5
A Flash, a Roar, and a First
The training program for astronauts is tough. It is extensive, intensive, time-consuming, and relentless in its expectations. In the months, and often years, that lead up to a launch, astronauts endure as much physical, psychological, and academic probing as anyone on Earth. They also fly planes, scuba dive, skydive, make speeches, and deal with an often cynical media and an indifferent public. They also have to stay in shape, absorb reams of data pertinent to their new calling, adjust to unfamiliar and often contradictory work demands, juggle impossible schedules, and try to figure out just where they fit in with their colleagues, instructors, mentors, and bosses. On a personal level, they have to maintain family stability, attempt to give as much of themselves as humanly possible at home, and work out compromises within their particular circumstance. There is little time off, and few chances for relaxation or reflection.
All of Canada’s new astronauts were subject to such pressures, and in order to survive had to find within themselves organizational skills they may not have known they had. To begin with, they were all expected to repair to Ottawa when training began, but as soon as they gained some understanding of their new roles there, other demands ensued. To complicate matters, “with the first group of astronauts, the training plan evolved on the fly.”1 For Marc Garneau and Bob Thirsk, his backup, it also meant a move to Houston in the weeks before Garneau actually flew. Prior to that, the two, and their colleagues, had undergone training at McGill University in Montreal, and at the Defence and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine (DCIEM) in Toronto. The group also flew to the Cape to tour the Space Center so that they all would have at least some familiarity with the place before being named to a shuttle crew. In most cases, such selections were far in the future, but at least they had seen KSC. They did not, however, see a launch. While the Canadians were in Florida the shuttle mission they had hoped to watch was scrubbed. It eventually did go, but two months later than planned.
Then there were the constant demands for public appearances at civic events, university commencements, elementary and secondary school assemblies, building dedications, charity functions, and even shopping mall extravaganzas. All of these meant media interviews, autograph signing, posing for pictures, handshaking, and sitting through boring and lengthy introductions at service clubs and sports banquets. These functions were deemed necessary because the space program was expensive and the audiences at such gatherings were members of the taxpaying public.
While Garneau’s training was unpleasant at times, he had to endure it and go on. So did the others. In Montreal, “the astronauts practiced and refined the procedures for the various SASSE (Space Adaptation Syndrome Experiment) tests — vestibular — ocular reflex, sensory function in limbs, awareness of the position of external objects and proprioceptive illusions.”2 In Toronto, motion sickness and astronaut susceptibility to it was a prime factor in the training provided. While it is known that many astronauts feel queasy in space initially, preventive measures before flight help to counteract the phenomenon.
At Defence and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine (DCIEM), two machines, both of which were devised by Ken Money prior to his being selected as an astronaut, had to be ridden by each new candidate. One training device was little more than a chair attached to the end of a pole. The person in training had to sit in the chair and move his or her head up and down while the chair on the pole was spun faster and faster. A similar situation would be a high-speed, sharp turn on a roller coaster. The main difference, however, would be that the roller coaster turn is over in a flash. The ride at DCIEM lasted several minutes.
Marc Garneau is a veteran of three space flights: STS-41G in 1984, TS-77 in 1976, and STS-97 in 2000.
The second machine at the Toronto lab flipped the astronaut-in-training heels over head, again and again; similar to that first, over-the-top ride on a Ferris wheel. In the lab, however, the over-the-top part was backwards, and it lasted until the person taking the test began to feel ill. All of the new astronauts sensed the onset of motion sickness as they were tossed over and over, but none threw up.
All six trainees also had to be subject to High Altitude Indoctrination (HAI) to prepare them in the event of an inflight emergency resulting in an oxygen supply failure. Anyone flying a fighter jet undergoes the same measure — including the author prior to taking-off in one of Canada’s F-18 aircraft. The new astronauts were placed in an altitude chamber where they experienced the equivalent of being in a plane. At high altitudes the atmospheric pressure decreases. Should there be a pressurization failure, the effect on the human body can be injurious, leading even to death. Without oxygen, we die.
While at a simulated high altitude, having been deprived of oxygen the astronauts were handed a clipboard and told to draw various shapes: a circle, a square, a triangle, and so on. As they did so, they were told to note how they felt without oxygen, in case the same thing ever happened to them on the shuttle.
While the exercise can be stressful, it is both enlightening and, to a degree, rather amusing. In my own case, the first few shapes I drew were recognizable. By the ninth or tenth though, I felt that I could not force my hand to do what my brain directed. When I utterly failed to draw a simple square, I grabbed my mask and breathed the sweetest-tasting pure oxygen imaginable. The astronauts did the same exercises, and learned from doing them.
