7 Europe’s Coming Out Party

D1 is an ambitious and exciting mission and will require each of us to perform at our best in order to achieve the highest possible degree of success.

Hank Hartsfield

Famed German physicist and rocket visionary Hermann Oberth must have felt a deep sense of national pride as he proudly witnessed firsthand space shuttle Challenger, about three miles distant, majestically rise through scattered clouds into the blue Florida sky on 30 October 1985. Along with rocket pioneers Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and American Robert Goddard, Oberth is considered to be one of the three great fathers of rocketry. Inside Challenger rode two of Oberth’s fellow citizens, German payload specialists Reinhard Furrer and Ernst Messerschmid, embarking on an ambitious seven-day Spacelab mission planned and mostly financed by the German Research and Development Institute for Air and Space Travel (DFVLR—the forerunner of the German Aerospace Center, abbreviated DLR).

Representing the Netherlands, Wubbo Ockels accompanied Furrer and Messerschmid on the STS-61A mission carrying the D1 Spacelab module, marking the only time in history that three payload specialists flew on a single shuttle mission.

Oberth was one of the masterminds of the horrific and deadly German V-2 rockets that inflicted fear and suffering on the citizens of London and other Allied capitals in Europe during World War II. Following the war, he made his way to the United States, where he worked with the legendary Wernher von Braun—another V-2 pioneer—on developing rockets for the peaceful exploration of space. That day as he watched his fellow Germans ascend into low Earth orbit, the ninety-one-year-old Oberth believed that earthlings should set their sights on building an outpost on the moon. Challenger, circling Earth barely higher than two hundred miles, would not come close to meeting Oberth’s lofty expectations, but it carried a bevy of promising scientific experiments, many designed and built by his fellow Germans.

The European Space Agency (ESA) held true to their commitment to assign Ockels to a later Spacelab flight following his bridesmaid role on the first Spacelab mission, STS-9, where he had served as backup payload specialist to Ulf Merbold. Along with Ockels, Germans Messerschmid and Furrer had also been in the running to be selected for the first Spacelab flight, but they lost out to Merbold. DFVLR was financing the Spacelab D1 mission, so naturally they wished to choose German citizens for their scientific expedition into space. Initially, the payload crew was planned to consist of three mission specialists and two payload specialists. However, it was eventually realized that due to the heavy workload planned for the D1 mission, three payload specialists were required to ensure that the payload objectives could be accomplished. Hence, a third payload specialist was eventually assigned to the D1 flight. The sole backup payload specialist for D1, Merbold, would be responsible for supporting the payload crew on the ground once they were in orbit. Veteran astronaut Hank Hartsfield commanded STS-61A, with Steve Nagel as his pilot. Nagel would also support the payload crew. The remainder of the payload crew was comprised of mission specialists Bonnie Dunbar, James Buchli, and Guion Bluford. Challenger was the first and last spacecraft to date to carry eight humans into space and then return them home.

The science activities on this mission would be controlled out of the German Space Operations Center (GSOC) located in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, instead of the Houston-based POCC used on previous Spacelab missions. The mission manager and mission scientist, Hans-Ulrich Steimle and Peter R. Sahm, respectively, were both from DFVLR.

The Europeans called Merbold, Messerschmid, Furrer, and Ockels science astronauts, instead of payload specialists, fueled by their belief that they were career astronauts and not someone slated to fly only once and then return to their established career aspirations. Merbold explained that their management wanted to ensure the distinction was made between their scientists and other hitchhikers on the shuttle, such as a senator or Arab prince—referring to the STS-51D and STS-51G missions, which had flown earlier in 1985. U.S. senator Jake Garn and Saudi Arabian prince Sultan Salman Abdulaziz Al-Saud had flown as payload specialists on these two missions and were often referred to as “passengers” instead of full-fledged astronauts. As quoted in the Aviation Week magazine from 11 November 1985, Steimle accused NASA of “running a travel office for visiting dignitaries” and felt this slight was counterproductive to doing serious science.

DFVLR hoped that the Spacelab D1 mission would progress their ability to carry out scientific research in space. Valuable management skills should result from this endeavor, as they would be in control of a fully outfitted and operational research laboratory—the second Spacelab module. Two Spacelab modules—LM1 and LM2—had been built. LM1 flew on STS-9 and STS-51B. The second Spacelab module—LM2—was flown for the first time on STS-61A.

