Riding Rockets

by Mike Mullane

  After the White House learned of the O-ring history, it concluded there was no way NASA could conduct an impartial investigation into itself. President Reagan ordered the formation of the Roger’s Commission to take over the investigation. (The commission was named for its chairman, former attorney general William P. Rogers.) As I followed their reports, I learned that my rookie flight, STS-41D, had been one of the fourteen O-ring near misses. In fact it had been the first to record a heat blow-by past a primary O-ring. As Bob Crippen had said, “Whatever it was, we’ve all ridden it.” I wondered why STS-51L had been lost and not 41D? Would the “bump” of just one more max-q shock wave onDiscovery ’s flight have opened the SRB joint seal enough for total O-ring failure and death? Only God knew that answer. But on August 30, 1984, the breeze from Death’s scythe had fanned my cheek.

  In the weeks afterChallenger I went to work each morning wondering why. I had nothing to do. A handful of astronauts were appointed to support the Roger’s Commission but I wasn’t one of them. My phone rarely rang. There were no payload review meetings to attend, no simulations to fill the hours. In the astronaut office safe was a preliminary copy of my classified STS-62A payload operations checklist, something I had been devouring in my pre-Challengerlife. But now it sat abandoned. I saw no reason to continue my training for the Vandenberg mission. It was obvious the shuttle would not fly for a very long time and when it did it wouldn’t be from California. Rumor had it the USAF was going to bail out of the shuttle program altogether and go back to their expendable rockets. They had never been fans of launching their satellites on the shuttle in the first place. Congress had rammed that program down their throats. The air force had rightly argued that when expendable rockets blew up, they could be fixed and returned to flight status within months, whereas the human life issue of manned vehicles could delay their return to flight for years. During that lengthy delay national defense could be jeopardized. That was exactly whereChallenger had put the air force. It was easy to believe the rumors that the air force was going to walk away from their investment in the Vandenberg shuttle pad.

  There was also a very big technical reason Vandenberg was dead. Because rockets being launched into polar orbit lose the boost effect of the eastward spin of the Earth, they cannot carry as much payload as eastward-launched KSC rockets. To recover some of that payload penalty, NASA had developed lightweight, filament-wound SRBs for use on Vandenberg missions. If Thiokol had been unable to seal asteel booster, the thinking went, how much more difficult would it be to seal one made of spun filament and glue? No one expected the lightweight Vandenberg SRBs to be certified now. The space shuttle would never see polar orbit, and neither would I. I removed the Vandenberg photo from my wall and placed it in the bottom drawer of my desk. I didn’t want to be reminded.

  It was impossible to escape the torment that wasChallenger. In a walk down the hall my eyes would catch the 51L office nameplates. On a visit to the mail room I encountered the staff moving theChallenger crew photos to the “Deceased Astronauts” cabinet. I wanted to cry. I wanted to stand there and just weep. But the Pettigrew in me denied that release.

  The flight surgeon’s office informed everybody that Dr. McGuire—one of the psychiatrists who had interviewed us during our TFNG medical screening, in what now seemed like a different life—would be available for counseling. Some of the wives sought his therapy, Donna included. Most people in my mental condition would have jumped at the opportunity for some help. But most people were not astronauts. I was dyed through and through with the military aviator’s ethos that psychiatrists were for the weak. I was an astronaut. I was iron. So I held it all in. If I could hold an enema for fifteen minutes, I could hold all this in and deal with it myself. I would cure myself of depression or survivor’s guilt or post-traumatic stress syndrome or whatever it was that ailed me…probably all of the above.

  Six weeks afterChallenger, NASA announced they had found the crew cockpit wreckage in eighty-five feet of water. It contained human remains. I had been hoping the wreckage would never be found, that the cockpit and crew had been atomized at water impact. If it had been me, that’s how I would have wanted it. Let the Atlantic be my grave. But as shallow as the wreckage rested, NASA had no option but to pull it up. Otherwise it would eventually be snagged on a fishing net or discovered by a recreational diver.

