To Jan, Columbia felt like it was a fixed point in space, not moving at all, and that Earth was spinning beneath her. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, hoping that shutting off the flow of visual information to her brain would help; but, instead, the feeling of nausea grew. Then she tried another approach; she opened her eyes and looked to her right, up into the payload bay, hoping to give her brain something, anything, it could use as a fixed visual reference. She thought about all the previous training, all she had endured to become an astronaut. Classmates had teased her for having the queasiest stomach of the class. “Don’t barf your helmet, Jan,” they would say during zero-gravity simulations. But this was no simulation, and her stomach was showing no respect for all she had accomplished over her career as an astronaut. She was hanging out over Columbia’s wing, just trying to perform a relatively simple task, but hampered by a queasy stomach.
After a very long moment, the nausea finally seemed to be passing. And then, finally, it seemed she got a break from the nausea.
“Okay, Houston,” Jan said, reengaging, “ah, I can see the wing now. There does seem to be some discoloration along the top of the wing.”
“We copy you, Jan,” the CapCom said, turning to Flight Director Warner with a worried expression. Warner returned an equally troubled look.
“The discoloration starts at the leading edge and goes aft on the wing. But I can’t see any specific damage in my current position. The lighting is such… hold on while I… no it won’t work. I thought if I could move to my right a little, I’d be able to see better, but no… I’m gonna need Steve out here.”
“So, are you reporting no actual wing damage, then, Jan?” the CapCom asked, hoping she’d return an unequivocal no.
“I don’t see any damage from where I am on the wing, but I can’t see enough of the wing to make a definite determination.”
Steve had been listening to the conversation between Jan and Houston. He, of course, was smiling. All he heard was that Jan would need his help, that he’d get his spacewalk. He knew how limited the view out the helmet could be. He just figured she couldn’t maneuver well enough to get a clear view of the wing. Never once did he think there would be any real wing damage.
Chapter 14
Space Center Houston
(Visitor Complex for the Johnson Space Center)
“IT ALMOST SOUNDS LIKE you hope the wing is damaged,” Brown said, before putting an enormous forkful of honey mustard wonton chicken salad in his mouth.
“I never said that or meant to imply that,” Stangley said, as if he’d been insulted. “I simply posed the question. Can you comprehend how big this thing will be if the wing is damaged to the point where they can’t make it back? That’s all I meant.” Stangley chewed a chunk of ice, then tipped back on his chair and waited for a response.
Brown considered Stangley’s question again, but still wasn’t ready to answer him directly. “Hey, why did you want to meet here at the visitor’s complex, anyway? I can think of a lot better places to eat lunch.” Brown looked up at the overhead sign and read it out loud. “The Blast-Off Bistro?”
“Well, I’m doing research here.”
“Researching what?”
Stangley shrugged timidly as if Brown was probing him in a sensitive place.
“Oh, I know,” Brown said laughing. “You’ve come here so you can put your finger on the pulse of the American people, or some bullshit like that. Right?”
“Sort of, I guess,” Stangley said, pondering his decision to spend some time mingling with the visitors at the Space Center.
“What’s that thing you reporters always say? ‘Never get married to a story.’ This whole debris strike will probably turn out to be nothing.”
“I’m not married to the story,” Stangley quickly replied, feeling a need to defend his position. “I just…” he paused and looked across the busy cafeteria, considered changing his question. For a moment, he thought he might instead ask Brown why he’d sent him the e-mail scoop. Why did he choose me? He pondered his options a few seconds more, decided to stay with his original question, thought Brown might finally take his bait.
“So… can you?” Stangley asked again, unable to think of a better way to ask his question.
“Can I imagine how big it would be? That’s your question?”
Brown confirmed, implying he wanted to be certain what he’d be answering.
“Yes!” Stangley said, relieved he’d finally get his answer.
“Off the record?”
“Of course.”
Brown set his fork down and wiped his mouth with his napkin. Stangley watched Brown run his tongue around his top teeth in a sucking, cleaning swipe. Stangley interpreted Brown’s stalling as a positive sign. Certainly by watching his expression, Stangley knew he was about to hear another one of Brown’s “pearls.”
“I can tell you what it was like during Apollo 13 and, yes, I’m that old,” Brown said, resting his upper body on his forearms at the table’s edge. His hands were fists. “It was a frickin’ mess in every way, a lot of sleepless nights. But we worked as a team, tried to think how we could get our guys back home. It was probably the highlight of my career. As bad as it was, though, as hard as we had to work, 13 ended well. But this situation with Columbia, I mean if the wing is jacked, truly jacked, it’ll make Apollo 13 look like a frickin’ picnic.”
Brown picked up his fork quickly, as if he couldn’t hold off for another second. He took a bite of salad, chewed twice, then quickly pushed the bite to the side of his mouth with his tongue, and continued.
