, sixteen winners. And they mean to extend that record. So try to create the impression that you’re rugged, that you can respond constructively to pressure. For Christ’s sake, don’t stand with your hands on your hips. Window dressers do that.

  ‘But on the other hand, and this is important, don’t come at them like gangbusters. They’re not looking for gorillas, they’re looking for executive types who can take charge of a mission valued at billions of dollars. They know you’re brave or you wouldn’t be in the final draft, so you don’t have to impress them with your heroism. They don’t want heroes, they want competents.

  ‘Now, this is funny for me to say, a football coach, but watch your language. Speak in complete sentences. Because in your training you’ll have to do an immense amount of reading, a lot of writing. You can use test-pilot lingo, but don’t use a lot of
er’s and uh’s, because there will be men in the group just as good as you are in flying planes who can also speak English.’

  From New York, Pope and the others flew down to Houston, where they were registered under assumed names in the Rice Hotel. Since there would be four days of intensive interrogation and medical checking, the candidates were advised by means of a printed sheet on their pillows to get a good night’s sleep, and Pope did.

  He awakened early, determined to make a good impression on the committee, and after shaving, called his wife to assure her that he was in this to the bitter end: ‘When I stood by the railing of that carrier, waiting for the sky to bring us its messenger, I knew I wanted to be an astronaut. I have never wanted anything so much. Pray for me, because this is what God intended me to be.’

  When he walked briskly in to the committee, leaning slightly forward in his polished shoes and knee-length black socks, he was enormously attractive, in a manly sort of way, five feet seven inches tall, one hundred and forty-seven pounds, close-cropped brown hair, thirty-two strong teeth, and eyes with 20-20 vision. He could write well, knew astronomy at the professional level, and carried with him one of the best records ever compiled at Pax River, but when he looked into the eyes of grim-faced Deke Slayton he realized that during the next few days this committee was going to meet with more than a hundred young pilots as good as he, and he was terrified.

  However, alongside the stern-faced military men on the selection committee, there was at one end of the table a man who looked more like a college professor. He was in his forties, perhaps, wore steel-rimmed glasses, smiled easily, and stood when Slayton introduced him: ‘Dr. Stanley Mott, our resident brain.’ Pope believed that his destiny rested in the vote of this sympathetic man, but then he saw with amazement the candidate who had preceded him, and his jaw dropped. The test pilot had lingered to speak with an Air Force officer on the board, and now saw Pope.

  ‘Pope! They must be scrapin’ the bottom of the barrel.’ It was Major Randy Claggett, the Marine’s favorite candidate and a man not at all overawed by the committee. When he clapped his old buddy on the back before sauntering from the room, Pope saw that he was not wearing knee-length black socks.

  It was a gala night for the Germans in Huntsville: a local cinema had obtained a print of the new motion picture I Aim at the Stars, and everyone bought tickets because this was the film biography of their hero, Wernher von Braun.

  There were rumors that the movie took unwarranted liberties with his life, and that in order to make it more appealing to female audiences, his well-remembered German secretary at Peenemünde was converted into a beautiful English spy, but it was also said that the popular German actor Curt Jurgens gave a sensitive portrayal of Von Braun himself. At any rate, the Peenemünde gang appeared in full force, hoping for the best and eager to show their children what the German rocket center had been like.

  The program started with selections by the local orchestra, and young Magnus Kolff distinguished himself with a beautiful rendition of Carnival of Venice, which pleased his parents, who invited him to sit between them when the movie started, but he disappointed them by preferring to remain with the younger orchestra members.

  The movie was a disaster. Hardly an item of engineering background was accurate. The set bore no resemblance to Peenemünde, and the incidents were so contrived as to be grotesque. The Kolffs looked in vain for any of the scenes they had known so well during their courtship, and other engineers were openly disgusted by the nonsense. Von Braun, fortunately, was not present to share the ignominy of this night, but all who were felt that their role in history had been denigrated or even burlesqued.

  For example, the miracle of Dieter and Liesl Kolff’s escape with the crucial papers was not even mentioned, and what was worse, a newspaper in the area reprinted an irreverent review of the picture which had appeared in an English newspaper: ‘I Aim at the Stars, but Sometimes Hit London.’ The Peenemünde people were outraged, and Mrs. Kolff told her son, ‘A man as great as Von Braun, nobody should be allowed to make fun of him.’

  When Stanley Mott took his seat at the table during the first meeting of the selection committee and saw the list of the hundred and ten applicants for the six available spots in the astronaut program, he went immediately to the chairman and said, ‘I think I must disqualify myself. I know one of these men.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Number forty-seven. Charles Lee, Army test pilot. If he uses the nickname Hickory, I know him. He worked for me as gate-guard at Huntsville.’

  ‘What did you think of him?’

