Riding Rockets - Mike Mullane [82]
The final two days before a launch were designed to be relaxing. There were no simulations. We studied our checklists, flew in T-38s, and enjoyed suppers with our wives. But relaxed? Not a chance. I was hours from achieving a lifelong dream. Pure adrenaline was surging in my veins. Sleep was a struggle. The night terrors were ready to awaken me at the instant of unconsciousness.
We said the final good-bye to our wives at an L–1 luncheon at the astronaut beach house.*The last time I had been there was with Judy. As Donna stepped from the van, I was glad I had no regrets about that night. The NASA-catered lunch was attended by our wives, the family escorts, and key launch personnel. The gathering was informal. There were no speeches, no toasts. Everyone helped themselves from a table set with sandwich fixings and chips. We filled our plates, found a place to park a beer, and enjoyed ourselves.
After lunch, all but our significant others departed and we were left alone to say farewell. Diane Coats took it hard. She was a naval aviator’s wife. She knew the danger. Hank’s wife, Fran, seemed composed. This was her second time through the drama and that probably helped. Or maybe she was dying inside but hid it for the benefit of the younger wives. After all, she was the commander’s spouse and had to set the example. Our payload specialist, Charlie Walker, and his wife were struggling. Judy was spared the spouse separation issue. If Sally Ride, Steve Hawley’s wife, was experiencing any fear, it wasn’t on display.
Donna and I walked to the beach and turned north. The day was a furnace and the surf splashing on our legs was welcome. Just a few miles away was Pad 39A andDiscovery. In our stroll we joined the end of a line of astronauts and their spouses, stretching two decades into the past, who had made this same walk in the shadow of their machines: Redstones, Atlases, Titans, and Saturns. A river of tears had been shed on these sands as couples struggled to come to grips with their tomorrows and the potential for glory or death. Now it was our turn.
I was ill-equipped to deal with this moment. When it came to emotions, I was my mother’s son. I once teased Mom about her seeming lack of emotion and she replied, “You’ll never know what a Pettigrew [her maiden name] is feeling. It’s just the way God made us. We keep it all inside.” At the DNA exchange of my conception I had been stamped a Pettigrew. It’s not that I don’t deeply feel things or that I’m afraid of unmanly labels if I reveal them. It’s that I can’t. What I feel in my soul and how those feelings are verbalized are two entirely different things.
The good-bye could not be delayed and Donna finally brought it to the surface. I could hear her sniffling. She stopped and embraced me. “Mike, hold me.” As I had always done in poignant moments in my life, I now tried to hide behind humor. “We could go back to the beach house bedroom and do more than hold each other.” Always the joker, that was me.
“Just shut up, Mike, and hold me. It’s not funny.”
She sobbed into my neck and I felt like shit. I tried to calm her with comments about the shuttle’s critical component redundancy, but that went over about as well as my “Let’s make whoopee” comment. I wasn’t going to talk her out of her fear. This was a woman who knew the cost of high-performance flight. She had held