Space: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  ‘Well, what do we have?’ Tucker Thompson asked at the beginning of the fourth week, when his magazine was preparing its initial presentation of the six wives. ‘What I’m looking for is a theme to hand the American public, and especially the American housewife. Because these are “her girls” and we’ve got to keep them that way.’

  ‘They’re beautiful. Your photographers should have an easy time.’

  ‘But we’ve got to show them as more than beautiful. We’re after their collective soul, and in this game first impressions are fatal.’

  ‘They’re intelligent. There’s not a dummy in the lot. Even Debby Dee Claggett is as sharp as a pin, in her own way.’

  ‘Intelligence is a negative factor when you’re trying to sell a group of women. One woman, like Oveta Culp Hobby, yes. The public can take pride in an exception. But not six. We’re looking for the theme that will make America’s heart sing. We do not have an easy job, Mrs. Mott, and I’d appreciate some serious help from you.’

  ‘Start with the beauty, Tucker, but call it “the well-scrubbed American look,” and then make a virtue of their diversity. Use Tomboy Sandra. Use cool, efficient Mrs. Cater, and contrary to your fears, I think you have a real goody in Mrs. Pope’s quietly helping to make decisions that enable her hero husband to fly his dangerous missions. Unity in diversity is your theme, Tucker. Or maybe it’s diversity in unity.’

  There were several exhaustive meetings on the subject of how to present the wives, but in the end, it was Rachel Mott’s ideas about the cover which prevailed: ‘A small American flag in the center, blowing in the breeze, surrounded by the six wives shown in the most carefully chosen vignettes. Sandy Lee with an Indian sweatband around her head. Gloria Cater chewing an executive pencil. Penny Pope standing before a Senate eagle. Cluny Bell with her left hand framing her fragile face. Inger Jensen in an Eton collar being her adorable self. And Debby Dee Claggett—’

  She stopped. How could the big Texas woman best be depicted? Tentatively she suggested, ‘With a martini glass, a cigarette …’

  ‘One thing for sure,’ Thompson said, ‘our psychological studies prove that in a circular picture, people will usually overlook the eight o’clock position. Lower left-hand corner. Debby Dee comes in at eight o’clock.’

  The cover was a sensation, the handsome American flag surrounded by six of its most appealing daughters. As soon as customers started writing in for copies without printing so they could be framed, Folks ran off two hundred thousand and sold them for twenty-five cents each, and when the lot was gone and the six wives properly presented, Thompson had one of his secretaries summarize the mail:

  Most comment on: Inger Jensen, the one everyone would like to have as their daughter. Least comment on: Penny Pope, who struck readers as indifferent and why wasn’t she with her husband? Most liked: Debby Dee Claggett, who looked like the best mother in the lot. Consensus: An American bouquet the nation can be proud of.

  Rachel Mott felt, with some justification, that she had played a helpful role in getting her six debutantes properly launched into the American social season, but on the day when Virgil Grissom and John Young made their historic first flight in the new spacecraft Gemini, she discovered that she was living in a fool’s paradise. It was a tense moment in space history, when the fate of the national program hung in the balance and when the safety of two astronauts—not one, as before—was at stake. All NASA was on edge, and Tucker Thompson felt that this might be a good moment for the general press to see how the new wives reacted to the machine in which their own husbands would shortly be flying. He called Mrs. Mott: ‘Rachel, where are the girls?’

  ‘I believe four of them are watching the television at Gloria Cater’s.’

  ‘Marvelous. That’ll make a great shot. But why only four?’

  ‘Mrs. Pope’s in Washington, as usual. And Inger Jensen’s visiting her folks in Minnesota.’

  ‘Damn! She’s the most photogenic of the lot. That little-girl charm. Well, we’ll go with what we have. Meet me at the Caters’.’ He was about to hang up, but asked hurriedly, ‘It’s got a picket fence, hasn’t it?’

  When they reached the Cater home Thompson explained to the waiting newsmen the ground rules governing the interviews and photography: ‘These women are under extreme tension. They’ve gathered here for mutual support. No harsh questions. Nothing at all about what would happen if the mission failed.’

