_Live From Cape Canaveral_ - Jay Barbree [118]
Happy, my Aunt Hilda’s petunias! What the hell about the Journalist in Space Project? NASA had promised a journalist would follow the teacher. When I asked, NASA decided, in the tradition of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, it would think about that another day…
It was clear that no matter how well I had recovered from my health setbacks, I could never be more than an “earthbound” astronaut. There would never be a “Journalist in Space”! Instead, there would be those going for political value. The Russians would soon be flying tourists at $20 million a pop!
There are many times in life one must accept the inevitable. I filed the dream away in the “what could have been” drawer and refocused on my job.
I was pleased for my friend John. With a wink and a nod here and there, Glenn, national hero, passed all of NASA’s physical and mental requirements, and the agency loaded up the septuagenarian former astronaut and test pilot with a series of assignments. He was to go into orbit and do research on aged bodies. Well, John Glenn sure had one of those, and he slipped his aged body into his bright orange spaceflight suit and helmet and marched off to join the STS–95 crew.
Curt Brown and Steve Lindsey were the aviators for the mission, and they welcomed the old marine fighter pilot with open arms. The question of what citizen flew first in space was quickly forgotten, and all other critics and whiners and complainers were herded off into the nearby Florida swamps, where they were lost for days.
Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter, who had been John Glenn’s backup for his first launch on February 20, 1962, flew down to the Cape to join Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams, Matt Lauer, Katie Couric, David Bloom, Robert Hager, and me for NBC’s launch coverage. Scott Carpenter was there to re-create his famous good-luck good-bye. At the precise same moment, Carpenter was to say “God speed, John Glenn” as he had before, and Tom and Brian wanted me around for a little aged experience.
White House correspondent David Bloom (left) is seen here with field producer Dan Shepherd (right) covering John Glenn’s return to space for the Today Show. (Shepherd Collection).
Seventy-seven-year-old John Glenn relaxes among his experiments on his second space flight. (NASA).
The event had grown into a massive homecoming week at the Cape. The spaceport swelled with gray-haired folks falling off buildings and out of trees, and we seniors were all just tickled to our toes to see John Glenn climb aboard another spaceship. We prayed and wished him luck, and on October 29, 1998, at 2:19 P.M. Eastern time, the space Shuttle Discovery headed into a blue and happy sky. Those of us who had admired Glenn and appreciated his friendship for forty years were never more proud, and we spent nine days watching this seventy-seven-year-old never miss a step. He proved to be the champ we all knew he was by taking care of his assignments, having fun in orbit, and doing a little rocking and singing.
On Saturday, November 7, 1998, at 12:04 P.M. Eastern time, Discovery touched down on its Florida landing strip.
An hour or so later, after all the housekeeping chores on board the shuttle were over, John Glenn strolled off Discovery seemly without a care in the world.
Now you may say, “Why not?”
The why not is that the lack of gravity in space weakens the arms and legs, and it takes some thirty-something astronauts hours, sometimes even days, to get their land legs under them again. Most doctors felt Glenn would need a wheelchair—possibly for days.
Well, forget about it! John walked by me and winked, and I hit a smart salute and hid a couple of tears. The hope he’d just brought all us gray-haired “keep on going-ers” was the tonic we needed to keep dreaming and planning, to keep goals out there, marching through life with purpose to the end.
We celebrated John Glenn’s second flight with some pretty