Steve MacLean is a patient man. He was picked to be an astronaut during the first selection process in 1983. Back then, he was unsure of himself, inexperienced, somewhat naïve, and perhaps less aggressive than his colleagues. He remained on the sidelines when Garneau flew, was still there during the Bondar mission, but finally got his chance in late October 1992 — nine years after he was first called an astronaut. He accepted the wait, but deep down knew what fabled American space veteran Gus Grissom had meant when he said that “you’re not an astronaut until you go up.”1 You could parade around in the fancy flight suit, but until you flew, you were just like the rest who waited; to Grissom, and to the old pros of his time, you were still a “trainee.”
Yet every trainee has to start somewhere, and MacLean did. He got his initial flight, and then waited, and waited — for fourteen more years. Then he flew again. On his first mission, STS-52, he was a Payload Specialist, the lowest level of flier in the NASA pecking order. However, by the time his second flight was ready to go, he had become a highly trained Mission Specialist who would conduct a risky spacewalking assignment that would be seen on television screens in Canada and across the world. But as inexperienced as he was on the first flight, he performed well on the mission — as well as anyone on board — and was lauded for doing so. The shuttle he rode then was Columbia, and he and the crew completed several operations and flew over four million miles, in all. When the spaceship returned to Kennedy, almost ten days later, MacLean was no longer a trainee. Gus Grissom would have been proud.
Steven Glenwood MacLean was born in Ottawa, on December 14, 1954, the son of a scientist at the National Research Council. At one point, after the loss of Challenger when all flights were grounded, father and son got the chance to work together in the nation’s capital. In fact, Steve’s father expressed initial reservations about his son leaving the security of the scientific community for the relative unknown of the astronaut corps. However, the son’s dreams were in space, and he intended to follow them there.
After describing his second mission in space, Steve MacLean answers questions during a press scrum at York University in Toronto. Doctor MacLean is a former champion gymnast and a graduate of York. He is now president of the Canadian Space Agency.
The future astronaut received his elementary and secondary school education in Ottawa, then went on to attend York University in Toronto, emerging with a Bachelor of Science in 1977, and a Doctorate in Astrophysics in 1983. During an interview for this book, he referred to York as “home,” and is proud of his link to that school. He has also been the recipient of several honorary degrees from other universities, along with many medals and awards of various kinds from several sources.
Doctor MacLean is a gifted athlete, and even when he’s just walking across a floor he exhibits the grace of a person who is at one with his physique. He is not a big man; he is slight, and at first glance seems almost fragile. He moves quickly, smiles easily, and speaks with enthusiasm about the work of other astronauts, but with self-effacement in reference to himself. He only refers to his athletic skills if specifically asked, but it was those skills that led to his notable achievements as a young man, before the idea of becoming an astronaut took hold with a firmness that could not be denied.
At one time, MacLean was one of this county’s finest gymnasts. In fact, he was not only champion university gymnast in 1976, he was also on the Canadian National Gymnastics Team for three years in succession. These levels of excellence are remarkable, particularly because he was in grade eleven before he decided to give the sport much of a try! He took it seriously though, and for years he trained several hours a day. Hiking is another passion, and it became an important part of his life — so much so that when he was in his twenties, he hiked to the base of Mount Everest. At other times, MacLean has unwound by playing tennis, or relaxed by going canoeing.
Steve MacLean was twenty-nine and single when he made the cut as one of this country’s first astronauts. At the time, he had his Ph.D. from York and was doing post-doctoral work in laser research at Stanford University in California, when a buddy called and said they were looking for astronauts in Canada. Those selected would be flying with NASA, and ultimately would work out of Houston. That is still the situation today, and though we have a well-respected space agency and facility at Longueuil, Quebec, the bulk of an astronaut’s training is in Texas, and most live there.
Nevertheless, there is one aspect of training that has distinctive Canadian roots: language instruction in our two official languages. All Canadian astronauts are expected to be able to speak and write in both English and French, perhaps not with the same facility as Marc Garneau, but well enough to do media interviews, make speeches, and interact with the public in both tongues. While he is fluently bilingual today, MacLean had to work on his French in order to achieve the ends desired. So did Roberta Bondar. Her French lessons had a positive, if unexpected, connection to MacLean. He met his future wife while she was teaching Bondar French.