During the time that the recruits were undergoing the various tests, they were helping to put into place a series of experiments that Garneau would conduct while he was on the shuttle. His role on the flight was as Payload Specialist, and his job was to work through several scientific exercises that would be beneficial for study during and after the mission. A couple of these were taste and smell tests, in which he tried to decide if a substance seemed sweeter, or perhaps less spicy, in space than it did on Earth. Another experiment dealt with spatial awareness: Garneau attempted to tabulate the ways in which human movements in space differed from the same actions on Earth. He was also tasked with taking photographs of the aurora borealis and a supposed reddish glow around the shuttle that had been noted on other missions. He also conducted tests to measure pollutants in the upper atmosphere, a field that has become ever more critical in the ensuing years.
Practice for such activities continued when he and Thirsk got to the Johnson Space Center (JSC) near Houston. The Space Center is a huge, sprawling enterprise a few miles southeast of downtown Houston. Driving to it today is horrendous, as a visitor has to cope with drivers whose only speed is fast; multi-level, inadequately-marked freeway interchanges; routine tailgating; and lane changes where signalling is apparently frowned upon. No wonder large, rather alarming signs indicating accident reporting centers seem to be everywhere. There is little doubt that such places are needed. This was the city where Garneau and Thirsk headed, albeit in a somewhat quieter era.
The Space Center itself resembles a university campus, with identical sand-coloured buildings on all sides. The architecture is dated now, but when the place was built in the early sixties it reflected the style of the time. And while there is little beauty in any of the structures, they are functional, and what happens within them is known about around the world. Building 30, housing today’s Mission Control, is large, windowless, and utilitarian. Within it, the original Apollo Era Mission Control Center is quiet now, as befits the historical site that it is. However, it was the nerve centre for Garneau’s mission and it operated until mid-1996. This is where controllers worked on all the moon missions, and where nerve-racking decisions were made to bring the Apollo 13 crew home after their spaceship exploded in flight.
The Apollo era Mission Control Center in Houston. This was the control room used for all of the early space flight operations, including the moon landings and the flights of the first Canadian astronauts. It is now a designated historic site.
Once they arrived at JSC, Garneau and Thirsk began a sped-up version of the training they had been doing for months. Now the schedule was a non-stop whirlwind of requirements — everything from meeting the personnel they would fly with, to getting measured for spacesuits. They also were able to experience weightlessness for the first time, without going into space.
NASA uses what they call a zero gravity training aircraft to give astronauts a taste of weightlessness, allowing them to more easily adapt to space once they get there. The plane used at the time, a Boeing KC-135, had most of its seats removed, leaving a large padded area where astronaut-trainees could work. The plane climbs, then pitches over and dives rapidly; during the pitch-over, everyone on board becomes weightless for about half a minute. The climb-dive process is repeated again and again, and each time the short period of zero gravity occurs. When this is happening, the astronauts are not buckled into seats, allowing them to float around, and learn how to adapt to being weightless in space. Because the wild ride on the training aircraft sometimes makes the trainees sick whatever plane is being used is derisively called the Vomit Comet.
The Challenger crew flew to Florida on October 2, 1984. Finally, launch day was at hand. The gleaming white spacecraft was already in place on Pad 35A. In the three days before it would hurtle into space, the vehicle and every system on it was checked again and again. Then, during those last critical hours before launch, the tanking procedure was completed: the necessary fuel was in place.
The astronauts themselves were paraded before the media for a last, preflight photo op, during which Marc Garneau spoke briefly to reporters in both French and English. His comments were succinct and expected, admitting that he was looking forward to the mission, which he called “a big adventure.” He also mentioned that he was “the fortunate Canadian who gets the chance to go up in the shuttle.”3 The next day, his remarks appeared in most newspapers in Canada, reflecting his status as a national hero.
Garneau’s English-born wife, Jacqueline, was in Florida to watch the launch, as were Simone and Yves, their eight-year-old twins. Garneau’s parents and his brothers, Philippe and Braun, were also there. Their actions and words were duly reported by many of the more than one hundred Canadian media representatives who were accredited by NASA for this milestone mission. One person who had been invited, but did not attend, was the nation’s new Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney. He had been in office for less than three weeks. His absence at KSC prompted speculation that he and his government were uninterested in the space initiative, and were particularly critical of its cost. Some even speculated that the Garneau mission would be the last for Canada. As we now know, the conjecture was unfounded, but was reflective of the constant funding concerns that space programs encounter — from all the countries involved.
