by Sue Nelson
The briefing also outlined the procedure for Future Astronauts and their flight profile, which involved the White Knight mothership circling and climbing slowly to around 50,000 feet, with SpaceShipTwo carried beneath it. ‘Once there the pilot will give the signal to release. It’s quite a dramatic separation of the two.’ SpaceShipTwo would then go from zero miles per hour to the speed of sound in around fifteen seconds.
At the height of their journey, Wally and her fellow passengers would be able to see the curvature of the Earth, the blackness of space and ‘the whiteness of the stars’, which everyone can see already at night – though it seemed churlish to point this out. The time from take-off to landing would be between 90 and 105 minutes. The guide gave more information. The astronauts would fly ‘eighty miles high’ and then, for several minutes in space, their dreams would come true. Then it would be time for re-entry ‘belly down, feathers up’.
Clare also gave an idea of timelines, though she was naturally reluctant to give definite dates. ‘We should be in space by the beginning of next year [2018] if all goes well, and after that we will prove repeatability with flights around the middle of next year. Then there will be another three months of test flights.’
Wally’s face was utterly crestfallen. Reassurances that ‘things are going extremely well at the moment in Mojave’ and that they were ‘hitting our interval timelines and milestones’ made no difference. After we broke for cocktails, I overheard Wally give the guide a hard time. The schedule was too far ahead. Why weren’t they getting things done faster?
As the Sun set over the mountains, we toasted the Future Astronauts with champagne on the balcony, but Wally was clearly unimpressed. It wasn’t that she was ungrateful. It was because she had done this visit before and, in her eyes, there had not been enough progress. Understandably, time, for a seventy-eight-year-old, was not in unlimited supply.
‘I heard that same thing five years ago from Branson,’ she grumbled. ‘And now Branson’s not going to go up until the end of next year. It’s just bullshit.’
Wally often used the British word ‘bloody’, but this was the first time I’d heard her swear properly. Yet it was clear that there had been progress. A link from Mojave to the Spaceport had been installed, and there was now a Spaceport Operations Centre, which was the small curved-roofed building erected nearby, next to the fire station, which, hopefully, would never need to be used.
After reporting on space missions for decades, one thing I had learned was that any launch date attached to a space mission nearly always slipped. In the space industry, whether it was the scientific instruments, a satellite for the payload or the launcher itself, delays were an accepted part of the process. You had to be prepared to play the long game. And be patient.
I discussed some of these issues with her and, begrudgingly, Wally admitted that there had been progress. ‘Yes, the windows weren’t here, the lights were not here, they were just building the fire station and all the trucks were out.’ She still looked miserable.
I took one of the Virgin Galactic reps aside. ‘Isn’t there any chance Wally can fly earlier? She’s so much older than everyone else. This has been her dream for over fifty years.’
There was nothing they could do. ‘Technically, we can’t. There are people ahead of her on the list.’ Clare was genuinely apologetic. ‘We love Wally and if we could, we would.’
Downstairs, on the hangar floor, a table had been set for dinner behind the tail fins of SpaceShipTwo (the model). It had seventeen windows: five for the two pilots and twelve circular portholes above and to the side of the six passengers. It looked a cosy fit. ‘I’m going to be sat on the right-hand side, right behind the first officer,’ Wally said. If she was lucky, she would be sat behind a woman, too, since the former NASA test pilot, Kelly Latimer, was one of Virgin Galactic’s pilots.
Up close, I examined the spaceplane’s pneumatic painted astrobabe more closely. Floating down from the woman’s arched back was a long blonde ponytail. The female astronaut wore a fishbowl helmet and a tight-fitting black-and-white retro spacesuit-Barbarella-style, since she sported elbow-length gloves and also appeared to be wearing a basque. I wondered what Helen Sharman would make of it. More disturbing was finding out that the design was based on a woman Wally had met at the Spaceport dedication in 2010: Branson’s mother, Eve.