  Rachel should have gone into the cottage first to alert the wives, but she stayed outside to coach the women reporters on the personalities of the four wives, and this meant that Tucker got to the living room first. He almost fainted, for he found the women with their shoes off, playing gin rummy and drinking martinis, while the television droned on, with no one paying attention. Mrs. Claggett and the hostess, Mrs. Cater of Mississippi, were smoking cigarettes.

  ‘Good God!’ Thompson cried. ‘A sacred moment in history. Men’s lives in the balance. And you’re playing poker.’ ‘Gin,’ Mrs. Cater said.

  ‘The press is out there. Reporters from all over the nation, all over the world. Get your shoes on.’

  Sandy Lee took charge, and in her most efficient manner swept up the cards, hid the martinis and whisked away all sights of debauchery. Then, with the utterly disarming charm that she could turn on when needed, she went to the door and said quietly, ‘Persons from the major wire services and two reporters from overseas may come in for fifteen minutes. Then we’ll come out and meet with you for as long as you wish. Because this is a historic moment and we feel deeply proud to play even a minor part in it.’

  With graciousness unbounded she escorted the five selected newspeople into the cottage, then smiled bravely at the sixty or seventy others as she closed the door and moved to where Gloria and Cluny and Debby Dee were staring at Walter Cronkite on the television screen.

  The program for which the new astronauts had been selected was named Gemini because for the first time two men were to fly the spacecraft in a compartment so restricted that one man lay almost touching his partner and remained there immobilized for periods of up to fourteen days. When Dr. Mott actually inspected the capsule, he appreciated what Crandall had said about NASA’s restraints on the height and weight of its astronauts; no two men of normal-large dimension could possibly wedge themselves into this confined space, and even highly trained men like the lean astronauts had trouble doing so.

  Gemini was a form of exploration unprecedented in world history, and it demanded men of agility, bravery and enormous competence.

  At the beginning of the six-month indoctrination, Deke Slayton, lean and mean, appeared before the astronauts with a stack of basic manuals and specific flight plans twenty-seven inches thick. ‘By the time your name is called for a flight, you will have memorized everything in boldface and understood the rest.’

  The basic manuals were like intricate games for grown-up children, in that each depicted in the most carefully analyzed form the operation of some one system of the Gemini craft: in one, colored diagrams showed the movement of electricity through literally miles of wiring; in another, the most elegant break-away drawings of the type developed in World War II to facilitate the repair of airplanes snowed how the hydraulic system worked; in yet another, four cleverly printed sheets of transparent plastic lay one atop the other to allow the astronaut to see inside one of his rocket thrusters.

  The fields of knowledge seemed endless, sixteen major concentrations of information, all of which had to be mastered, and regardless of which field the men attacked next, the same rule applied: two hours of intellectual discussion, ten hours of laboratory break-down, then two hours of comparing notes and ten more hours of tackling the problem physically.

  From its earliest days NASA had followed a sensible program of requiring all its astronauts to study everything, but then to assign each man a field of specialization in which he was expected to become a top expert, familiar with the most arcane concepts and possible future developments. It was always an e
xciting time when these assignments were made, and one morning Deke Slayton appeared with a list: ‘Claggett, because of your unusual knowledge of airplanes, structures. Lee, because you’ve already done a lot with electronics, the electrical system. Bell, because you specialized in aerodynamics at Allied Aviation, flight surfaces. Jensen, because you’re small and tight, flight gear and survival mechanisms. Cater, because you’ve done good work on propulsion at Edwards, rockets. Pope, because of your doctorate in astronomy, navigation and computers.’

  John noticed that whenever assignments of any kind were published, the same pecking order maintained, with Claggett at the top and himself at the bottom, and one day when he was alone in Dr. Mott’s office he saw on the desk a list giving the names in the accustomed ranking and titled ORDER OF SELECTION. Since he was reading upside down, he had no time to decipher the typing which accompanied the list, but when Mott returned, he asked him bluntly, ‘Why am I at the bottom of the list?’

  ‘You weren’t supposed to see that.’