“First of all, you’re talking seven instead of three astronauts. We’re talking about an international crew, so we’ll have Israel and India breathing down our necks to do everything possible to bring their countryman and woman back home. You’ve got a several-billion-dollar reusable space plane, versus Apollo’s tin can, which could never have been used again, anyway, except of course by the Smithsonian. And then there’s our obligation to continue with the Space Station construction. Either way, wing damage or not, the whole shuttle fleet will be grounded until we figure out what to do about the damn foam problem. So we can kiss all the Space Station construction time lines good-bye. That’ll likely piss off the Russians.
“The difference between the media in the early Seventies, and the media now? It’s going to be a goddamn circus around here.”
Stangley sat for a minute, still rocked back on the legs of his chair, his fingertips poised at the edge of the table for balance. He was not sure exactly what to say. He had a lot of respect for Brown—knew he was a veteran, that he had seen NASA through nearly every problem they’d ever had. He rocked forward again, returning the front chair legs to the floor. Then he spit a large piece of ice back into his cup.
“So what will your role be if the wing is damaged—will you stay here or will you go back to Kennedy?”
“I’ll stay here for now. Where I go ultimately depends on what the crew finds on EVA. We’re hoping to get some video from the wing-inspection EVA. If we do we’ll analyze it, give the Mission Management Team the damage estimates, and then we wait. If the wing is damaged—and let me say I’ve never seen anything like that launch video; it really got my attention—then everything that happens immediately in terms of decision-making will come out of Mission Control.
“Wing damage or not, in the end I’ll probably get mothballed. If we end up losing the crew—God, how awful is that thought—if we lose them, the Shuttle Program will be grounded for a couple of years, at least. If no damage is found, then we’ll still have a long stand-down while we address the foam problem.”
Brown chewed for a few seconds, and Stangley waited in silence.
“Our current launch imaging is shit. Doesn’t take a goddamn engineer to see that. So if this whole thing goes south, and they decide to pump some money into the program, I’ll be making out my wish list, like some 10 year old pouring over the Sears Wish Book.”
“When will we kno
w?”
“Late this afternoon or early evening would be my guess. There will be a press conference today about the EVA findings. If the wing is damaged, you’d better mark your calendar.”
“Mark my calendar… what do…?”
“Yeah, mark it January 20, 2003, the day the circus came to town!”
Chapter 15
On Columbia
Swirling wisps of cotton
A summer-blanket for Earth
I see no lines, no borders
We call it astronauts’ mirth
INHALE, EXHALE. Inhale, exhale. A daydreamer’s paradise passing overhead. My first sight through the airlock is the Red Sea, then the whole continent of Africa and its Nile River stretching from the Mediterranean Sea south nearly to the Congo Basin. Then, Cape Horn, all alone on the southern tip of South America. Looking north, the Andes mountain range, dusted with a powdered-sugar topping of snow. Next, the Amazon Basin, Central America, and the tip of Baja California. And hovering over Earth’s horizon, a magnificent band of color, airglow. Whitish on the Earth side darkening to a deep-blue sapphire at the uppermost layer before blending into the blackest black of space.
“Steve, this is the flight deck, just wanted to remind you about the camera on your helmet. Don’t bump it on the airlock as you come out.”
“Ah… roger… that, flight deck,” I say, breaking from my somewhat dazed state.
Back to work.
Okay, it is my turn to go out. I have already pulled on my tether cable to check it; it is tight.
My head is clear of the airlock now and as far as I can tell, the camera is still in place. I touch it gently with my glove and it still feels rigid atop my helmet as it did in the airlock. I stayed way to the left in coming out, so there is no way the camera could’ve touched anything. Okay, I’m out now. First thing I do is check my tether visually. I pull on it again; it’s still good.
You might think we’re paranoid about the tether thing, but let me tell you, it’s so easy to get distracted once you’re out of the airlock. Earth does something to your brain. I mean, the sight of it from space…you look at it once, and become transfixed, almost helpless to look away. The sight of Earth, so big and bright above you, triggers more receptor sites than morphine ever could. Like child to a mother, you’re drawn closer. It’s like some strange force. An unrelenting summoning of the mother-ship.
Anyway, you get distracted, and you forget to clip in. Before you know it, you’ve floated clear of the payload bay and you’re enjoying an untethered view of your Orbiter from say 70 feet out. It can happen that fast. Not the kind of stunt NASA forgets when it’s time to assign a crew to the next mission.
My first real challenge, now that I’m out of the airlock, will be to get the video camera working. I can see the rest of the crew through the flight-deck windows, they’re waving. Nice. I’m hoping they’ll be able to see the red record-light on the front of my camera after I turn it on.
I’m over near the port slide wire now, facing forward over the payload bay; I can see the crew easily through the aft flight-deck windows. I’ll head down to Jan as soon as I can get the recording started. I know Jan’s ready to get this over with; sounds like she’s not feeling so hot. Houston indicated that they don’t want me spending more than a few minutes fiddling with the camera—they want to know once and for all the status of Columbia’s left wing.
“We’re ready on the flight-deck, Steve whenever you are.”
“Copy that, I just have to get myself fixed here inside the payload bay so I can try to get the recording started…Okay, I think I’m set now…here goes.”
I lift my right hand up to the camera to try to find the record button, but instead I misjudge where the camera is and I hit it with my glove, causing a mild thud in my helmet, not what I wanted to do. It still feels okay though, gray-tape holding.
