Riding Rockets - Mike Mullane [140]
We landed in Albuquerque and took a lab-chartered flight to the small Los Alamos airport. After checking into a motel, I called Judy at the KSC crew quarters to wish her good luck on tomorrow’s mission. I also teased her about the black cloud of delay that seemed to follow her. Her mission had already recorded two launch scrubs, one on January 25 for bad weather and then the next day for a problem with the side hatch.
“So you’re the bad-luck person who caused all ourDiscovery scrubs.”
“I don’t think so, Tarzan. It was Cheetah.” She was right about Hawley. Steve now had the unenviable record of nine strap-ins for two flights. Judy was only working on her sixth strap-in.
I asked her how the launch looked for tomorrow. “Good, except it’s supposed to be cold, down in the twenties. We’re worried about ice in the sound suppression system.”
“It’s all these shuttle launches that are changing the weather.”
She chuckled at my reply.
I kept the call brief knowing she probably had others to receive or make. “I just wanted to say good luck, JR. Please tell the others the same for me.” These were the last words I would ever speak to her.
“Thanks, Tarzan. I’ll see you back in Houston.” These were the last words I would ever hear from her.
The last hope to saveChallenger passed that night. When the Thiokol engineers learned of the extremely cold temperatures forecast at KSC, they convened a special teleconference with their NASA counterparts and argued that the mission should be delayed until the temperature warmed. Their justification was the fact that STS-51C, launched a year earlier with the coldest joint temperature yet—53 degrees—had experienced the worst primary O-ring blow-by of any launch. They suspected the cold temperatures had stiffened the rubberized O-rings and adversely affected their ability to seal. With an estimated joint temperature of about 30 degrees forChallenger, the same thing could happen tomorrow, they argued. They recommended the launch be delayed until the joint temperature was at least 53 degrees. The suggestion brought a fusillade of objection. One NASA official responded, “My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch, next April?” Another said he was “appalled” by the recommendation to postpone the launch. They correctly pointed out that there had been blow-by observed after launches in warm weather, a fact that suggested there was no correlation between temperature and the probability of O-ring failure. The arguments continued for several hours but, in the end, Thiokol management caved in to NASA’s pressure and gave the SRBs a go for launch. The Golden Age had only hours remaining.
Chapter 26
Challenger
After waking on January 28, I flipped on the TV to see what was happening withChallenger. The STS-51L countdown was running two hours late. I had plenty of time for my morning run so I dressed in my sweats and stepped into the crystalline twilight.
Few cities in America are more beautifully sited than Los Alamos, New Mexico. Set on a shoulder of a dormant volcano at an elevation of 7,200 feet, it commands a godly view of the Rio Grande Valley and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east. The city is built upon multiple mesas separated by dramatic mini-grand canyons. The soil is soft volcanic tuff and eons of erosion have sculpted the terrain into bizarre and breathtaking shapes.
While Los Alamos was a joy for the eye, it was a pain for the lungs. In its thin air I was unable to keep the pace I regularly ran at sea level and I throttled back to a more leisurely jog. The dawn was pinking the eastern sky while a nearly full moon graced the west. I steered myself on a path through a forest of ponderosa pine, the scent of their needles perfuming the air. A herd of white-tailed deer, long accustomed to humans, didn’t bolt at my appearance.
I ran for half an hour and then dropped