The Germans referred to D1 as “Deutschland Eins.” West Germany paid NASA $65 million for the right to devote the mission to their Spacelab experiments. Years later when NASA invited Germany to participate in building the ISS, the Spacelab module was the template for what became ESA’s Columbus module, an integral part of the ISS. Columbus utilizes standardized science racks just like those on Spacelab, is about the same size, and very much resembles Spacelab in outward appearance.

According to mission commander Hartsfield, NASA’s primary flight objective was to “successfully launch, operate, and return the German Spacelab D1 payload,” as well as to deploy a NASA scientific satellite. There was also a NASA materials-processing experiment on board.

This fourth Spacelab flight would host experiments in the fields of materials science, physics, chemistry, biology, and related fields that required a microgravity environment. Spacelab D1 was not that dissimilar to Spacelab 1 in terms of the scientific payload, but the experiments on D1 would be managed by the Germans.

Ernst Willi Messerschmid was born in Reutlingen, Germany, on 21 May 1945. He had no dreams as a child to ride rockets into space, but the American lunar landings and his work at university aroused his interest in international science. He earned a degree in physics from the University of Tübingen and Bonn in 1972, followed by experimental work from 1972 to 1975 focused on proton beams and plasmas at CERN, or the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Geneva. He continued his higher education as a research assistant at the University of Freiburg–Breisgau in Germany and at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, from 1975 to 1976, earning his doctorate in 1976 from the University of Freiburg–Breisgau.

After completing his doctorate, Messerschmid learned from public advertisements that Europeans were preparing in early 1977 to select astronauts for Spacelab missions aboard the American space shuttle. After reading what they were looking for in a European astronaut, he immediately concluded that he was more than qualified. He was healthy and physically fit, of sound mind, fluent in English, had the required scientific background, and was experienced in the international environment. He applied once Germany announced the selection process and was one of the finalists for the European payload specialist position on Spacelab 1. He eventually accepted a position as a researcher in 1977 at the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) located in Hamburg, where he developed an interest in space technology and utilization. DESY is known for its particle accelerators, which scientists use to study the curious structure of matter. From 1978 to 1982 he was employed by DFVLR, where he worked on space-borne communication and navigation systems.

Reinhard Alfred Furrer was born 25 November 1940, in what is now Worgl, Austria, in the state of Tyrol. At the time of Furrer’s birth, early in World War II, Worgl was part of Germany, making him a German citizen. Following the war, the family moved to Bavaria, Germany. Furrer attended the University of Kiel and then transferred to the Free University of Berlin, where he received his degree in physics in 1969, eventually earning his PhD in 1972 in physics. He became an assistant professor in Stuttgart, earning full professorship in 1979. Furrer migrated to the University of Chicago in 1980 and then to the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago in 1981. He netted his private pilot’s license in 1974; flying would be a large part of his life.

Like Michael Lampton, Furrer was involved in an activity as a student that gained him some measure of notoriety. Furrer helped fifty-seven of his fellow Germans escape from communist East to free West Berlin in a tunnel beneath the Berlin Wall. Known as Tunnel 57, it measured almost five hundred feet in length and required moving tons of dirt, as well as careful measures to ensure secrecy from the deadly East German police.

The tunnel was begun in West Berlin in an old disused bakery located along the contested border and fortuitously emerged into an old outhouse located near an apartment building. The escape to freedom occurred on the nights of 3 and 4 October 1964. Furrer’s job was to help direct East Berlin fugitives into the tunnel opening from the East Berlin side. Unfortunately, East German officers had become aware of the escape plot and were on hand with soldiers to thwart the operation on the second night. Furrer suddenly recognized a threatening gun pointed in his direction and, in the darkness, made a mad dash for the tunnel to warn his fellow accomplices. Gunfire erupted in the melee, killing one of the East German border guards. Furrer managed to escape harm that night, and scores of persecuted East Germans made it safely to freedom.

Like Messerschmid, Furrer applied for the European Spacelab astronaut program in 1977 and likewise made the final cut for the first Spacelab mission. Furrer was braggingly confident of his chances for being selected; on the ESA website, Lena Fuhrmann quoted Furrer as proclaiming in 1978, “I’ll be flying on that [Spacelab].”

