Riding Rockets
Sky Walking
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Keeping missions under control
REVIEW BY CHRIS SCOTT "Challenger, you're go at throttle up." "Roger, Houston. Go at throttle up." Those were the last words spoken between Mission Control in Houston and the space shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986. Moments later the shuttle disintegrated, killing its seven-person crew. Commemorating the 25th anniversary of that tragedy, two astronauts have written memoirs that, combined, provide a detailed history of the shuttle program from the beginning. That the voices of the memoirs are very different seems appropriate given the evolution of the program from its heady initiation in the 1970s to the troubled—and apparently final—present days of what was intended to be a fully operational, safe and cost-effective space plane. Mike Mullane, author of Riding Rockets, is an astronaut in the mold of the early pioneers of NASA, the kind of "Right Stuff," politically incorrect Air Force veteran who would have been at home in the male-dominated world of space flight à la 1965. But entering NASA with the first class of shuttle astronauts in 1978 put him in the same group with the first women and minority astronauts. In all his 35 years, Mullane had never dealt with women as equals, and he had to learn—often the hard way—that "female astronaut" was not an oxymoron. His memoir is full of the gaffs and epiphanies that came as he learned the lesson, accepted the new reality and ultimately formed a close personal and professional relationship with Judy Resnik, with whom he flew his first mission. Throughout the book Mullane uses the term "arrested development" to describe both himself and many of his male astronaut colleagues. The term fits. He seems to delight in telling as many space-toilet stories as possible, and his colorful language and off-color stories would seem to have more in common with the proverbial sailor than a star voyager. But Mullane's ribald sense of humor makes for an endearingly entertaining read, and his willingness to tell it like it was gives great insight into the years when NASA was trying to shift from moon-shot to space-truck mentality. Ultimately, the institutional "we can't fail" attitude that put 12 men on the moon led to the loss of Challenger and Mullane's friend Resnik. He pulls no punches in his criticism of NASA management or in his description of the mortal danger that every astronaut gladly accepts as the trade-off to fly 200 miles above the earth. Arrested development or not, Mullane was awed by the views he had of the home planet, and his description of spending a sleepless night floating in front of the shuttle windows, watching Earth glide by under him, will delight every reader who has dreamed of traveling the heavens. Astronaut evolved In Sky Walking, Thomas D. Jones picks up where Mullane leaves off, telling the story of an apparently mature, post-Challenger shuttle program that still managed to ignore warnings that could have prevented the loss of the shuttle Columbia in 2003. Jones is also ex-Air Force, but a more businesslike bomber pilot and engineer. His memoir is less edgy, more sanitized and focuses on the scientific more than the scatological. Still, even straight prose can't mask the excitement of a countdown, liftoff and entry into Earth's orbit. Jones takes the reader along four times as he recounts his shuttle missions, the last of which was to the International Space Station where he logged more than 19 hours of spacewalking. Jones presents an in-depth view of the life of a modern astronaut. Whether boning up on system operations manuals, jetting around the world in their personal fleet of supersonic jets, or spending hour after hour in the giant swimming-pool space-walk training facility, it is a very busy and often hazardous existence. It also puts tremendous strains on astronaut families, whose attendance at shuttle launches is mandatory (NASA publicity doesn't allow no-shows). Jones' wife had to watch each time her husband was shot into orbit strapped to rockets that can either deliver a million pounds of barely controlled thrust or an explosion that would vaporize the ship and crew instantly. Jones expresses deep gratitude for his wife's tolerance of this torture, and for the encouragement that she gave while he pursued his dream of space flight. Ultimately, both Riding Rockets and Sky Walking are testaments to human- kind's fierce desire to explore and are timely reminders that space flight remains a dangerous, but worthy adventure. Chris Scott fondly remembers watching the Apollo 11 moon landing on his grandparents' color TV.
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