Riding Rockets - Mike Mullane [80]
The last thing I wanted to talk about was Judy’s beauty and its effect on men and their wives. I mumbled some bullshit about her misreading the women and attempted to switch the conversation back to our training. A segue of “How ’bout them Astros?” would have been more sincere. Judy knew I was lying and I sensed she was hurt by the rejection of the wives. She ignored my training question and continued to talk about relationships, this time about her childhood relationship with her mother. I was shocked by this intimacy. I had never heard her talk about her past. She had been a TFNG for years before someone discovered she had been previously married and was divorced. Now she was opening her soul to me as if I were some harmless confidant. I could only assume she was trying to justify a heated telephone argument with her brother that she had recently conducted in my presence. The topic had been invitations for the Resnik family to attendDiscovery ’s launch. In that conversation it was obvious there was some tension in the family.
I wasn’t trained for this. I ached to return to the subject of communication satellite deployment. But Judy continued. She revealed a deep bitterness with her family’s demands that she date only Jewish boys and other aspects of teen oppression in the name of religion. (Gee, and I thought only us Catholics were screwed up.) I had more in common with this woman than I had previously thought. But Judy’s coming-of-age trauma had been significantly greater than mine. It had led to an estrangement from her mother. I couldn’t imagine a daughter dealing with that.
This was the only time Judy ever gave me a glimpse into her past. And, while I’m no Dr. Phil, I sensed she was a deeply wounded and lonely woman. Of course I also considered her vulnerability at this moment. She wasn’t crying, but I had never seen her more emotional. It would have been so easy to reach across and offer a consolation hug. I had a couple beers in me. My inhibitions were as feeble as the starlight. But I didn’t. I didn’t make any physical contact. Not a hand squeeze. Not a pat on the back. Not a hug. Nothing. My resistance to temptation was nothing short of miraculous. Those moments on that sand had been my Garden of Gethsemane. I offered Judy only conciliatory words about how things might change in the future for her and her mom. It was a prophetic comment. Things did change. Twenty-one months later Judy would die a few miles from where we now sat.
I rose from the sand. “We better get back to the crew quarters. Things are going to start early tomorrow.”
Chapter 18
Donna
A month prior to our June 25, 1984, launch date another milestone was passed. It wasn’t noted in any press release but it was significant all the same. At a crew dinner the wives selected two astronauts to be their family escorts. The expanded training hours in the homestretch to launch made all prime crewmembers absentee spouses and parents, so the astronaut office had created the family escort role to take some of the load off the families. They helped spouses deal with the logistics of traveling to KSC and the landing site. They helped with airline, rental car, and condo reservations and, in general, served as 24/7 contacts for spouses seeking help on any mission issue. Some of NASA’s rules on family travel necessitated this escort help. While NASA carried the spouses to launch and landing at government expense aboard the agency’s Gulfstream jets, children were not allowed on those aircraft. Their travel arrangements (and expenses) were the responsibility of the families. So, as they departed for the most stressful week of their lives, spouses had to pass their children to grandparents or other family members serving as travel escorts and deal with the coordination of getting them from the Orlando airport to their condos. The spouses were also required to arrange their own lodging. This could be a big headache if the mission slipped, particularly during the prime Florida tourist season. Some spouses of earlier