Riding Rockets - Mike Mullane [3]
The psych said nothing. There was only a prolonged quiet in which all I heard was the scratching of pencil on paper. I had the cleanest colon in the world but my brain was constipated. It had FAILED me. I was certain that was the word being written by the psych. FAILED. Surely the other 199 candidates would breeze through this test. They would probably get to those final numbers…23…16…9…2…in a few blinks of the eye and then ask the psych if he wanted them to repeat the test doing square roots of the numbers. I was certain the man was thinking,Who let this guy in the door?
With nothing to lose, and in a desperate attempt to end the maddening silence, I quipped, “I’m pretty good at counting backward by ones.”
He didn’t laugh. “That won’t be necessary.” His icy tone confirmed it. I had failed.
After the 7s test, the doc once again positioned his pencil and asked, “If you died and could come back as anything, what would that be?”
More panic seized me. Where was this question leading? Into what minefield of the psyche would I now stumble? I was beginning to wish for the masturbation question.
There was no clock running this time, so I gave the question a little thought. Anything? Should I come back as a person? Alan Shepard? That sounded like a safe answer. But then it dawned on me, Shepard, like all test pilots, hated shrinks. Was it Shepard who had dismissively suggested the blank page “was upside down”? I couldn’t recall, but I didn’t want to take a chance. I’d better stay away from a wish for reincarnation as an astronaut icon who might be infamous among psychs for trivializing their profession.
I asked for clarification. “When you say anything? Do you mean as another person or object or animal?”
He merely shrugged with body language that said, “I’m not giving you any leads.” Clearly he wanted me to step on one of those psyche mines by myself.
I toyed with the idea of saying I would like to come back as Wilbur Wright or Robert Goddard or Chuck Yeager or some other aviation/rocketry pioneer. Perhaps this would send a signal that being an astronaut was my destiny. But again, my mind’s voice whispered caution. Maybe such a reincarnation wish would identify me as a megalomaniac in search of glory.
Then, in a burst of inspiration I had it. “I would like to come back as…an eagle.” It was a brilliant answer. Clearly it conveyed my desire to fly yet didn’t give the doctor a door to crawl farther into my synapses. (I later heard one interviewee say he was tempted to answer the question with “I’d like to come back as Cheryl Tiegs’s bicycle seat.” It would have been interesting to see how the psych would have responded to that.)
My eagle answer was acknowledged by more pencil scratching.
His next question was an obvious attempt to have me judge myself. “Tell me, Mike, if you died right now, what epitaph would your family put on your headstone?”
Boy, was this going to be easy,I thought. After faking some serious deliberation I replied, “I think it would read, ‘A loving husband and devoted father.’” I was sure I had scored some points. Could there have been a better answer to convey the message that my family came first, that I had my priorities right? In reality I would have sold my wife and children into slavery for a ride into space. I thought it best not to mention that fact.
“What is it that you feel is your unique strength?”
I wanted to reply, “I can hold an enema for fifteen minutes,” but instead said, “I always do my best at whatever I do.” For once, I told the truth.
Psych One’s interview continued. I was asked whether I was right-or-left-handed (right) and what religion I professed (Catholic). He also inquired about my birth order (number two of six). He seemed to write a long time after hearing these answers. I would later learn a disproportionate number of astronauts