Ockels recalled his first dreams of flying into space in 1977 after noticing a bulletin calling for European astronaut candidates posted in the hall while completing his PhD at Groningen (Netherlands). Some of Ockels’s classmates had written jokes on the notice, but after a bit of serious soul-searching, Ockels decided to write for more information. Soon he realized that he had found the perfect job opportunity and promptly applied. He was one of a handful of finalists who included Merbold, Messerschmid, and Furrer.

Merbold’s expertise in materials science was a better fit with the specialized experiments planned for the first Spacelab mission; consequently, he was selected for that flight, although Furrer, Messerschmid, and Ockels were strong contenders for the mission. Disappointed at not being chosen for Spacelab 1, Messerschmid remembers being told at the time that a German Spacelab mission was in the making and that the powers that be wanted him on that flight. Messerschmid shared in a 2010 ESA interview that both Ockels and Nicollier were in consideration to fly as an ESA science astronaut on the D1 flight because there were new ESA payloads on board and ESA was providing financial backing. Ockels was a logical choice to be selected as the payload specialist on the D1 mission; he had served as Merbold’s backup on the Spacelab 1 mission, was trained, and was available. Nicollier had remained at JSC following his training as a mission specialist.

Ockels, Messerschmid, and Furrer began their training for the D1 mission in 1983. At this time, the decision to include three payload specialists on the flight had not been made. Ockels, representing ESA, had already been assigned to the flight, leaving only one payload specialist slot open on the crew that had been planned for seven people. Therefore, Messerschmid and Furrer were in competition for a single opportunity to fly on D1. Messerschmid claims that whereas Furrer was extroverted, he was introverted, making the fight a bit more difficult for him. On the other hand, Furrer felt he was at a disadvantage because he was a bachelor, believing that the Americans favored candidates who were married.

As the mission planning progressed, both Messerschmid and Furrer came to realize that three payload specialists were going to be required to carry out the heavy scientific workload planned in orbit. They eventually convinced NASA of the need, and about one year before the flight, NASA developed a plan to add an eighth seat to the orbiter, which meant that both men would fly. ESA pressed NASA to add Claude Nicollier to the flight as one of the mission specialists. Nicollier had hinted at this possibility in his 25 September 1981 memo to the Spacelab investigators informing them that Ockels was going to leave the mission specialist training program to provide much needed support to the Spacelab 1 mission. Reflecting on Ockels departing mission specialist training, Nicollier wrote,

ESA decided that it would be best for one of us to fully concentrate on the Mission Specialist training and activities, with view for possible assignment as such on the D1 mission. [O]n personal grounds, I regret that such a decision had to be taken, but this action is, without any doubt, for the benefit of Europe’s future involvement in manned space flight, as it permits to keep open the European Mission Specialist’s option, targeted towards the D1 mission, and without affecting the first Spacelab mission in a significant manner. Be sure that I will be following very closely the mission preparation and the mission itself, and I look very much forward to seeing a number of you aboard D1 or any future Spacelab mission.

The popular German-based website Spacefacts claims that there were discussions between NASA and ESA, but NASA eventually rejected ESA’s proposal to include Nicollier on the flight. Besides, he had already been assigned to a later flight.

By virtue of moving back to the payload specialist program, Ockels forfeited a similar opportunity to Nicollier to become a NASA mission specialist. Meanwhile, Nicollier stuck with the mission specialist program and eventually flew on four shuttle flights as a mission specialist, including an eight-hour EVA and two Hubble-servicing flights.

The training for the D1 mission followed a similar routine to previous Spacelab flights—long hours of mission-dependent training and an abbreviated mission-independent training regimen just prior to launch. Furrer told Lena Fuhrmann in an 11 February 2011 DLR interview that the mission-dependent training took approximately two years to complete and included learning procedures not part of his advanced educational studies, such as how to insert needles into human test subjects and take blood pressure measurements.

Once Hartsfield was assigned as mission commander, he meticulously took control of the payload preparations to ensure that all experiment training objectives could be accomplished on schedule. Hartsfield was a man of few words, with a soft voice. But he was a natural leader; failure, for him, was not an option. NASA was deeply concerned with the science portion of the mission being run out of the facility at Oberpfaffenhofen. According to Hartsfield, the control team there had not previously planned or run a science mission, and it was uncertain if their training had prepared the Germans to run a complicated mission like D1. Therefore, members of the Houston MCC made a trip to Oberpfaffenhofen to run an early simulation and share their experiences with the German control team.

