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By Root 636 0

up a space sight I had never seen before. I was looking through the overhead windows in a direction that was precisely “down”-Sun when the upward-pointing attitude control thrusters fired. As their effluent of billions of ice crystals blossomed above the orbiter, a perfect shadow ofAtlantis appeared and was carried into infinity at hundreds of miles per hour. The strikingly beautiful sight reminded me of Captain Kirk’sStarship Enterprise dashing into warp speed. I kept staring, hoping the display would repeat but it did not. The Sun dipped below the horizon andAtlantis was plunged into preternatural darkness. But there was one certainty about orbit flight: the passing of one incredible space sight only meant the arrival of another. My eyes were drawn to the lime green curtain of an aurora borealis waving over the Arctic Ocean far to the north. It brightened and dimmed as the rain of magnetic particles from the Sun varied in intensity. I was still staring at this phenomenon when the long streak of a shooting star brought my mind back to our heat-shield problem. In just a few hours that would beAtlantis …a shooting star blazing across the Pacific with a tail of ionized gas a thousand miles long. We were locked in an aluminum machine that would melt at 1,000 degrees. On reentry the belly tiles would be subjected to 2,000 degrees. The nose and leading edge of the wings would see even hotter temperatures. Just a couple inches of silica and carbon fiber were all that protected us from immolation, and our camera survey had shown some of those inches had been ripped away. The heat would definitely be getting closer to that aluminum. And what about the missing tile? Could the wind use the cavity it created to grab the edge of adjacent tiles and strip even more off, just like roof shingles being sequentially stripped in a hurricane? Engineers had always assured us that was not possible, but then I was certain the SRB nose cone engineers would have assured us their work could not fail either.

Of one thing I was certain. IfAtlantis ’s wounds were mortal, our fortress cockpit would protect us long enough to watch death’s approach. Certainly it would last long enough for us to see multiple warning messages as various systems were affected by the heat. We would probably live to experience the out-of-control tumble and breakup of the vehicle. Even after our fortress was penetrated by the incandescent heat, death would not be immediate. Our pressure suits would protect us from the loss of cockpit air. Only when the fire penetrated the fabric of our LESes would we die. If we were lucky, unconsciousness would come before the heat began to consume our flesh.

I kept returning to MCC’s assessment for comfort. It was hard not to yield to their conclusion that we were going to be fine. I had never been associated with any teams as good as those that manned the MCC. But ifChallenger had proven anything, it was that great teams do fail. A lot of very smart people had mishandled the O-ring issue that killed theChallenger crew. Were they now mishandling our heat-shield damage? Would anAtlantis presidential commission report end up containing the statement, “The crew radioed that the damage to their heat tiles looked serious, but in Houston their concerns were dismissed”?

The anxiety was exhausting and I finally gave in to Hoot’s solution. The day before, as he floated to the windows to do some sightseeing, he said, “No reason to die all tensed up.” I would do my best to relax and enjoy the sights.

Chapter 35

Riding a Meteor

“Fifty seconds.” Hoot gave the time remaining until the OMS deorbit burn. I floated behind Jerry Ross and watched the countdown on the computer displays. As the burn execute time neared, I tightened my grip on Jerry’s seat. The one-quarter G of the thrusting OMS engines was trivial but it was enough to put anything unrestrained on the back wall, me included.

Astronauts have great faith in the OMS engines. They are the essence of simplicity. They have no spinning turbo-pumps to worry us, not even an igniter to fail and