In the post-Challenger era in Houston, there was much soul searching by many astronauts — and others — about whether to stick with the space program or not. That was to be expected. For his part, as we all know, Steve MacLean remained interested, committed, and ready to go as soon as the shuttle flights did. This dedication paid-off for both him and Bjarni Tryggvason, who was MacLean’s backup for STS-52. Tryggvason would fly later.
MacLean’s training for his first mission accelerated markedly in the months immediately before launch. He and Tryggvason were in Houston then, and while neither was a Pilot or Mission Specialist, they went through long and rigorous days when they were pummeled, pushed, and prodded in more arduous ways than had been the standard before the Challenger disaster. There was water survival, fire suppression, and ascent profile simulation, in which the fledgling fliers were exposed to G-force acceleration, all in preparation for anything that could happen on launch day. They spent hours and hours in a shuttle simulator, a full-scale version of the shuttle flight deck. There, within an ugly, closed, awkward-looking contraption above gears, pipes, wires, hydraulics, and vent pipes, the motion of a shuttle and its capabilities were imitated. Inside the simulator were all the same dials, switches, displays and controls, a portable oxygen system, and so on that are on the shuttles. There were also simulator visual scenes replicating the surrounding terrain at Kennedy, White Sands, and Edwards, as well as Moron and Zaragoza Air Bases in Spain, and Istres in France. The latter three are what NASA calls Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) sites that can be used in case the orbiter had to make an “unscheduled landing if one or more of its three main engines failed during ascent into orbit, or if a failure of a major orbiter system, such as the cooling or cabin pressurization systems, precluded satisfactory continuation of the mission.”2 Such an emergency would be declared between two and a half, and seven and a half minutes after a shuttle left the pad. While MacLean would have no part in making such a landing, he and the five others on board had to know how to get out quickly in the event of a problem. As Bjarni Tryvaggson explained, “they’re throwing malfunctions at us, and the crew has to sort these out. These guys [and one women: Tamara Jernigan] do not go five minutes without something going wrong. Everything has to be responded to like its real.”3 Such preparations are all part of getting ready for every mission.
Long before his training time in Houston, MacLean had married, and was lucky enough to have his wife Nadine in Texas with him. Sharing their lives by that time were a son and a daughter, both of whom were still very young. The fact that the four could be together was a bonus, made possible because Nadine was on maternity leave from her job in Ottawa. By being close to Steve in Houston, she had a much better idea of the training regime he had, while he, in-turn, was able to help her with their children. As it is, astronauts have to be away a lot, so any opportunity just to be home is welcomed. For her part, Nadine was, and is, completely supportive of her husband’s work. Over the years, the times away have been an accepted part of his job. But in the lead up to launch, the job is extremely time-consuming and time on the job is critical. This was particularly true because of the inclusion of a prototype for the Space Vision System (SVS) on this flight. Testing the SVS was MacLean’s primary role on the mission, even though there were several other experiments that he had to do as well.
The Space Vision System is uniquely Canadian and it “links computers with television cameras shooting targets on satellites or other vehicles to provide real-time computer images of where the Canadarm is in relation to the object it needs to grasp.”4 The system had been under development for some time, and MacLean felt a profound obligation, not only to those who built the thing, but to those who were flying with him, and to his country to do the required tests precisely, completely, and satisfactorily. Being the kind of man he is, there was much self-imposed pressure involved.
Because the SVS would be employed on the flight deck, MacLean would work up there, and that location in itself was a tribute to his expertise. Because the technology was state of the art at the time, and looked as if it would become increasingly necessary on future missions, its inclusion and performance on this one was critical. With SVS, the Canadarm operator would be able to see what he or she was doing, even if the arm was maneuvering something that could not be seen from the flight deck itself.
But the testing of the SVS was not the only important development in Canadian space initiatives in 1992. The flights of Bondar and MacLean were the highlights of course, but that same year the Space Agency opened a campaign to hire new astronauts. After weeding through the resulting 5,330 applications, four new candidates were selected on June 8. Then, less than a month later, one of the newcomers, Chris Hadfield, along with Marc Garneau, became the first Canadians selected to be Mission Specialists. Their training began a month later in Houston. However, the focus in the latter part of the year was on the MacLean mission.