  Having been at an aircraft crash site, I suspected the condition of the remains was horrific. The cockpit had been sheared from the rest ofChallenger , and after a 60,000-foot fall had impacted the water at its terminal velocity of nearly 250 miles per hour. At that speed the Atlantic would have been as unyielding as solid earth. I couldn’t imagine the remains would allow the pathologists to learn anything. And I was equally certain nothing relevant to the tragedy would be discovered on the voice recorder, even if it was in good enough condition to be read. Dick Scobee’s “Go at throttle up” was uttered only a couple seconds prior to breakup and there was nothing out of the ordinary in his call. Obviously he and the rest of the crew were unaware of their problem. And nothing could have been recorded after breakup because the recorder lost electrical power and stopped at that instant. Not that there would have been anything to record. I remained convinced the crew had been killed outright or rendered unconscious whenChallenger fragmented.

  After the remains were removed, TFNG Mike Coats and several other astronauts examined the wreckage. Mike returned to Houston with the comment, “The cockpit looks like aluminum foil that had been crushed into a ball.” It was largely unrecognizable as a cockpit, a fact that didn’t surprise me. He added, “I saw a few strands of Judy’s hair in the wreckage…and I found her necklace.” He didn’t have to say any more. I knew the necklace. Judy always wore it…a gold chain with a charm displaying the two-finger-and-thumb sign language symbol for “I love you.” She had a hearing-impaired family member and the necklace was a display of her support for those with similar handicaps. The image Mike’s words conjured would not leave me. Like the flash of a camera, I continued to see it no matter where I looked—the crushed cockpit, Judy’s hair, her necklace.

  The remains were held at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for pathologists to identify. A few weeks later I watched NASA’s TV broadcast as a procession of hearses drove onto the KSC runway and unloaded seven flag-draped caskets. Each was accompanied by an astronaut. A military honor guard reverently carried the remains into the belly of an air force C-141 transport aircraft. There was no dialogue to accompany the TV footage. The silence made the images even more heartrending. The camera followed the plane as it rolled down the runway and receded to just a dot in the sky. TheChallenger crew was finally returning to their families.

  On May 19 a horse-drawn caisson slowly bore the remains of Dick Scobee toward his final resting place in Arlington National Cemetery. The day was sultry and the air tinted with the odor of horse dung and freshly mowed grass. A military band, playing a medley of patriotic arrangements, led our procession. A formation of skin-headed GI pallbearers, dressed in mirror-polished livery, marched with them. Another group of buzz-cut soldiers bore the American flag and other standards streaming blue and red battle ribbons. Rivulets of sweat poured into their eyes from under their headgear, but they did not break the precision of their march to wipe it away. The astronaut corps and a handful of our spouses trailed the entourage. Between music selections the drummer maintained a solo staccato. The clop of hooves on the cobblestone mingled with the tapping of the women’s heels to compete with the drummer’s cadence. A symphony of other mournful sounds tugged at the heart: the choking sobs of women, the creak of the caisson, the groan of the leather tack, the jingle of a bridle.

  The chaplain conducted a brief graveside service. Then an honor guard fired a rapid three-shot rifle salute, each shot punctuated by the metallic tinkle of the ejected brass. The young children and some of the adults startled visibly at the loudness of the firings. Other soldiers lifted the flag from the casket and folded it with machinelike p
recision. It was handed to George Abbey, who, in turn, presented it to June Scobee. A flight of four NASA T-38s zoomed into view in fingertip formation. Over the grave the number-two pilot jerked his plane upward and disappeared into the clouds leaving the missing man gap. Then the play of “Taps” drew out a new wave of sobs.

  My grief wasn’t refreshed in any way by the scene. It couldn’t be. I had reached my limits of that emotion. But as the notes of “Taps” floated in the air I was stirred anew in my anger at NASA management. This should have never happened. It was completely preventable. There had been four years of warnings.