The Commander turned the camera’s power on before he closed the airlock hatch. We were going to start the recording then, too, but we weren’t sure how long Jan would be out here. We thought the tape or battery might run out before I could get out to the wing.
“Okay, I’m going to try to hit the record button now, let me know if you see the red light come on,” I say, calling up to the flight deck.
“We’re standing by, Steve, the Commander says.
I have my index finger sticking out, and I can feel something poking my helmet, but that’s about all I can feel.
My Commander watches me from the flight deck through a pair of binoculars.
“Steve, move your finger forward a little,” he said. “Towards us and I think…no…the other way…now go up…right there…okay now…you’ve got it.”
“Okay we can see the red light now, Steve.”
“The red light is on?,” I ask for confirmation.
“That’s affirm, Steve, you’re go for recording.”
“Houston, you copying this?” I ask proudly.
“Steve, we copy, go for recording.”
“Okay, Jan, I’m on my way.”
“Copy that, Steve,” Jan says, trying to be enthusiastic.
Chapter 16
On Columbia
JAN WAS IN POSITION. Actually, her hands and feet were, but not her stomach. As Steve was getting the camera working, Jan had climbed over the payload bay door and was now standing on Columbia’s left wing, close to the fuselage. Relative to Earth, though, she was standing upside down on Columbia’s wing. It wasn’t something her muscles or body were particularly aware of, but her brain, with its 36 years of this-side-up programming, knew things were not quite right. That huge, blue rotating planet overhead didn’t help with matters of orientation, either.
Even in her bulky spacesuit, she felt dwarfed by the size of the wing, a full 31-and-a-half feet from fuselage to wing tip. She was positioned to act as Steve’s ladder during his initial descent, and then for stabilization once he reached the inspection site. She had made two specific modifications to her spacesuit, one to help Steve, and the other to help Columbia. Around her left ankle was an adjustable equipment tether Steve would use to position himself at the leading edge of the wing. Covering her right boot were towels gray-taped in place to protect Columbia’s wing from inadvertent damage.
She was still tethered to the port slide wire, but to maintain her position on the wing she steadily gripped the payload bay door’s passive centerline-latch mechanism. The edge of the door met her at chest level. She was facing inboard, her back to the wing tip. Her right boot was on top of the wing, and her left boot was near the leading edge of Columbia’s left wing. Just below her boots, nestled inside the 5-foot-thick wing, was the left main landing-gear.
She was sure the vomit was coming; there was really no way to stop it at this point. She thought about what was coming. Breakfast. Dried apricots, shortbread cookies, a chocolate breakfast drink, and tea with milk and sugar, all on their way. All the self-talk in the world could not help her now.
Steve was halfway down the payload bay when it happened. The spasm began right below her waist tether. It traveled up to her mouth at light-speed, a self-propelled breakfast of sorts, up and out. Now of course, by the time one reaches his or her late thirties, the act of throwing up is not a new experience. But for Jan, this was her first time—first time throwing up with her helmet on.
With gravity missing, everything floats—the 89-ton orbiter, astronaut and spacesuit, any object not secured, a bite of food, liquids from a drink pouch, and vomit. If vomit floating off toward an instrument panel of a spacecraft sounds bad, it is bad; but usually an astronaut can contain it or redirect it before it shorts out any electrical equipment or causes any real problems. Vomit floating inside a helmet, however, is a much bigger problem. Since the astronaut cannot redirect the vomit with his hands—the faceshield doesn’t flip up like with a motorcycle helmet—he will have to direct where the vomit will stick inside his helmet through movements of his torso. This assumes of course that he or she has the presence of mind to do so.<
br />
Luckily for Jan, she did. She managed to keep most of it near the bottom of her helmet. Since oxygen enters the helmet from behind and above the astronaut’s head, she would not have to listen to a steady flow of bubbles coming up through the vomit. However, she would be with the smell—that head-down-in-a-toilet-bowl kind of smell—for at least another 75 minutes.
Chapter 17
On Columbia
I’M MAKING GOOD TIME down the slide wire. Jan is waiting, but apparently she’s barfed her helmet. I assured her that I’ll get this inspection done as quickly as possible. As I move aft, I try to hang it out wide of the payload bay doors to see the wing better, but the doors swing out a full 175 degrees, making it difficult to see the wing. Also, the area in question is black, not white like the upper surface of the wing, and that combined with less than optimal lighting, means I still can’t appreciate any damage.
When I finally arrive at my mark, Jan is facing me.
“Check this out,” Jan says, briefly lifting her mirrored sun-visor-overlay.
“Yuck! Columbia, Houston, ah,” I try not to laugh. “Yeah, ah, Houston, we’re gonna need housekeeping up here for Jan. She’s messed her helmet.” My first thought is that there’s comic relief in this, right? But vomiting into one’s helmet can be life-threatening for an astronaut, a really serious problem. If the vomit shifts inside her helmet, or she barfs again, Jan may be in danger of suffocating. If that happens, I’ll have to rush her back into the airlock.
Launch on Need Page 8