Riding Rockets - Mike Mullane [39]
After dinner a load of illegal fireworks materialized from somebody’s trunk. My kids suspected J.O. since he was so cool. Whatever the source, the astronauts were all over them like the eighth graders the alcohol had rendered us. Even “flaming hookers” didn’t hold the promise of entertainment like drunken astronauts playing with fireworks. Soon the night was alight with sparklers, fountains, and assorted illegal devices normally seen only in combat firefights. Aerial bombs exploded over the campsite. Rockets swished into the black. If it hadn’t been for the dampness left by an earlier thunderstorm, we would have burned down the surrounding forest. A couple of the wives were sober enough to shout at us, “For guys who depend on their eyes and hands for a living, you’re sure taking chances,” but we laughed away the warnings.
It was great fun until a particularly wicked aerial mortar fell off its stand. Balls of fire spewed into the crowd. There were shrieks of panic as mothers swept up children and hustled them behind the cabin walls. I flattened myself behind Fisher’s canoe (finally extracted from the tree) as one ball whistled by my head. I was quickly joined by my son, Pat. With fear swimming in his eyes, he exclaimed, “Dad, don’t you think this is kind of dangerous?” Even a ten-year-old could sense the idiocy of our play. We had become the kids. We were bulletproof. We were immortal. We were astronauts.
After the last bomb had exploded and the kids were asleep, the adults settled around a fire. We were growing close. Our competitiveness and the differences in personality (militant feminists to sexist pigs; propeller-headed scientists to Chuck Yeager clones) would ultimately strain relationships. It was impossible to throw thirty-five people together and not have some acrimony. But, like the fear the wives couldn’t yet see, it was still too early for the enmity to get in the way of our fun.
As a sign of our closeness, we now had our class name: TFNGs. There was no official requirement that a new class of astronauts name themselves. It just happened. TheMercury 7 astronauts had become the “Original Seven.” The class of 1984 would later become known as “Maggots,” a play on the derogatory term that marine drill instructors used in reference to their new recruits. None of these names were ever formally put to a vote. Only through constant usage were they legitimized. For us, TFNG stuck. In polite company it translated to Thirty-Five New Guys. Not very creative, it would seem. However, it was actually a twist on an obscene military term. In every military unit a new person was a FNG, a “fucking new guy.” You remained a FNG until someone newer showed up, then they became the FNG. While the public knew us as the Thirty-Five New Guys, we knew ourselves as The Fucking New Guys.
Deep in the heart of Texas, the fire crackled and glowing embers swirled skyward. More beers were popped. Brewster Shaw strummed his guitar to an Eagles tune as our talk turned, as it always did, to when we might fly in space. Like teenagers wishing for Saturday night to arrive, we wished for miracles to speed us to our launches. Our dreams were of the incredible things we would do. We would fly missions into polar orbits and fly jet packs on tetherless spacewalks. We would carry every science satellite, every military satellite, every communication satellite. We would use a robot arm to grapple satellites and repair them in orbit. We were going to do it all…The Fucking New Guys.
With the dream talk circling the fire I looked into the star-spangled night and felt supremely happy…but only for a moment. I was too seasoned not to know there would be tears on this journey. Some at this very campfire would die as astronauts. Perhaps I would, I thought. Perhaps in