  I wondered if any of them at that grave felt culpable. I suspected those who knew nothing of the O-ring problem, and most at JSC and HQ had not, felt they were off the responsibility hook. In my book they were not. It wasn’t an O-ring failure that brought us to this Arlington service. That was merely a symptom. The real failure was in the leadership of NASA. Over many years it had allowed the agency to degenerate into a loose confederation of independent fiefdoms. As proof of that, the Roger’s Commission was finding that many at MSFC had been aware of the O-ring issue, but the problem had not been communicated to the appropriate offices at HQ and JSC, including Young’s and Abbey’s offices. Neither did the Thiokol engineers’ eleventh-hour worries about launching in cold temperature get to the launch director at KSC. And astronaut concerns about the lack of an escape system and the passenger program were unknown to NASA’s senior management, of that I was certain. NASA was filled with incredibly talented people, some of the world’s best. But the agency lacked the leadership necessary to bind everyone together into an effective and safe team. The NASA administrators were largely budget lobbyists beholden to the White House and Congress. They didn’t lead NASA. They certainly didn’t leadme. I couldn’t recall any administrator ever visiting the astronaut office to solicit our opinions. I had heard one TFNG grumble, “We should fly every new NASA administrator on a shuttle mission. Maybe if they had the shit scared out of them they’d be more beholden to us.” That was a part-timer program I would endorse.

  “Who led NASA?” was the question. Nobody. That’s why we were standing in Arlington listening to “Taps” for Dick Scobee. It was even a mystery to me who led my fiefdom. Who was in charge at JSC? George Abbey seemed to be absolute ruler of his own little duchy. Even now, a previously planned new astronaut selection was still rolling along. The shuttle wouldn’t fly again for years. Why bring in more astronauts now? We couldn’t understand why the JSC director or NASA HQ didn’t order a stop to it. It was more proof to us that when it came to anything associated with astronauts,everybody, including the JSC director and NASA administrator, worked for Abbey. He didn’t answer to anybody. How many other similarly independent fiefdoms existed within NASA? What were their kings like? What frustrations burdened their serfs? I could only speak of my own. Lack of leadership at JSC and in Washington, D.C., had allowed the astronaut office to become dominated by fear. Even outsiders had become aware of it. In a vitriolic March 12, 1986, memo addressed to John Young, Colonel Larry Griffin, commander of the air force detachment to NASA (he was not an astronaut), wrote, “…my personal experience in working with the astronaut office is that nearly everyone there is absolutely afraid to voice any opinion that does not agree with yours. You criticizing anyone for ‘pressure’ is ludicrous when the primary axiom in the astronaut office is, ‘Don’t cross John if you ever want to fly.’ That’s pressure!” Colonel Griffin had it slightly wrong. We were afraid to voice any opinion that did not agree with that of Youngor Abbey. Did the JSC director or the NASA administrator have any idea how fearful we were of our management? If they had been involved in our lives, they would have known and could have fixed the problem. That’s what good leaders do.

  I couldn’t point to any single individual and say, “He did it!” but, collectively, NASA management put Scobee and the other six in their graves. I wanted them all gone. So did most of the astronaut corps. But we were so jaded by our NASA experiences, we doubted it would happen. Already it was more than three months sinceChallenger and there had been no firings. I saw the future and it looked remarkably like the past. Of course there would be new “oversight committees” and a new “safety emphasis,” but to a significant degree the same people would remain in leadership positions and that meant nothing would really change. I would later hear a TFNG describe it perfectly. “You can paint a different tail number on the squadron dog [referring to the most malfunction-prone jet] but it’s still the same dog.”

  I walked away from the Arlington ceremony angry, bitter, depressed, and guilt-ridden…making a mental note to tell Donna that if I died on a shuttle mission I didn’t want Abbey or Young or anybody from NASA HQ anywhere near my grave. I certainly didn’t want any of them handing her the flag from my coffin. (Upon my return to Houston, I did make that request of Donna.)

  The only positive thought I could muster was that at least there would be no more scab pulling. The crew was buried. Now the healing could begin.

  But God granted us only the briefest of reprieves. A week after Scobee’s funeral, astronaut Steve Thorne, class of 1985, died in an off-duty recreational plane crash. It was another body blow to the astronaut corps.