Wally featured in many of the press photographs taken on the runway at the dedication alongside Branson, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin. ‘We had all of about ten minutes to talk,’ she said. ‘They were all very nice and very polite. We were talking business, when we were going to go. Branson has always said it was going to be next year …’
Did her trip into space always feel constantly out of reach?
‘It’s getting closer, but I didn’t want to wait another year. I want to go up in an even-number year like 2018.’
‘Are you superstitious?’
‘No, I like even numbers. I’m not seeing as much happening here as I anticipated when we drove here. For me, they’re not doing it quickly enough. I want to see it happen fast. Everyone says there’s wiring and all kinds of technical stuff, but I know better, being kind of a mechanic. They can do it faster if they want to.’
My reassurances about safety considerations were dismissed. ‘No. I don’t think that’s anything to do with safety. I’ve been to Mojave. They’re not working quickly enough because they’ve got other things going on and they’re building two more.’
Virgin Galactic was indeed building two more, at the Mojave facility in California, to make up a fleet of spaceplanes. This made economic and business sense, since over 650 people had bought tickets and, once the spaceplane had proved itself safe with passengers and space tourism flights were underway, the company reckoned that demand for the flights would only increase.
After dinner, which included a space-style dessert in a glass bowl resembling an astronaut’s helmet on a bed of dry ice, we all went outside the Spaceport and admired its curved lines against the night sky. Its lights promised a bold future in commercial spaceflight among the darkness.
It had been an amazing trip but, the next morning, while waiting for Loretta to bring her car around to the hotel entrance, Wally was in a rare reflective mood.
‘I’ve not got many years left,’ she said.
It was the first time I’d heard her acknowledge any possible limitations of her ambition as a result of her age. It almost made me cry. After that unusual and unexpected moment of vulnerability, I wanted more than anything to see her get into space.
7
Storage Space
Not far from Spaceport America and Roswell, the birthplace of the world’s extraterrestrial conspiracy theory, I saw my first UFO. At least, that’s what the craft resembled. As might be expected, the Unidentified Flying Object was housed in a military base: the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. It is the United States’ largest military installation, covering over 3,000 square miles within the Tularosa Basin and extending into five counties. Apart from playing a key role in developing the country’s missile and atomic weapons capabilities, it was also where a number of German scientists, including Werner Von Braun, a former member of the Nazi party and SS officer, had been spirited away from Germany as part of Project Paperclip and helped form America’s space programme.
After passports and driving licences were handed in to security for a background check, our instructions were to stay within the Range Museum area and only take photographs with the San Andres Mountains in the background, not towards the Range Museum itself. Despite it being a glorious day, Wally, Loretta and I were the only visitors: three women in the ultimate man’s world, in a spectacular – if ominous – playground of war.
The missile park contained all manner of military projectiles, displayed at various jaunty angles. These missiles had all been tested at White Sands, from a couple of Pershings and a Patriot, a yellow-and-black Vergeltungswaffe 2 more com
monly known as a V-2 rocket, to a Redstone. But some of these agents of war had produced a different outcome: one that resulted in robotic probes exploring the Solar System, enabling people to live and work off-world on the International Space Station. They were also partly responsible for today’s emerging business of commercial spaceflight – a business that had allowed Wally Funk to purchase a trip above the Earth into space.
The Redstone was originally designed by Von Braun as a surface-to-surface ballistic missile. It was later used as the first stage of the Jupiter C rocket, to put America’s first satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit, on 31 January 1958, over three months after the Soviet Union had pipped them to the post with Sputnik 1. Redstone boosters then went on to blast a member of the Mercury 7, Alan Shepard, as the first American in space in 1961. It was the same year that Yuri Gagarin made space history as the first man to orbit the Earth, and also the same year that Wally passed her tests and became a member of the all-female Mercury 13 – the women who had wanted to join the men among the stars.