A few days before the launch, the shuttle crew completed their long period of rigorous training at the Johnson Space Center and flew up to Cape Canaveral. They went into quarantine soon after arrival, and from that time on immediate family members who had been checked by NASA physicians were the only ones who saw them. Nadine and her parents, along with MacLean’s parents, and scores of his friends had come down from Ottawa and elsewhere to witness the launch. For most, it would be the first, and perhaps the only time they would see such a spectacle, and none wanted to miss it. Included in the group were several former gymnasts who partied the night away before the 11:16 a.m. scheduled blastoff time.
The group, who came to Florida by chartered bus, even sported identical blue T-shirts with MacLean’s picture on the front, and a lighthearted, uniquely Canadian message on the back: DOCTOR STEVE MACLEAN, BOLDLY GOING WHERE NO GYMNAST HAS GONE BEFORE. I KNOW HIM, EH. One of the organizers of the group, Rob Robichaud from Toronto, summed up the mood of his mates, and said, referring to MacLean, “We’re having a party. If he can’t make it, fine.”5 MacLean did not show, of course, and nor did they expect him to, but the exuberance of his friends was certainly not diminished because the guest of honour was not there. They were there to see their gymnast colleague speed from the Earth as he blasted off on the shuttle Columbia; though it would happen two hours later than originally intended.
Severe cross winds at the emergency landing strip necessitated a delay in the departure of the spacecraft, but after NASA personnel decided that the risk was minimal the countdown was permitted to continue.
When the blastoff happened, Nadine watched it with the other wives from a vantage point atop the large, white, flat-topped launch control building. The dark glasses she wore hid her tears of apprehension and pride, as the man she married disappeared on the Roman candle hurtling before her. In her arms that afternoon was thirty-month-old Jean-Philippe MacLean, who looked at the rocket with a child’s concern and asked: “Papa coming back? Papa coming back?” Nadine assured her son that his father was returning, knowing in her heart that, unfortunately, the youngster would likely never remember this day. Later on, she spoke to a reporter about the experience of watching the launch: “It was over before I knew it,” she said. “It was just an amazing, amazing feeling. I don’t think I’ll ever feel anything like that again.”6
That same afternoon, Steve MacLean’s father, Paul, who had also watched the launch, explained his reaction to a reporter: “You get a tremendous feeling of being completely innocent and naïve when you’re faced with such a magnificent demonstration of power that man has been able to create in sending off a rocket,” he said. “When [it] exploded off into a tall column of burning flame — everyone just got up and cheered, as if it was a strikeout or another home run for the Blue Jays.”7
The baseball reference was particularly appropriate that October. The Toronto Blue Jays were indeed getting both strikeouts and home runs at the time. They were in the thick of their first World Series run, and both Steve MacLean and his father were avid ball fans. In fact, Steve took both a baseball and a Jays cap with him into space. Once there, he and the rest of the crew were given scoring updates as the Jays and the Atlanta Braves competed for the sport’s top prize. When Toronto won it all on October 24, MacLean was jubilant, as was one other crew member, although that person’s identity was not revealed because it meant that one of the Americans on board was hoping that the team from the United States would lose.
But even baseball and the Toronto World Series win were unable to compete with the adrenalin rush of reaching space. That first test of real weightlessness — not the vomit comet kind — prompted MacLean’s remark that it was “phenomenal” to be where he was. “This is great!” he enthused.
The first few days of the mission were devoted to the various experiments that were to be done apart from the work on the SVS. That was left nearly to the end of the voyage, largely because it was feared that some of the Canadarm maneuvering might cause shuttle vibration that could have affected other delicate scientific work that was being carried out. When the Arm was in operation it was used to deploy an Italian satellite from the payload bay; a large, round, mirror-surfaced device that was designed to reflect laser beams from Earth. It was called LAGEOS, and would be used to study the tiniest shifting of the Earth’s crust and, if possible, help to predict earthquakes. NASA saw to it that the launch received as much publicity as possible, ostensibly to help counter ongoing criticism that space missions were too costly. Things done, or deployed, on any mission helped to justify those costs. If whatever was in the payload bay could improve life on Earth, then the Space Agency wanted the world to know about it. The Italian satellite was an example of this.
Apart from his testing of the SVS, MacLean worked with a Canadian-designed device called a photo spectrometer in order to obtain “high quality information on the state of the ozone layer and on the various gases and dust particles that contribute to destroying and creating ozone.”8 Rays from the sun and the moon were analyzed, in order to determine the way light permeated the atmosphere. In addition to MacLean’s work, there were ongoing American experiments involving other crewmembers. One of these, done by Tamara Jernigan, proved to be of particular interest. She rode a stationary bicycle for intense periods at a time, in an effort to figure out how to ensure that astronauts could stay in shape, particularly as space missions got longer.