DFVLR ran the simulated flight along with a JSC training representative, but NASA wasn’t very impressed with the initial efforts. Hartsfield explained, “They lacked a comprehensive training plan and syllabus, and they had very few experiment flight procedures to train with. They were unaware of the operational flight constraints and responsibilities of the crew, and they did not recognize the difference in training requirements between the MSs and PSs. Initially, the MSs had to spend a large amount of time educating the user [DFVLR and the PIs] in flight training techniques and FDF [flight data files] procedures.” Hartsfield believed there was a “dramatic learning curve” that came out of this exercise, which was crucial to the success of the mission.

The payload training played second fiddle once the final mission-independent training was in progress. Hartsfield was comfortable with the experienced backup Merbold sliding onto the crew as little as one month prior to launch, if it became necessary. But Messerschmid, Furrer, and Ockels were eager, healthy, and fully trained come launch day, so Merbold would have to wait awhile for his second trip into space.

The racks nestled inside the Spacelab module carried an extensive array of over seventy-five experiments, including materials science and life sciences experiments. Some of the investigations were repeats from Spacelab 1, such as the hop-and-drop experiment; others were brand new, while many were similar to previously flown devices. Many were conceived to take advantage of the microgravity environment. Hartsfield and Nagel would be required to maneuver Challenger into a gravity-gradient attitude—nose pointed toward Earth—for approximately fourteen hours in support of the materials-processing experiments.

Perhaps the most interesting investigation was one conducted using a vestibular galvanic stimulation, or VGS, device, which in less imposing terms was simply called the vestibular sled. Designed to investigate the effects of SAS, it was attached to the floor of the module on rails and looked more like a torture device from the Middle Ages than a state-of-the-art scientific apparatus designed for research in outer space. It was conceived to test the human vestibular and orientation systems under microgravity conditions. The astronauts would be buckled to a seat that sat on fixed rails, sitting in an almost half-lotus yoga pose and wearing a large boxlike apparatus on their heads. An astronaut secured to the seat could be moved along the rails back and forth and accelerated up to 0.2 gravity forward or backward while thermally stimulating the inner ear and following movements of the eyes.

In the few months prior to launch Hartsfield assessed that STS-61A training was significantly behind schedule. Six weeks before launch Hartsfield became extremely worried that the entire crew would be spent before they ever launched. The amount of training time required in the European locations and complications from the Spacelab portion of the mission being controlled by the Germans, all added to the hectic schedule. The mission and payload specialists had to participate in three days of baseline data collection (BDC) for the life sciences experiments. One day was eventually canceled due to the tight schedule. Even so, these ever-so-important sessions had to be undertaken on the weekends in order to minimize the impact on the remaining last-minute shuttle training exercises. The commander and pilot also had weekend STA flights. Late-arriving software and concerns with software compatibility added to the problem. The crew had difficulty finding time for important orbiter planned training—just about to the point to where it was very nearly a bare bones training effort that would provide only the minimum level of proficiency before it was time to launch. This rushed and hectic arrangement gravely concerned Hartsfield, as the crew had very few days of free time during this period. Hartsfield lamented, “The crew was tired and needed the relaxation enforced during the L-3 day prelaunch period at KSC.”

On 30 October 1985, Challenger inched upward from launchpad 39A, slowly winning its bout with the law of gravity, soon to deliver the largest crew ever into an orbit of 207 miles above Earth’s surface. Following a routine climb to orbit with a fifty-seven-degree inclination to the equator, the crew began preparing for the upcoming scientific marathon they had been entrusted to execute. Ockels described the launch as being very intense, but once orbit had been achieved, that reaction slowly transformed into one of emotion, overwhelming Ockels when he took his first look at the beautiful blue planet rotating slowly and majestically below him. He claimed that he felt extraterrestrial!

Led by Buchli, the red team of Bluford and Messerschmid began to methodically carry out the planned experiments, whereas the blue team—Nagel, Dunbar, and Furrer—settled down for their sleep period. Hartsfield explained that Ockels was not assigned to either of the two shifts; instead, he “sort of floated between the two teams; we kind of called him purple.” Both Hartsfield and Ockels worked on both shifts as needed, but they usually worked with the blue shift.