The flying-saucer-shaped ‘UFO’ appeared totally out of place among the missiles. If you discounted the extraterrestrial possibilities, the craft also resembled a large, squat, open, metallic parasol with four short legs. It was, in fact, a Balloon Launched Test Decelerator Vehicle, one of four that NASA used at the White Sands base in 1972 to test the Viking Mars Lander Decelerator. A helium balloon lifted the craft to the required height over the town of Roswell, over 150 miles east of the missile range, and released the Test Decelerator Vehicle. This unusually shaped craft then flew to White Sands using its four rockets at just over the speed of sound, while spinning for stability. This fact had not passed me by.
On 8 July 1947, several eyewitnesses reported the crash of a UFO at Roswell. The Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) attended the scene and quickly secured the site. The story later made headlines across the United States, but the front page of the Roswell Daily Record stated: ‘RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region.’
The US government dismissed these reports as relating to an experimental weather balloon. But witnesses persisted. It also happened at a period of time when there had been several UFO sightings across the United States, so interest was high. There were tales of bodies by the wreckage in Roswell, including one that may have even been alive. These hairless child-sized bodies could only have been extraterrestrial, people claimed, since they resembled small, inhuman, grey creatures with large almond-shaped heads and enormous eyes, but without any ears or a nose. There were even rumours that an alien autopsy had taken place and had been filmed.
It was now seventy years after that incident, but that image has persisted to this day. The ‘grey’ has now become the go-to alien in modern science fiction, from the movies Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Paul to the television series Stargate. Roswell was now the UFO capital of the world. Nevertheless, in 1972 the military released a never-before-seen, spinning, flying-saucer-shaped craft from Roswell to travel at great speed in the skies towards a US military base. And some Brits thought Americans didn’t do irony.
Von Braun wasn’t the only connection to space at the military base. Robert Goddard – the American engineer and father of modern rocketry – and Dr Clyde Tombaugh – the astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930 – also worked there. Tombaugh was employed for nine years from 1946, and improved an experimental missile-tracking telescope that supported the White Sands rocket-testing programme. Some of the sounds of the Range’s later missiles being test fired – including a Lance and a Nike Tomahawk – even made it into Star Wars. Ben Burtt, from Lucasfilm, visited White Sands several times in 1978 for the studio’s sound library before the release of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. He had already won an Academy Award for the first Star Wars film, and presented the museum with a Darth Vader helmet that had been used during filming in appreciation of their help.
White Sands had an incredible museum. It was full of unexpected space snippets alongside some impressive missile hardware. The Space Shuttle Columbia had even landed on the White Sands runway in 1982. Yet Wally was uncharacteristically listless and quiet. She wanted to sit in the shade for a while, but I suspected her lethargy resulted from more than just the heat. Perhaps, I wondered, it was lingering disappointment after yesterday’s visit to Spaceport America and the realisation that her trip into space was not as close as she’d expected. Wally wandered off without a glance at the vast array of missiles by her side. Later, after exploring the site for half an hour or so, I located Loretta in one of the museum buildings, but not Wally. By now I was used to Wally’s meanderings. At some point, she would always run off at speed in an unexpected direction.
When we all finally reconvened in one of the areas that detailed the history of the Range, Wally mentioned she’d been for a walk. I reminded her that we were on a military base and restricted to the museum – exploring elsewhere might get her arrested. The expression on her face said it all. I decided not to enquire further. That sort of information was on a need-to-know basis.
Wally requested Loretta’s car keys to retrieve something from her car, and my internal alarm bells were triggered. Once Wally was out of earshot, I warned Loretta that Wally would probably drive her car.
‘She can’t.’ Loretta was confused.
‘I know. But she will. That’s what she does. She did it to me in Texas last year and in Florida a few months ago. Whatever Wally said she was getting, it’s an excuse. I’ll put money on it. Trust me, your car won’t be where you left it.’
From Loretta’s face it was clear I sounded ridiculous, paranoid, possibly both. Like a conspiracy theorist, for instance, who believed that a simple Balloon Launched Test Decelerator Vehicle was a UFO. There would be numerous reasons, I persisted, but Loretta mustn’t believe any of them. I began to feel embarrassed. Maybe I’m being unfair? Then, on leaving the building, we discovered that Loretta’s car was no longer in the parking lot, a good few minutes’ walk away, but right in front of us in a disabled bay. Wally leaned against the vehicle, casually scrutinising the map. Loretta was visibly shocked.
