Riding Rockets - Mike Mullane [54]
I wasn’t the only astronaut to be surprised on the way to a stage. Hoot Gibson once served as a last-minute replacement speaker for Judy Resnik at a women’s event. The MC began the introduction by reading Judy’s entire biography. Hoot was dumbstruck. Judy wasn’t there. Everybody in the audience knew he was to be the substitute speaker, yet the MC droned on with Judy’s bio as if she were going to step out of the wings to give the program. Only after it was completely rendered did Hoot realize the MC’s purpose in reading it. It was to establish Judy’s irreplaceable importance to NASA. The MC went on with Hoot’s introduction in words that loosely translated, “Judy is so important to NASA there was no way she could be spared to come to speak at today’s event. But NASA could easily do without this useless dirt bag of a man so they sent him. We’ll just have to be disappointed and listen to his forgettable comments.” Then, after Hoot’s speech, the MC presented him with a plaque inscribed to Judy.
As my NASA career continued, I discovered new land mines to step on while in front of the public. In the Q&A that followed one of my speeches, a woman asked, “Have you seen any aliens?”
I answered, “No, but I believe there is alien life elsewhere in the universe. There are so many trillions of stars it’s easy for me to believe there will be planets around some of those stars that harbor intelligent life.” I should have quit right there, but like a fool, I continued. “However, I don’t believe any UFOs have landed on earth. Why,” I rhetorically asked the audience, “would an advanced civilization go to the trouble of building an interstellar craft, fly to earth to find it teeming with life, and then only hover over lonely women and beer-drinking men?” The crowd laughed. The woman asking the question did not. If looks could kill, I was a dead man.
The next week I received an anonymous letter postmarked Salt Lake City, Utah, viciously attacking my position on aliens. It was clear the writer believedthe truth is out there and that I was part of the cover-up. I suspect the letter was from the woman who had asked the alien question.
This question was just one of many that could turn a public appearance into a gut-wrenching torture. “What happens when you fart in a spacesuit?” or “Do women have periods in space?” were the easy ones to answer. But questions like “Are there gay and lesbian astronauts?” and “Has there been sex in space?” had the potential to put a TFNG’s name in a Johnny Carson monologue.
The prizewinner in the category of fielding the most difficult question was Don Peterson (class of 1969). After one of his speeches, several members of the audience came to him with their questions. One asked, “Is there privacy on the shuttle to masturbate?” Don was immediately thrown into a panic. It was like being asked, “Do you feel better since you’ve stopped beating your wife?” It was impossible to answer. He considered saying no, but that implied astronauts had searched for such privacy. He imagined his face on a supermarket tabloid under the headline “Astronaut Complains: No Privacy to Spank the Monkey.” A yes reply held equally embarrassing possibilities: “Astronaut Admits to Five-Knuckle Shuffle in Space.” He mumbled an incomprehensible answer, praying whatever it was it wouldn’t come back to haunt him in theNational Enquirer.
As Blaine Hammond learned in the El Paso flight operations office, the most dreaded form of public speaking was a TV interview. A streak of antiaircraft fire passing your wing doesn’t get your heart rate up like looking into a black camera lens and hearing, “Three…two…one…you’re live.” For me, it was a cadence that always brought on nausea. Once, as I was listening to this on-the-air countdown, the anchor leaned in to me and said, “It’s just like a shuttle launch. When you hit zero, there’s no going back.” He was right. Hearing, “You’re live,” was just like hearing the rumble of SRB ignition. You were flying. The camera was scattering your image