During the Columbia flight there were the usual shuttle to Earth telecasts, and in general they went off without a hitch. When he was on camera, MacLean could not resist wearing his Blue Jays cap. Doing so led to good-humoured joshing and Steve’s admission that he had won some money because of the Toronto win. He proved to be quite knowledgeable about baseball, and at one point gave a brief dissertation on player strength, pointing out that his favourite team had more pitching depth than Atlanta. In the end, and with the Jays win, his evaluation proved to be quite sound.
But it was the pressure MacLean put on himself that made him the ideal astronaut as far as NASA and the Canadian public were concerned. He did his best, didn’t shirk responsibility, and performed in the way he told a reporter he would. In an interview a week before the mission, he noted that he would be “working up there. I’m not really being observed. All the experiments I have are hands on. It’s not like taking photos and coming back and having them developed. I have to do something to make it work. As a professional, you can’t ask to be in a better situation.”9
And MacLean did work — often non-stop for hours at a stretch. Sometimes he even forgot to eat, and laboured through lunch periods. “We’re working a sixteen hour day,” he told the CBC during one of the televised interviews from space. “We don’t stop until it’s time to go to bed, and for two or three days, I hardly got anything to eat because we were so busy.” He added that Canadians often had more experiments to do, per flight, than the Americans, but that this was because flights open to Canadians were so limited in number. Nevertheless, MacLean’s efforts did not go unnoticed, and Columbia Commander James Wetherbee had one of the American Mission Specialists assist with some of the work. In doing so, the Commander stated that the Canadian was “probably the busiest” member of the crew. “He has the most experiments and he’s performed just superbly.” Then the former naval officer added: “It’s obvious Canada has sent us her best.”10
Another side of MacLean’s personality that emerged partway through the mission involved an earthbound interviewer asking crewmembers if they had noticed, or believed that little green men might inhabit the universe. Amid laughter, the answers that were given were all over the map. Some said that we might not be alone; that there might be life elsewhere. No astronaut admitted seeing anything unusual though, and one or two said they doubted there were humans of any kind, anywhere but on the Earth. When MacLean was asked for his views, he jokingly replied that before he left home his mother told him that once he was in space, he should not talk to anyone he did not know. He did not say if he had encountered any strangers up to that point of the mission. In any event, Commander Wetherbee said he would keep an eye out for other life forms — just in case.
During the same interview crewmembers were asked about their taste in music. MacLean did not get a chance to reply before the end of the broadcast, but those who knew him recalled that one of the things he intended to take with him was a cassette produced at York. On it were selections by the university music faculty.
While Steve MacLean was busy trying to accomplish as much as possible on the shuttle, his wife Nadine was making the most of the time until he returned. She had finally forced herself to relax and worry less about the mission, largely because there was nothing she could do if problems did arise. When she had the chance to do so, she watched the telecasts from the shuttle on NASA TV, and realized one morning that she saw more of Steve during those few days when Columbia was in orbit than she sometimes saw of him when he was on Earth. Now and then, when the telecasts were on, little Jean-Philippe would walk over to the television, touch his father’s image on the screen and say “look — Papa!” to his mother. At eight months, baby Catherine is still too young to know what was going on.
Close members of Nadine’s family had been with her in Florida, and their presence was appreciated. Together they relaxed, shopped, visited Disney World, and swam at the beaches. Midway through the waiting time, she flew to Houston, to Mission Control, in order to more fully appreciate her husband’s work activities, and to talk with scientists and others who were closely connected to work on the shuttle. She was also able to contact Steve through the Johnson communication facilities. Later on, she spoke of what she most wanted to hear from him when he returned. “I’m looking forward to hearing his impressions — the real ones. The private ones,” she said. “Hopefully he’ll take time to write down or record his impressions.”11 MacLean did have lots of memories of what he had seen, heard, experienced, and enjoyed. Then, all too soon it seemed, the mission was over. The SVS tests were highly successful, and the man most responsible for them could finally relax and return.
Nadine was back in Florida in time to embrace her husband shortly after the shuttle landed. After all of the flight debriefing, and mandatory NASA and Canadian Space Agency activities, Steve, Nadine, and the children were finally able to spend time together — on a holiday in Hawaii.