‘Wally,’ I said indignantly. ‘You’re not insured.’
She garbled something about what a wonderful museum it was and how she’d wanted some shade. ‘I was doing you a favour,’ she added sheepishly.
Our next pit stop before returning to Albuquerque was the New Mexico Museum of Space History: a bright, modern building resembling the bottom stage of a rocket. Its windows reflected the cloud-free blue skies and the Sacramento Mountains overlooking the town of Alomogordo. Outside the entrance was a welcome surprise: a full-scale replica Mercury capsule of the kind Wally would have flown in if history had been kinder to her. Better still, unlike the real Mercury capsule that Wally and I had seen at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida earlier in the year, she could sit inside this one. Wally went up the few steps alongside the Mercury capsule, climbed into it and, despite its being designed for only one person, she beckoned me to join her on-board. I wedged my bottom into the seat beside her as she examined the controls.
‘Okay,’ she explained, ‘first you have up here roll, yaw and pitch – that’s what you do with your stick – there should be a stick here. Then you have your temperature, your clock, control fuel, descent … how fast you’re coming down. Your air speed indicator. Gosh it starts at 40 miles per hour and goes up to … I can’t read it …’
‘100.’
‘Okay. Over here we have cabin pressure then humidity percent, oxygen, emergency switch, DC volts, ammeter and the auto bus and the AC volt switch …’ She revelled in the technicalities and joked at the control lettering’s condition, no doubt worn from hundreds of eager fingers pretending to fly a Mercury space capsule. ‘Some of the switches I can’t read. I’m sure this would be the trim.’
‘So you could have flown this?’
‘Yes! I’m so surprised. These instruments are the same instruments I have in a Cessna 172. Now over here they’re a tad bit differe
nt. I don’t know jet tower and capsule …’
‘So just a few buttons you don’t know?’
‘Yes, on the left-hand side. Oh!’ She raised her voice in delight. ‘This is so INCREDIBLE!’ She spotted some more dials. ‘Time to go … retrograde … time elapsed … This tells you exactly what you need to do. Oh man, this is exciting.’ Her raucous cackle filled the capsule.
‘This would have been a piece of cake for you.’
‘Yeah. Now I’ve got to figure out how to get out of here. Push my butt up, honey.’ Wally took one last look. ‘Oh man. TO SIT IN IT! I’ve watched it so many times.’
Inside the museum, Wally found the Space Shuttle simulator unexpectedly difficult. ‘Discovery Houston, you’re a little high,’ a voice warned. ‘You need to get down as soon as possible.’
Wally asked, ‘Where’s the gear?’ Before I could answer that I had no idea, a loud crashing sound emanated from the machine. ‘Uh oh,’ Wally said.
Despite crashing the shuttle, Wally recovered and examined the mission patches among an array of cloth circles in a glass case. Every NASA space mission, and many others around the world, issued an embroidered patch that represented it in some form of artwork. It could be a Space Shuttle leaving the Earth in a stylised arc or, as with the Apollo 11 patch, an eagle landing on the Moon. The surnames of astronauts from that mission were sewn around the edges. Wally was searching for Eileen Collins’s name. When she couldn’t find it, she informed a member of museum staff and told them to update their collection.
She then scrutinised the framed photographs on the walls of the museum’s Hall of Fame. The few women on display included Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space; Anousheh Ansari, the first female private space explorer; Eileen Collins, the first woman to command the Space Shuttle; and Susan Helms, who became the first woman from the US military to fly into space, in 1993. Helms still held the record, from 11 March 2001 on her fifth mission, for the longest spacewalk. Together with her NASA colleague Jim Voss, they did an EVA (extra vehicular activity) for 8 hours 56 minutes.