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By Root 570 0

she was qualified to be one. I had watched her fly formation from the backseats of T-38s and lead instrument approaches in bad weather and do it as well as me (and my backseat fighter and T-38 time had made me a damned fine instrument pilot). I had seen her expertly operate the robot arm. I had watched her rappel off the side of the orbiter mock-up in our emergency training, parasail into the water in our survival training, work 20 feet underwater in a 300-pound spacesuit. In simulation after simulation, she had instantly and correctly reacted to countless emergencies. I think the best testimonial for Judy’s proficiency was the fact it was never a topic of astronaut scuttlebutt. In a strange way, that was the best compliment an astronaut could achieve, not being discussed behind his or her back. And I never heard Judy’s name attached to a “Who let that bozo in the door?” comment. Over a beer or in a jog with a TFNG, I would hear comments about the misadventures of other astronauts. When one TFNG MS was removed from being a robot arm operator, it took about ten milliseconds before the reason was being shared in whispers. He maneuvered the arm like a fifteen-year-old kid learning to use a stick shift. There was locker-room gossip about an MS jeopardizing the deployment of a satellite because of a failure to follow the checklist. One TFNG accidentally engaged the shuttle backup flight system during a prelaunchpad test and caused a delay in the countdown. Judy’s name was never in any of these conversations, the ultimate testimonial to her competency. She wasn’t the smartest or quickest TFNG—Steve Hawley held that position. Judy was like me. We weren’t stars. But we were solid, dependable. We could be counted on to get the job done.

Until my STS-41D association with Judy, I had believed it impossible for a man to be the close friend of an attractive woman. It was a fact of testosterone as irrefutable as gravity was a fact of nature. Men see attractive women as sex objects and that destroys any hope of close friendship. But I had discovered an exception to that rule. When a man and woman are thrown together for several years of training for a journey that has the potential to kill them, the man learns to see through the woman’s youth and beauty and measure her proficiency. He learns to see her as somebody whose response in an emergency might meanhis life or death. On that June evening, six years after we first met, I could now see and appreciate Judy’s skills as an astronaut. I could trust her with my life. Tomorrow, I would do exactly that.

Several years later I would learn this friendship had placed my name on the office grapevine. AfterChallenger, I was in Hank Hartsfield’s backseat on a T-38 flight. We had been sharing our thoughts on the disaster and the loss of so many friends when Hank had commented, “Judy’s death must have been particularly hard on you.” I was confused by the statement. The death of all the crew had been hard on me. I asked him, “Why do you say that?” To which Hank had replied, “Well…being that you two were sleeping together.” I was stunned. I proclaimed innocence but I knew he didn’t believe me. Maybe it is possible for a man to share a close relationship with a beautiful woman that does not include sex, but don’t expect other men to believe it.

At the crew quarters I showered and returned to the main conference room. Hank was my only company. He was reading the newspaper, mumbling about the idiocy of liberals and their destruction of the country. “Goddammit, I wish Ted Kennedy would find another bridge…with deeper and wider water under it.” I had long before learned not to respond. It would only elicit a filibuster on the topic. When Hank got wound up on politics, you could never escape.

Our satellite TV, for some fortuitous reason, received the Playboy Channel. I marveled at this fact as much as I marveled that alligators didn’t chase astronauts. How did the Playboy Channel end up on the TV in the astronaut crew quarters? I suspect it was just one of those government snafus. There was a KSC bean