Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [51]
The testing was intense and comprehensive. They took a lot of blood. They did a colonoscopy. They hooked me up to an EKG and put me in a sphere, curled up in the dark like a ball, while they watched my heart rate. If it went above a certain level, they’d figure I was claustrophobic and they’d dismiss me. I was pretty good in there. I just relaxed and went to sleep.
Once I made it through the medical tests, the interview process followed. It was a twelve-on-one interview: twelve of NASA’s top officials and one of me.
One of my inquisitors was John Young, the legendary astronaut who flew the first manned Gemini mission in 1965, went to the moon twice, and was the first commander of the space shuttle. He asked me a very technical question about the frequency of the flight-control computer on a plane I was flying then, the F-18 Hornet. I wasn’t sure, but I made the most educated guess I could. I must have been close because he seemed happy with the answer.
The next day they told me they planned to invite my brother down for an interview, too. I thought that was a good sign that I’d done well in my interview. If I had done poorly, why would they want another one of me?
When it was time for Scott’s interview, however, he realized he had a problem. He had just one suit, and I’d already worn it to my NASA interview. He thought it would be ridiculous to show up wearing the same suit his twin brother had worn.
“Buy another suit,” I told him.
“You should have bought another suit!” he said.
He ended up wearing the same suit, and I let him borrow the shoes I’d worn down to Houston. It was a bit nuts. He decided to bring the matter to people’s attention before they noticed. “I bet something looks familiar,” he said, “and it’s not just my face.”
Scott thinks that we both benefited from each other’s interview. Most candidates who get called down to Houston are technically qualified. Acceptance hinges on whether NASA officials and veteran astronauts connect with you and like you. Because they got a double dose of me and Scott, they had more time to get to know us, and we had more time to try to impress them.
In the spring of 1996, I got the call first. It was Dave Leestma, head of Flight Crew Operations. I had learned that Dave would be placing calls to all those who were accepted, while the chief astronaut would call the candidates who were rejected. I was obviously thrilled to hear from Dave.
“You did very well in the interview process,” he told me, “and we hope you’ll want to come down to Houston and work here as an astronaut.”
I accepted immediately, trying to find the right words to express my gratitude. We talked for a few more minutes, and then I had to address my curiosity. I knew I normally wouldn’t get anywhere asking about another candidate for the job, but I couldn’t help myself. So I asked Dave: “Will you be calling my brother?”
Dave answered, “Well, I usually wouldn’t say this, but yes, I need to talk to him as well. Do you know where I could find him today?”
He didn’t say the chief astronaut—that bearer of bad news—would be looking for my brother. He said he’d be making the call. So I knew Scott had been accepted, too. I was incredibly proud and thrilled for both of us.
Other twins may know what I was feeling. It was like a double triumph.
Years later, after I met Gabby, I described for her the emotions I felt when I learned I’d been accepted into NASA’s astronaut program. “It felt better than winning the lottery would,” I told her. “I wouldn’t have traded that job offer for anything in the world.”
My career path was slightly more conventional than Gabby’s—I never lived with Mennonites—but she saw us as kindred spirits. It wasn’t just that we were both ambitious and driven.