  ‘I didn’t read it. Just saw the title and the order.’

  After Mott put the list in a drawer he said, ‘That’s the order in which you were selected. There’s no better airman around than Claggett. I suppose you know that.’

  ‘I knew him in Korea and Pax River. The best.’

  ‘The others have terrific records, Pope. This boy Bell, the civilian. He flew everything with wings and helped Allied improve every machine they ever made.’

  ‘But why me at the bottom?’

  Since Pope seemed bewildered by this ranking, Mott decided to level with him. ‘It wasn’t your flying. You’re up there with the best. And certainly not your bravery, because in Korea and Pax River … well, you have the medals to prove that.’

  ‘What was it? What’s my hidden weakness, because I certainly don’t know and I ought to.’

  ‘Patterns,’ Mott said, and when the young flier looked amazed, he added, ‘You didn’t conform to the patterns. You don’t live with your wife. You have no children. Statistically you represented a gamble, especially your wife. NASA feels safer when unknowns like Claggett and Lee conform to patterns. Because then the numbers are in our favor. With you we were flying in the dark. I think you know that.’ When Pope made no reply, Mott said, It surfaced in Korea and it certainly surfaced at Patuxent.’

  ‘What surfaced?’

  ‘That you were a loner.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it? Seems to me, the main thing is … I was also good,’ Pope said with that charming frankness which characterized the best test pilots. John Pope was one of the best fliers in the business; he knew it and was not hesitant about claiming his rights.

  ‘That’s why we chose you, John.’ This sudden use of his first name, as if the discussion had entered a new and more confidential phase, mollified the astronaut, and he asked, ‘Why were you willing to overlook the anomalies?’

  And now this unusual word, so scientific and so exactly right in this context, relaxed Mott, and he broke into a laugh. Taking off his glasses, he looked at Pope, nine years his junior and one of the most capable men he had ever met, and said, ‘We chose you because we knew that in the air you would prove to be one of the very best men on our roster. And you will be.’

  ‘But on the ground, watch out.’

  ‘Yes.’ An embarrassed pause, then: ‘Any chance you could persuade your wife to quit her job and move down here to Houston?’

  ‘None.’ Pope blew his nose, more to gain time than for any other reason, then said, ‘Penny told me last weekend that she felt your wife was the person closest to what she’s like. You must have faced these same problems.’

  ‘Curious. My wife said the same about Mrs. Pope. “More like me than any of the others.” But I never faced your problem, John, because my wife accepted the work I did. Some day I’ll tell you about El Paso. And getting eased out at Huntsville. My wife stayed close.’

  ‘Mine doesn’t,’ Pope said crisply, and without waiting for Mott to indicate that the interview was over, he rose and left the room.

  The specialty he had been assigned delighted him, and had he had a free choice from the entire field, he would have elected astronomy and the new navigational systems, for he found them captivating. ‘They drive my mind to its ultimate capacities,’ he wrote his wife, ‘and I feel constantly submerged. But damn it all, I’ll work it out in the end.’

  The heavy problem of field trips prevented him from becoming narrowly specialized in navigation, for the astronauts were required to jump about the nation and the world with an agility that left some watchers bewildered. In one three-month period Pope and Claggett were occupied with these trips:

  … To Worcester, Massachusetts, the David Clark Company, to be fitted for two different kinds of space-suits, plus an extra one for Pope in which he might walk in space.

  … To Los Angeles, California, for a two-day meeting with General Funkhauser’s men, who had won a contract to supply the controls in the capsule.

  … To St. Louis, Missouri, the McDonnell Astronautics Co., to work on the spacecraft itself.

  … To Cleveland, Ohio, to work at NASA’s Lewis Center on the performance of jet engines and rockets.

  … To Sunnyvale, California, the Lockheed Space Company, to check the progress of the Agena target vehicle with which Gemini would hook up in outer space.

  … To Owego, New York, IBM, for familiarization with the new, smaller computers which would run the spacecraft.

  … To Fort Apache, Arizona, to engage in a three-day survival test on the desert, finding food and water as they became available.

  … To Canoga Park, California, Rocketdyne, to study the principles and controls governing reentry through the atmosphere.