  ‘Real Tennessee hillbilly. Finest kid I ever knew. My wife thought the same about his wife, another hillbilly called Sandra. I told him to quit his guard’s job and get himself an education.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Yep. My wife found his wife a nursing job. He went to Vanderbilt. Graduated with honors.’

  ‘That’s the kind of man we’re seeking. Stay here and share your opinion with us.’

  ‘I won’t vote when his name comes up.’

  ‘If he’s that good, you won’t have to.’

  So Mott had stayed, had studied each of the competitors, and had voted strongly for Randy Claggett of Texas and John Pope of Fremont, both of whom were accepted. His rugged testimonial on behalf of Hickory Lee enabled that young man to make the list also, but his three other choices were rejected.

  After the six winners had been introduced to the public at a large press conference, NASA officials handed Mott a radical new assignment, but one which would give him great satisfaction during the next decade: ‘You’re a sensible man. Know a lot about engineering and science. We want you to look after the indoctrination and education of these young men. The way things are going, they’ll form the backbone of our program some years down the line and we want them to be in top shape.’

  The first thing Mott did was to check his impressions of the six new astronauts against the more technical knowledge of the psychiatrist who had supervised the analyses of the original hundred and ten, dismissing about thirty out of hand, and he found Dr. Loomis Crandall of a clinic in Denver a most engaging fellow. A chain-smoker, prematurely gray, he was in his early forties, a graduate of the University of Chicago with advanced work in Vienna and Rome and solid experience as an Air Force psychologist at Colorado Springs. His youthful energy, coupled with his gray hair, lent him exactly the proper combination of erudition and street smarts for working with brash young test pilots.

  He did not speak jargon. ‘What you’ve got to work with, Dr. Mott, are six of the most highly motivated young men in America. Look at their faces. Look at their records.’ And he spread on the table six large photographs of the winners, each with a three-line summary:

  Randolph Claggett, 1929. Texas A & M. Major, USMC. Patuxent River.

  Charles ‘Hickory’ Lee, 1933. Vanderbilt Univ. Major, US Army. Edwards.

  Timothy Bell, 1934. Univ. of Arkansas. Civilian. Allied Aviation test pilot.

  Harry Jensen, 1933. Univ. of Minnesota. Captain, US Air Force. Edwards.

  Edward Cater, 1931. Mississippi State. Major, US Air Force. Edwards.

  John Pope, 1927. Annapolis. Cmdr., US Navy. Patuxent River.

  Mott checked this list as Dr. Crandall recited his conclusions: Tope’s the oldest, Bell’s the youngest, the rest are nicely bunched. Homogeneous in most other ways, too. All Protestant. All from small towns. All married and all with at least two kids, except Pope. All from the Midwest or South.

  ‘Now, that last point’s significant. To have passed our strict surveillance, these men must have had a central tendency in their lives. Good behavior, bravery, a certain religious bent. The whole mix. And what do you suppose is the best name for that? Patriotism. Old-fashioned patriotism. And where do you find that these days? Mainly in the South. In the Civil War country. Mott, if you took one thousand of the men who really run the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, you’d find that seventy percent of them come f
rom the South, which has only … what? Thirty percent of the population. Totally out of proportion, but that’s because the heroic occupations have always appealed to the Southern man … and the Southern woman. Look at the list. Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi. And the chap who graduated from Minnesota was born in South Carolina. Went north only because his family was Swedish and they wanted him in Minnesota surroundings.’

  Mott asked why the astronauts so far contained no Catholics, and Crandall had a prompt answer: ‘What have we insisted on in these first groups? Training in math, engineering, science, test-piloting most of all. And what does test-piloting demand? Training in math, engineering, science. And what do the great Catholic schools emphasize? Anything but math, engineering and science. So up to now a young man trained in the Catholic tradition has simply not been eligible.

  ‘Hell, I’m Catholic. I desperately wanted a Catholic in this batch, especially since none appeared in the first groups. But where to find one? Not at Notre Dame. Not at Villanova.’ He pushed his papers back and said enthusiastically, ‘We’ve got some great leads for a couple of hotshot Catholics in the next batch.’

  Crandall emphasized the conspicuous fact that almost all the astronauts so far, and certainly all of this group, came from small towns. ‘I’ve pondered this, and it can’t be genetic, or a matter of aptitude. It must be a socioeconomic factor. Boys from small towns tend to live close to their parents. They’re urged to take things seriously. Their families encouraged them to study, join the Boy Scouts, play games. These men, all of them, had character ingrained in them by the time they were ten.

  ‘You can get that in the city, but more often you’re led into other channels. Business. Manipulative professions like the one I’m in. Political management.’ He paused. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, Mott, I’d hate to live in a country governed by these astronauts. Very conservative. Very unimaginative in any field outside their own. They’re all Republicans, you know.’