Riding Rockets

God, let us gowas my prayer. The thought of having to do this tomorrow made me nauseous. Maybe the cards had been a sign. Maybe seven would be my lucky number. At least I had Pepe’s rookie complaints to entertain me. They came over the intercom in a nonstop flood: “Oh God, my back is killing me…My bladder is ready to explode…My stomach is being pushed out of my mouth…I got a cramp in my calf…I’m dying of thirst…I’m going to puke before I even get into space.” J.O. jokingly asked how he would throw up in the LES while strapped to his seat. Ever the engineer, Pepe gave the question a moment of serious thought and replied, “I’ll just roll my head around and puke in the back of my helmet.”

Maybe I was just punch-drunk with exhaustion and fear but I found Pepe’s constant dialogue hilarious. I was going to puke from laughing. J.O. warned, “Don’t make me laugh, Pepe. I’ll fall into another coughing fit.” J.O. could barely talk without inducing a phlegmy hack.

After several waves of complaints, Pepe prefaced his next chapter with “Guys, I know I’m not a wimp, but…” and then continued the litany. John Casper picked up on the preamble and began to use it every time he had a complaint. “Guys, I know I’m not a wimp, but…” Soon the entire upstairs cockpit was doing it. Pepe heard my laughing cackle and continued his comedy routine by mimicking it…an explosion of rapid and high-pitchedhee, hee, hee s. That got me giggling even more. If the launch director was listening he probably thought we had all gone insane.

Pepe’s complaints faded and we looked for other ways to occupy our time and take our minds off our misery. We resorted to the old standby—roasting the flight surgeon. He was a captive audience, required to monitor our intercom but forbidden to speak to us directly unless we requested a conversation, and none of us were about to do that.

“I hear the doc’s wife is having an affair with a chiropractor.”

“And his daughter is sleeping with a malpractice lawyer.”

“And his son is studying to be a malpractice lawyer.”

There was a fake “Shhhhh…He might hear us.”

“He’s not listening. He’s going over his stock portfolio.”

“He’s on the phone with his Hong Kong broker getting the fix on gold and the yen.”

“He’s probably phoning for a tee time.”

“Hell, it’s Sunday. He’s not even there. Docs don’t work on Sunday.”

“Well, they don’t worksober on Sundays.”

Then we began to enumerate the perks the flight surgeons enjoyed. “They get hired by NASA as GS Infinities,” a reference to the higher government service pay grade they were given.

“They get reserved parking places.”

“They get preferential tee times.”

“They just have to ask and women take off their clothes for them.”

The banter finally ended and the intercom fell silent. Even Pepe got quiet. We all retreated into our own little chaotic worlds of pain and fear and prayer. Around T-45 minutes the range safety officer threw in the first wrench of what had been a smooth countdown. “RSO is no-go for blast.” The blast to which he referred was the space shuttle being blown up. The RSO’s computers had determined atmospheric conditions would amplify the power of the shuttle’s destruction and jeopardize the safety of those around the LCC. His no-go call elicited groans and profanities in the cockpit. We’d reached the point of,I’ll kill anybody who gets in the way of our launch. The RSO must have sensed the universal outrage at his no-go call and quickly reran the calculations to come up with acceptable numbers. “The RSO is go for blast.” We all cheered…and laughed at the irony. We were cheering because a detonating shuttle would now kill only us and that wasgood because it meant the countdown could continue.

At T-5 minutes Casper started the APUs and the flight control system checkout followed. Everything was nominal and I was beginning to actually believe I had carried my luck from the card table to the cockpit.

“Atlantis…close helmet visors.” Before complying with LCC’s call I heard J.O. and John snort Afrin for a last time. I would be flying with a CDR and PLT on drugs.

I rechecked my harness. Other than look at a wall of lockers, it was all I could do. God, how I wished I was upstairs and had the distraction of the instruments. I had nothing whatsoever to do but dwell on my fear. I was the gas chamber victim waiting for the tablets to fall.

And then…“RSO is no-go for backup computer.”

The intercom was immediately alive with our colorful assessments of the RSO:bastard, asshole, sonofabitch! We were now at the point ofI’ll kill anybody AND THEIR WIFE AND CHILDREN AND MOTHER who gets in the way of our launch.