Messerschmid succumbed to SAS symptoms and vomited soon after he reached orbit. It took him several hours just to learn how to remain still; he soon learned that the trick was to locate a solid anchor point and hold to it tightly. Shortly, he was going to have to carry out sickness-inducing experiments as part of the life sciences investigations, and the schedule was jam-packed with a variety of experiments to be executed or monitored. The discomfort from SAS was not likely to dissipate anytime soon. Still he had a job to do, and he worked through the discomfort. To make matters worse, Messerschmid had trouble sleeping the first night; it was cold and he kept seeing bright flashes in his eyes. This phenomenon commonly occurs when spacecraft fly through the South Atlantic Anomaly, where the Van Allen radiation belts gently kiss the upper portions of Earth’s atmosphere, briefly exposing the astronauts to the bombardment of high-energy protons, which induces bright flashes in the eyes.

Messerschmid felt a huge weight on his shoulders to operate all the experiments exactly as he had been trained. Although many of the experiments ran autonomously, they had to be checked, serviced, or reconfigured regularly. A lot of taxpayer money had been spent to finance the payload experiments, and the scientists on the ground had sacrificed significant portions of their careers preparing the experiments—and they expected good results. Thus, the payload crew was more than willing to give up their leisure time to work longer hours on the experiments to ensure they came off as planned. Messerschmid felt that the pressure to do the experiments correctly was far greater than the worry of a life-ending accident occurring. Challenger might be struck by a stray meteroid or errant piece of space junk, causing it to depressurize, inviting the vacuum of space into the bodies of the crew, and sending them into paralysis and convulsions within seconds. Their bodies would swell, and their hearts would stop beating shortly thereafter. Their blood pressure would drop to zero, blood would cease to flow, gases and water vapor would spurt out of their mouths and noses, and their bodies would cool slowly. Likely the crew would expire within ninety seconds. Messerschmid was more concerned about returning to Earth and having to tell a brilliant scientist that the experiment had failed.

Just like on Spacelab 2, there were some equipment failures right away that threatened to compromise the mission, possibly even end it. Once Messerschmid entered the Spacelab module, he saw red and yellow lights galore, signaling that there were hardware problems—ostensibly suffering their own form of SAS. One of the experiments required a vacuum, which was obtained by taking advantage of the uncomfortably nearby deadly emptiness of space surrounding the orbiter. However, there was a slow leak somewhere in the connection to outside the spacecraft. The crew was told the mission would be cut to two days if the leak could not be stopped, as they were losing life-sustaining air. Fortunately, a fix was soon discovered, and the mission proceeded as planned.

Two days into the flight, the medical and biological experiments were progressing well, but the materials science investigations were encountering some problems. The MEDEA, a very expensive materials science experiment, failed to come to life. The fix was to cut a cable in one of the furnaces, just one of a spaghetti mess of wires. The problem was that the payload crew had to figure out the correct wire to cut. Fortunately, Ockels came to the rescue; through consultation with the experts in the GSOC, he severed the appropriate wire, curing the malady. The crew also had to replace a lamp in the MEDEA’s furnace. Not a big deal for an expertly trained crew, but valuable time and data were lost. NASA considered extending the mission an extra day, but inadequate power levels would not permit it.

Guy Bluford recalled performing runs on the vestibular sled. With a contraption and accompanying instrumentation that engulfed the entire head of the subject, the sled promised to upset the vestibular system of even the hardiest astronaut. In spite of its foreboding appearance, Bluford claimed that it was relatively easygoing: “It looked rather provocative from the spectator point of view, but it proved to be very benign from the rider point of view.”

The ESA-sponsored Biorack carried a hermetically sealed glove box and a variety of organisms, including bacteria, fruit flies, and frog embryos. In orbit, the embryos hatched into tadpoles, which, to the surprise of the scientists, exhibited aberrations in their swimming patterns once back in Earth’s gravity. The fruit flies were studied to assess the development of life from embryo to adult. Ockels explained what they learned from their observations: “This was the first flight which showed such a systematic large biology research. And already there we found an absolutely new phenomenon that flies in space do not know where to put their eggs.” The flies were also apparently quite clever. Although the crew was assured that the flies could not escape their containment filter system, some did, and one wily fly bonded with the crew, earning its own name. As Hartsfield jested, “In fact, more than one [fly] did [escape], although Willie garnered the honors as the sole survivor.”