  … To Redondo Beach, California, the Ramo Corporation, to work on trajectory calculations.

  Plus several more of the 319 industrial sites where components of the Gemini program were being assembled, including many of the foremost names in American business: Bell, Burroughs, CBS, Douglas, Engelhard Minerals, General Electric, General Motors, B. F. Goodrich, and on down the line.

  Some of the excursions had special meaning to the fledgling astronauts, but each man seemed to identify particularly some visit which proved unique for him. Hickory Lee came back from the wild C-135 parabolic flights at Edwards Air Force Base ecstatic: ‘By damn, they took me up there to forty thousand feet, flew damned near straight up, then turned the nose down, and in that swift change, Zoom! No gravity! I bounced around in the padded cargo space like a feather in a Texas tornado. Absolutely no gravity. For thirty-two seconds. Down we went, then up again in the parabolic curve, then over and down. We did it thirty-eight times and I came out bruised from ass to elbow. Them mats, they don’t protect you no-how.’ But for several days he kept talking about those moments of accidental freedom from the pull of Earth.

  Some men found it difficult physiologically to adjust to the C-135 routine; all they got was an unmerciful pounding as the huge plane nosed down, and John Pope was one of these: ‘I was probably free of gravity, as they say, but I barely knew it.’ What imparted the sense of space to him were two much more mundane experiments, but in a way more sophisticated, since they depended upon simple perceptions of gravity.

  ‘If you’re like me and fail to catch the feeling in that bang-about C-135,’ he advised the others, ‘try that Langley Space Walk they showed us in the movies. Outstanding!’

  But his closest approach to a perception of null gravity came in a swimming pool, or rather a huge cubic tank installed at the new center in Huntsville, where in full astronaut’s gear he was thrown into the water wearing just enough lead weights about his waist to achieve a neutral buoyancy: ‘It was weird and kind of wonderful. Not real weightlessness, you understand, because if you stood on your head in the water, blood rushed to your head, because gravity still operated. But there was a marvelous sense of freedom. I loved it. Whenever I suited up and the crane dropped me into the drink, I thought I
was a medieval knight being hoisted onto my white charger. But my lance was a monkey wrench. The world I was to conquer was outer space.’

  The most dramatic expedition was Randy Claggett’s to Johnsville, the Naval Air Center, just north of Philadelphia, where he was to undergo tolerance tests on the mammoth centrifuge. Using exactly the kind of whirling machine used to separate cream from milk, but on a larger scale permitting many more controlled variations, the men conducting the tests placed their subject in a pilot’s chair and whirled him about at ever faster speeds until the required G was reached:

  ‘One look at that sonnombeech and I wanted out. They strapped me in eyeballs out and said, “Can you take ten G’s?” and I said, “How in hell do I know?” and they said, “Well, you’re gonna find out.” It was kind of hairy, but I yelled, “I ain’t feelin’ no pain,” so they yelled, “Here come fifteen big ones,” and I had a little trouble focusin’ my eyes, but when they yelled, “Think you could take twenty?” I yelled back, “Let me outa here,” and they said, “You’re the judge,” and when I got out, the register marked sixteen G’s. That’s what I took.

  ‘But they was this farm-boy sailor sort of standin’ around and he volunteered to try the machine, and when they strapped him in they ran it to fifteen pretty fast and he grinned and yelled, “I kin take it,” and they whomped him up to eighteen and asked if he’d like to go for twenty, and he shouted, “Why not?” and they gave him that and then told him that no one had hit twenty-one yet, and he said, “Give it a whirl,” but he was spinnin’ so fast the words kinda slipped outa the corner of his mouth, and they gave him twenty-one G’s for about ten seconds. Dreadful pressure.

  ‘When they stopped the centrifuge he jumped down as good as new, but he was kinda dizzy, I could see that. He started home drivin’ his own car, but when I left the test area I saw him parked dead across the median strip, sound asleep. His brain musta been completely addled by the twenty-one G’s, but when I took him back to the base the doctors never gave a damn. I often wonder what happened to that farm boy.’