The day before launch, Jacqueline, Marc, and his parents attended a beach barbecue together, but only after the visitors agreed to medical checks to ensure that they would not pass so much as a slight head cold to the quarantined crew. The children were not invited in case they were in any way ill. NASA had a long-standing precedent for this. Fourteen years earlier, astronaut Ken Mattingly was bumped from the Apollo 13 moon mission because, although not sick himself, had been exposed to German measles by the children of a crew member. He eventually flew, but had to be replaced on his intended mission. Being pulled from it apparently caused “the worst depression of his life,”4 and NASA did not want a repeat of such a problem with another astronaut.
For several days before launch, the Challenger crew had been going to bed early and getting up early. This was a not-very-successful attempt to ready them for flight day. When the time finally came they were called at 3:00 a.m., had breakfast, and were on the way to Pad 39A an hour later.
The spaceship lifted off at 7:03.
For miles around, the flash and roar of the shuttle seemed to be the only thing alive in the darkness of that Florida morning. Those who watched and listened were awed by the spectacle, made even more dramatic by low-level clouds that reflected a white then glorious pink afterglow, as Challenger hurtled through them. Inside the spaceship, the rumble of the ride and the lurch into space were both anticipated and intimidating, and the crew went along for the ride. In less than nine minutes they were in space, and NASA officials were already calling the launch “the slickest in memory.”
On this flight, as with all others, one of the first realities astronauts dealt with was the absence of gravity. Things float around, people float around, and perceptions of “up” and “down” are meaningless. There is also the constant effort to avoid motion sickness. The problem can be annoying, lasting, and at times troublesome, particularly during the execution of inflight duties — regardless of the astronaut’s job. A sick Commander is just as uncomfortable as a Payload Specialist. Although Garneau admitted that he felt nauseous at the outset, he did not get sick at any time during the flight. He was more interested in the magnificent scenery outside. “That first view is spectacular,” he said, “that’s something you’ve been dreaming about seeing for the longest time. The thing that struck me was how crystal clear the colours were.”5
Later, in interviews after the successful mission, Garneau mentioned that at the time of the liftoff he knew his heart was beating faster than usual, and admitted to being apprehensive with all the noise and vibration. The feeling passed quickly though, and the nervousness was supplanted by seeing the beauty of the Earth and the unforgettable scenery outside the shuttle windows.
Overall mission purposes, apart from Garneau’s own duties, included an Earth Radiation Budget Satellite deployment and spacewalks by two of the American astronauts; one man and one woman. As well, a Canadian-based IMAX camera was used on the flight. Anyone who has seen the large format films produced using such equipment comes away impressed. Invariably, moviegoers marvel at how real the images are — so real that viewers feel like they’re there.
The first hours of the 132 orbits were important to the crew as they accustomed themselves to being in space. The shuttle interior is not large, and after being in a mock-up of the crew module in Houston, I was amazed that several people could work, eat, and sleep in such close quarters. There were seven astronauts on board and their living space was undoubtedly cramped. The mid-deck, or largest area of the crew module, is only eight feet wide, five feet nine inches long, and six feet nine inches high. Much work was done there, and everyone had to adapt to the close quarters. To facilitate this the seats used for takeoff and landing, and other non-essential inflight equipment is stowed out of the way once the shuttle enters orbit.
On this mission, Robert Crippen was Commander and Jon McBride was the Pilot. Unlike the airlines of the world, no one on a shuttle is called a co-pilot. There were three Mission Specialists, two of whom were women, and another Payload Specialist with Garneau. The crew worked well together, and the Canadian on board was impressed by their professionalism. This was particularly true about Crippen, flying his fourth mission in space. At a press briefing in Houston after the flight, Garneau called Crippen, “One of the most fantastic people I’ve ever met.”6 High praise indeed from a normally reserved and rather taciturn colleague.
That reserve was the only thing that journalists would fault Garneau for during the mission. The man was just too quiet, they groused, forgetting that his first responsibility was his work on the shuttle, not placating reporters. From time-to-time Garneau did give the press people material for their dispatches, even if the first reported comment was all business. In a message to Mission Control, the focus of his performance on the spaceship comprised his entire message: “I’d just like to let Canex personnel know I’ve completed all the objectives today,” he said. “As far as Viset is concerned, we completed alpha and bravo, charlie with the first and third with the first and third translations plus sections delta, echo, gulf with camera delta and bravo. Only camera A did not provide visible video and also section A alpha was repeated after the rules of the ERBS satellite.”
