Riding Rockets - Mike Mullane [55]
Live interviews could be made even more torturous by the AD antics of other astronauts. Several of us were in a Houston bar one evening when the TV caught our eye. A local station was airing a call-in interview with Ed Gibson (class of 1965) and TFNG Kathy Sullivan. One of our group immediately asked the bartender to borrow the phone and called in his questions: for Kathy, “How do girls pee in the toilet?” and for Ed, “What does Mrs. Gibson think of Mr. Gibson flying single women around the country in a NASA jet on overnight business trips?” We all hooted and hollered as the victims struggled with their answers.
Interviews with the print press were much more relaxing but still held the potential to screw an astronaut. During one interview I explained to the reporter my feelings of boundless joy and visceral fear while being driven to the pad for my first launch. I said, “To see the xenon-lightedDiscovery and know it was my shuttle, that I was only hours from the culmination of a lifetime dream come true, nearly had me crying with joy.” But I was quoted as having said, “Astronauts cry fromfear as they are driven to the launchpad.” The story was picked up by Paul Harvey and repeated to a huge national audience on his radio show. I was outraged and excruciatingly embarrassed.
Experiences like this explained why the astronaut office bulletin board occasionally displayed news articles in which an offending quote was circled with “I didn’t say this” written next to it by a pissed-off astronaut.
On August 31, 1979, Chris Kraft came to the astronaut office to tell us NASA was dropping thecandidate suffix from our titles. Apparently we had impressed the agency enough for them to designate usastronauts nearly a year earlier than originally planned. We were no longer Ascans. I was happy to hear it. Even though I wouldn’t consider myself an astronaut until I got into space, I was tired of having to explain the title on PR trips and watching the crestfallen faces of event planners as they realized I wasn’t thereal astronaut they had been expecting. At our next office party we were each given silver astronaut pins to go with our new title. These were lapel pins fashioned in the shape of the official astronaut symbol, a three-rayed shooting star passing through an ellipse. When we finally flew in space, we would be given gold pins. Actually, we would then be allowed to purchase, at a cost of $400, a gold astronaut pin. (The silver pins were paid for out of the office coffee fund.)
After returning from the party, I took my pin off, put it in a drawer, and never wore it again. To me it was a meaningless token, like the plastic pilot wings that stewardesses give to children. Those Delta Airline wings weren’t going to make a child a pilot and a silver pin and title weren’t going to make me an astronaut. Only a ride into space could do that.
Chapter 15
Columbia
Columbiawas less than a year from launch, and, when it flew, it would mark NASA’s first manned spaceflight in six years. That was a concern for the NASA safety office. A six-year hiatus in manned operations provided a fertile environment for complacency. In defense, the office sent astronauts to various factories and shuttle support facilities to refocus the workers. We wanted to put a face on manned spaceflight, to reacquaint people with the deadly consequences of making a mistake on the job. Teams of astronauts were dispatched around the country and around the globe to give speeches, shake hands, and pass out NASA safety posters. We astronauts referred to these appearances as “widows and orphans” visits. While we never said, “Don’t fuck up or you could kill us and make widows of our wives,” that was exactly the message we hoped to impart by just