Time in space

Veterans of previous space missions discuss life aboard a shuttle


They probably had just witnessed the most incredible light show out the windows - like flying through a pulsing red neon tube or a storm of cotton candy.

Their arms were feeling heavier and heavier, after days of weightlessness.

The ground was whizzing past, as if someone were yanking a topographical map beneath them.

They were close to that point high above Texas where Florida becomes visible in the distance.

And, say veterans of previous space shuttle missions, the crew aboard Columbia on Saturday morning was in that final phase of the flight when a certain routine kicks in - computers do much of the work - and there is time to relax a little. Thoughts race towards home ahead of the speeding craft, and linger on those gathered at the runway for a big welcome.

"You're excited about having the mission completed, and you're anticipating going home,'' says Rick Hauck, veteran of three missions who commanded the Discovery in 1988 on the first shuttle launch after the 1986 Challenger disaster. "No matter how spectacular a space mission is, your thoughts are always at home.''

No two shuttle missions are alike - there have been 113 since Columbia was first launched in 1981 - but veterans describe common experiences that seem woven through many flights. They can picture themselves in those final, mundane-seeming minutes before Columbia's sensors began to fail and the craft disintegrated. They can imagine what it was like in the hours and days before.

"I'm sure the crew (of Columbia) was just in awe of what was being seen outside the windows,'' says Tom Jones, veteran of four missions, including one on Columbia in 1996 that lasted nearly 18 days, the longest ever. "I have the sense this unfolded so rapidly they didn't have a chance to... worry about it.''

Your mission begins with about three hours of waiting on your back in your awkward orange spacesuit. You're on the launch pad, 190 feet in the air, strapped on top of four-and-a-half million pounds of hardware and explosive fuel. There's not much to do until about nine minutes before takeoff, which leaves plenty of time to be afraid.

Even after the Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch, shuttle crews don't confess to fear, exactly. They're nervous, but it's more out of performance anxiety than dread of possible annihilation.

"The curtain is about to rise, and do I have the skills to carry out the job?'' says Jones.

"My psyche is different when I'm flying from when I'm watching,'' says Charles Bolden, veteran of four missions, including his first as pilot of Columbia - 10 days before the Challenger was destroyed. "When I'm watching, I'm a basket case. When you fly, you figure nothing is going to happen to you; you're bulletproof.

"Every time I watch a launch, even today, (the Challenger) is on my mind,'' says Bolden, who was also pilot of the mission that deployed the Hubble telescope, and commander of his last two missions. "Every time I flew, I never thought about it.''

Says Sally Ride, flight engineer aboard the Challenger in 1983 and 1984: "Sitting on the launch pad waiting for launch and the first moments after ignition, what I remember clearly is really trying to struggle to focus my mind on specific tasks I was supposed to do. I knew I didn't want to think about the big picture, being in a rocket that was about to launch.

"Right after ignition, I remember being swept over with a feeling of a kind of helplessness,'' Ride says. "There's so much power, I just realised there was nothing I could do to change what was going to happen.''

Several seconds before liftoff, the main engines start, and the shuttle trembles. Most of the noise is blocked out by your padded helmet.

It feels like someone is kicking your chair up to the ceiling, and someone else is sitting on your chest. The solid rocket boosters kick in. It feels like you're in a truck rolling down a dirt road at 50 mph, but you're being propelled by 6 million pounds of thrust.

As you leave the atmosphere, the sky outside the windows turns from blue to black. After about eight-and-a-half minutes you're in orbit, travelling at more than 17,000 mph. Now the ride feels as smooth as chamois on glass.

"It's when you are out in space that you feel the most safe,'' Hauck says. "It's the most serene.''

Within an hour after reaching orbit you can climb out of the spacesuit and get into something more comfortable - perhaps shorts, a T-shirt and socks. You get used to weightlessness, pushing off a wall and floating to where you need to go. You remember to clamp off the straw after you finish drinking something. If you forget, a bubble of juice will float around until you suck it in or wipe it up midair with a towel.

Workdays of 16 to 18 hours are packed with experiments, analysis and system maintenance.
Some periods are programmed to such exhaustive detail that you're doing a different task every five minutes.

Only after the work is there time for simple wonder at being in space.

"As a human being, you want to look out the window, you want to relax. You take an hour out of your sleep to float by a window with your camera,'' Jones says. "That's the way I'll remember the best times in space - with friends, floating next to each other by the window, saying, 'Did you see that!'"

What they saw was the palette of Earth's colours, the green of the forest, tan of the desert, blue or green of the ocean, white of the ice. From the shuttles' relatively low orbit, the planet is not the shimmering disk seen by Apollo astronauts. Shuttle passengers see more detail.
Meteorites burn out below you; thunderstorms flash across the darkened planet. The sun rises or sets every 45 minutes. Sunrise is a cascade of colors rising up from the horizon, until it's so bright you must avert your gaze.

When it's time to come home, shuttle crews know their vessels are about to be tested and tortured by extreme heat and buffeting winds - Earth's welcome to space travellers.

But they've never considered this final phase of flight dangerous - certainly not as threatening as takeoff.

"It's very unforgiving, leaving orbit,'' Ride says. "There's a lot of intensity during that hour, and the hour goes by fast.''

The crew don spacesuits again. About an hour before touchdown, it's time to slow down from 17,500 mph and begin the descent. The shuttle is programmed to rotate so its rear faces in the direction of travel, and maneuvering engines are fired up for a period of time, acting like a brake by firing against the direction of travel. Then the craft is rotated again with nose forward.

The crew is busy with housekeeping tasks and monitoring dials and displays to ensure each mechanical and electronic sequence is proceeding as required - "like a chain of dominoes,'' Jones says.

"Typically at this time, you're just sitting there enjoying the ride, watching all the controls and displays, making sure the computers are flying the vehicle the way they should,'' Bolden says.

At about 400,000 feet, the craft begins encountering the atmosphere and the light show begins. Air molecules on the vessel's leading edges are superheated