Playing with—rather, making scientific observations of—fluids in the microgravity environment seemed to be a favorite pastime of just about every shuttle crew, but it tickled the scientist-astronauts right down to the tips of their floating toes. On D1, orange juice was a favorite, and with a few tools to stimulate the droplets, Ockels was a child again, as he explained once back on Earth.

As a nuclear physicist I’m always interested in seeing liquid drops being excited with different modes of vibration . . . and you sometimes see that the droplet really moves and sometimes gets even into a square shape. It’s really impressive; zero gravity floating is something which you fall in love with very quickly. Actually, it’s very difficult as you come back to get used to this sticky Earth which pulls you down all the time. You can very gently try to move a big blob of liquid around and try to get it in different modes of oscillation. The only thing you have to make sure is that it’s not that big that eventually if you need to do it you can still swallow it.

At one point during the mission, Ockels spun a blindfolded Furrer, like a child’s toy, to see if he could tell which direction was up—relative to his surroundings—once Ockels stopped him spinning. “Wubbo stops me someplace, and then he asks me, ‘Where is your up?’ And at this moment I just say I cannot tell anymore. Because we proved with this experiment that there is no integrated mechanism that can tell you as a subject what happened to [you] motionwise.”

The silver-haired Hartsfield was a stickler for safety, perhaps no more than any other astronaut, but he was often quick to pontificate on potential safety issues. As commander, he needed to know everything that was happening during the flight and whether it was potentially a problem, and he didn’t speak German or Dutch. Consequently, all crew members were required to speak the agreed-on language, English. “The orbiter is a complex machine,” Hartsfield stated, “and space operations are not in any way as routine as airline operations. . . . In the much more hazardous arena of Space Shuttle operations, a common operational language is unquestionably mandatory.”

Dunbar explained that there were exceptions. If an investigator from a country where English was not their first language needed to talk to the crew, they were allowed to use their native language, as long as it was precoordinated from the ground, which included using a translator. Bluford confided that there were times, although infrequently, when the European science astronauts would inadvertently switch to German during the flight. Bluford recalled that he and Dunbar took Berlitz language lessons in German during their training, which made it much easier to converse and work with their European crewmates.

The failure of equipment hardware and language issues could bring a mission to its knees if not dealt with adequately. But little things—such as clothing—could also adversely impact the success of the mission. The crew was not overly thrilled with the elastic waistband in the specially designed trousers they had been given to wear during the flight. The waistband was simply too tight and uncomfortable for some of the crew. There was no need for such a hefty system to keep their trousers on, for as Hartsfield rightly pointed out, “Pants will not fall off in zero-g.” The accompanying jacket was “almost useless” according to the commander—he had to use his “right hand to get into the left pocket; it reminds one of a straitjacket.” Bo Bobko noted similar concerns with the elastic in their trousers on STS-51D, flown in April 1985. The pants fit well enough during training, but once in space they were extremely uncomfortable, likely due to shifting body fluids once in orbit. Their solution was to simply cut the elastic band.

Just like the POCC, the German control center also harbored a glut of personnel to ensure that the scientists in space had everything they needed to do their jobs as planned. Mission scientist Peter Sahm recalled that up to 250 scientists and managers vigilantly followed the flight at Oberpfaffenhofen, checking and double-checking the schedule, following every mission detail. It was Sahm’s job to decide if an experiment justified additional time and how to adjust the schedule and to ensure that every scientist on the ground got a fair shake. Bluford recalled that there was a lot of valuable discussion “between the payload crew and the PIs and CICs [crew interface coordinators] on each shift,” which made a significant contribution to the mission’s success.

As the mission crept to an end, it was clear to the crew and those in the GSOC that the long hours and hard work had paid off; the Germans had carried out an exceptionally successful science mission. Unfortunately, the payload crew had little time to enjoy the wonders of space travel. Bluford recalled giving some well-deserved time off to Messerschmid to head to the flight deck on the last day so he could appreciate his celestial surroundings.

Another defining moment for Ockels came as the mission eased to an end. He recalled that he and Messerschmid were watching the payload bay doors slowly close from the rear windows of Challenger’s flight deck. Ockels considered grabbing his camera for a photo opportunity but, at Messerschmid’s suggestion, changed his mind. Instead, he savored the moment—one that he would remember for the rest of his life.