  *Enterprise,the first orbiter, was never designed for spaceflight. It was used in pre–STS-1 glide tests off the back of NASA’s 747 carrier aircraft.

  Chapter 27

  Castle Intrigue

  Several weeks afterChallenger I was finally given a job: to review the design of the Range Safety System (RSS). NASA wasn’t just focusing on the SRB O-ring design. It wanted to be certain there were no other deadly failure modes lurking in other shuttle components. Astronauts were assigned to work with experts from every subsystem to root out any safety issues. I was assigned the RSS, the system designed to terminate the flight of an errant shuttle. It would prove to be an assignment that would nearly terminate my career.

  Most astronauts grudgingly accepted that the RSS was needed to protect civilian population centers. But there was no denying we hated it because it directly threatened our lives. Over several months I traveled to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to meet with the RSS personnel—they were not NASA employees. By congressional law the protection of the civilian population from rocket mishaps was the responsibility of the Department of Defense, and DOD had given the job to the USAF. And the only way the air force could guarantee that protection was to place explosives on everybody’s rockets, NASA’s as well as all military and commercial missiles. (On the shuttle, the explosives were placed on each SRB and the gas tank. While there was none on the orbiter, detonation of the other explosives would also destroy the orbiter and kill the crew.) During every missile launch, USAF officers, who served as RSOs, monitored the machine’s trajectory. If a rocket strayed off course, it would be remotely blown up to prevent it from falling on a city.

  In multiple meetings I examined every aspect of the design of the RSS and the selection and training of the RSOs. (I would learn that RSOs routinely declined invitations to attend KSC social functions with astronauts. They did not want their launch-day judgment impaired by a friendship with crewmembers they might have to kill.) The system was as fail-safe as humanly possible. In these same meetings I also learned that the Range Safety Office was proposing some changes to shuttle launch abort procedures. They worried that in some aborts, pieces of the jettisoned gas tank could land in Africa. Their suggested solution was to have astronauts burn the OMS engines during these aborts. The additional thrust produced in the burn would result in an ET trajectory that would drop the fuel tank into the Indian Ocean.

  When I brought this request to John Young, he became as hot as a reentering ET, arguing it was a dumb idea. The OMS propellant was the gas used for the final push into orbit, for maneuvers while in orbit, and for the braking maneuver to get out of orbit. The RSOs were asking us to burn gas during ascent that we might later need—just to put another zero behind their already conservative risk-to-Afr
icans probability numbers. I agreed with Young. But then the trajectory planners at MCC did their own studies and found that igniting the OMS engines pre-MECO (burning them at the same time as the SSMEs) would actually improve nominal and launch abort performance. In other words, it would improve the crew’s chances of reaching orbit or a runway. When I brought this data to Young, I expected him to enthusiastically endorse it, but I was stunned when he didn’t. His position was that we would never do an OMS burn on the uphill ride. I assumed I hadn’t made myself clear and tried again. “John, I’m not suggesting this be done to satisfy the RSO. This is our own FDO recommending it. The data shows it will improve performance during the abort.” John would hear none of it.

  Over the next several weeks, in multiple meetings in Young’s office, I continued to bring him the results of various meetings on the pre-MECO OMS burn issue. The ball was rolling. It was going to happen.*Young was beyond angry at this news and focused his anger at me. Again and again I tried to make him understand the pre-MECO OMS burn was something FDO wanted to do to protect the crew. But he was deaf to my logic. Instead he remained focused on the fact the Range Safety Office wanted the OMS burn to keep the ET off Africa.

  I appealed for help from the JSC office pursuing the OMS burn change, the office of Flight Director Jay Greene. Jay had cut his teeth as a young MCC flight controller during the Apollo program. I held him in great esteem. He was heart-and-soul dedicated to crew safety. If he and FDO were saying that an uphill OMS burn was going to make things safer for the crews during some aborts, then it would. I asked him to come to Young’s office with the supporting engineers to make their case to Young. He would be happy to was his reply. I felt good about what I had arranged. Jay was a well-regarded flight director. John wouldhave to listen to him.