The reporters on the ground were left shaking their heads as to what all this meant, but they duly recorded those first words by a Canadian from space.
Later there were other messages that were more personal. Marc and Jacqueline celebrated their eleventh wedding anniversary during the time he was aloft. The press found out about this, and many worked a reference to the occasion into the stories they filed. Garneau, in turn, wished his wife a happy anniversary, but ever-picky, some members of the media noted that he was two days late in doing so. For her part, Jacqueline sent her husband a few words that she admitted were of a romantic nature. However, whatever she said was too much for the public relations people at NASA. They deleted most of it.
Shortly after the takeoff from the Cape, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation informed radio listeners that Brian Mulroney would be making a phone call to Garneau, to congratulate him on his historical flight. For whatever reason, the usually talkative parliamentarian elected not to make the call, and the CBC had to issue an apology. “The report was released without the confirmation from the Prime Minister’s Office,” a CBC spokesperson told the audience. Instead, a phone call to the Challenger from the then President of the United States was made.
In a four-minute communication with the shuttle, Ronald Reagan went out of his way to praise Garneau, and in so doing alluded to the Canadarm that had become such a vital part of the spacecraft machinery. “I’d like to say hello to Canada’s fine astronaut,” said Reagan. “With all there is to do on this mission, I know Cripp (shuttle Commander Robert Crippen) appreciates having three strong Canadian arms.”7 Garneau thanked the President and added, “It’s a great honour for me to be aboard. I’m having an incredible time and it’s just great to be here.”
Garneau was pleased and somewhat surprised one afternoon when his American crewmates presented him with a gift on the Canadian Thanksgiving Day. The “gift” was actually a replacement meal. Instead of the standard spaceflight dinner, Garneau was handed a tinfoil packet of turkey and gravy. He laughed and thanked his fellow fliers, but declined to comment on the quality of the culinary delicacy.
As each day passed, crewmembers settled into a routine that was both workable and efficient. They were awakened each morning by musical selections from Mission Control, and went about their duties with professionalism and dedication. All felt that there were just not enough hours to accomplish everything. On the morning of the second full day in space, Houston greeted the crew in French with the words, “Bonjour mes amis,” and followed this with the playing of “What a Feeling,” from the movie Flashdance. There is no record of how that particular selection was received: it was played at 4:10 a.m., Houston time.
While other crewmembers went about their own mission assignments, Garneau applied his full concentration to his work. In general, the experiments he was involved with were successful. Among the photographs he took were some highly detailed images of Montreal. The scientists who received them felt that they were the best ever taken of the city from space. When Canadians elsewhere learned of this, they felt pride that one of their own was contributing in this new and exciting venture.
The people of Kingston, Ontario were among them. As the shuttle flew over their city one night, Kingstonians switched their lights as a greeting to Challenger. The gesture could be seen from space, and later Marc Garneau called it “touching.” His appreciation for his country as a whole was evoked in his replies to questions from reporters on the ground, at the mid-point of the mission. Because the shuttle was travelling at over 17,000 miles per hour, and circling the globe every ninety minutes, each time over his homeland was brief. “We are over Canada only twenty minutes, [and the] view is absolutely extraordinary,” he said at one point. “My country is fantastic,” he added in French. “I believe we are very lucky to be Canadian and to have such a big and wonderful country.”8
That feeling was reciprocated. In an editorial just prior to the mission, the Toronto Star mentioned the Canadian pride in the history-making endeavour:
With his scheduled launch tomorrow, Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau will advance a Canadian space program that has been soaring aloft for two decades. Ours is a less exotic program than that of the Americans and Soviets. But it’s a solid one. Garneau may be flying on American wings, but Canadian hearts and best wishes are flying with him.9
Then, all too soon as far as the crew was concerned, the mission was over. There were the usual concerns about weather in Florida, and the possibility of a scrubbed landing there.10 However, the skies cleared at the Cape, and the shuttle returned without incident. Shortly afterwards, NASA, where precision is all-important, announced that the total time for the mission had been eight days, five hours, twenty-three minutes, and thirty-three seconds. But whatever the total, the fliers were happy to be back safely and their families were even happier to see them. A couple of hours after touchdown in Florida, the astronauts flew on to Houston where their loved ones were waiting — in the rain.
The much-needed wet weather did little to dampen spirits in Texas, and the flight of the thirty-five-year-old Garneau was deemed to have been a complete success. Sadly though, not every mission would be as successful, nor end as happily. In fact, before the next Canadian flew, a terrible accident threatened to bring an end to the entire space program.