Challenger landed at Edwards Air Force Base on 6 November 1985. After Challenger had come to a safe rest, Ockels unstrapped himself from his safety harness, stood up, and immediately sensed the biting grip of Earth’s gravity, which at that moment made him feel as if he were accelerating upward at a high rate of speed. Spaceflight had a life-changing impact on Ockels, and this experience was one of several that overwhelmed him during the flight. These were glorious epiphanies that affected his view of Earth and the cosmos for the remainder of his days.

Twelve of the seventy-plus experiments required some degree of repair on orbit, but the mission was nevertheless considered 95 percent successful. Messerschmid counted many positives from the mission, including better production techniques of crystal growth and solidification and community support for future space research, which eventually led to the ISS. He proclaimed in a 26 October 2010 interview on the ESA website that the D1 mission had “changed the textbooks.”

Hartsfield was ecstatic over the performance of the payload crew and proudly exclaimed, “They were an exceptional crew. I’ve never seen five people work in a Spacelab as hard as they did. We planned twelve-hour days in the lab . . . they came closer to fifteen-hour days, but the results speak for themselves.”

Hartsfield noted several faux pas that occurred on the flight without identifying the names of the guilty parties. There were times when payload specialists operated Spacelab subsystems without proper authorization. In-flight maintenance was also performed with no onboard coordination or approval from the MCC. In addition to potential safety concerns, without knowledge of unplanned and poorly communicated procedures, the vast flight experience that NASA had accumulated over the years was rendered useless. Given the rigorous and thorough training that NASA provided for their mission specialists, it seems likely that Hartsfield was referring to the less well-trained science astronauts from Europe.

The commander also hinted at some additional sore points after the flight in his flight crew report but was short on details. He made it abundantly clear that they—the Germans—“should be informed of the pre-flight requisite to sign a PS agreement relating to not realizing personal gain from the flight.” Additionally, “No unapproved items will be stowed on the spacecraft or carried on board in flight suits.” Nor should any personal articles—including those in each crew member’s PPK (or personal preference kit)—be taken from the spacecraft after landing unless authorized prior to the flight. “Any such items discovered may be confiscated.” Hartsfield was an easygoing leader, but clearly, he didn’t appreciate rules not being followed.

Hartsfield also felt the sleeping conditions were far too difficult with the eighth crewperson on board, especially with the two-shift operations typical of Spacelab missions. Ockels slept in the air lock, and his sleep was constantly disturbed by the working crew members. Hartsfield stressed that “unless an acceptable fifth sleep station can be provided, a crew size limit of seven must be observed.” Ockels readily agreed.

ESA participated in Spacelab 1 back in late 1983, but NASA still pulled all the strings, even with the scientific investigations. Messerschmid saw it a bit differently for D1; in a September 2010 DLR (DFVLR) interview, Manuela Braun quoted Messerschmid as saying that for D1 “DLR was in the driver’s seat.” Messerschmid considered the shuttle to be a taxi to carry the European experiments and the precious Spacelab module into space, even boldly proclaiming in the same article that the mission specialists were the “helpers” and “helped us prepare our meals.” Chris Kraft may not have appreciated Messerschmid’s perspective.

The Germans were proud of their mission, and Oberpfaffenhofen became known as the Bavarian Houston to many people. The training simulations held in the GSOC prior to the mission paid huge dividends. Hartsfield crowed, “Actual flight operations interfaces with the GSOC were excellent.” Bluford complimented Ulf Merbold on his role as the crew interface coordinator in Oberpfaffenhofen; he provided excellent support of the payload crew in orbit and worked seamlessly with the principal investigators in the GSOC.

As with previous shuttle missions, the scientific research still had to be completed after the payload crew was back on Earth. They remained at Dryden Flight Research Center (now the Armstrong Flight Research Center) for several days of additional tests to determine how their bodies and physiological reactions readapted to Earth’s gravity.

None of the D1 European science astronauts would fly into space again. Ockels worked on human spaceflight projects from 1986 to 1996 at the European Space Research and Technology Center located in Noordwijk, Netherlands. It was here that he contributed to the planning of the Columbus module, which became an integral part of the ISS. In 1992 he officially retired from the European astronaut corps, and soon after, he accepted a position at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, as a full professor of aerospace for sustainable engineering and technology. Ockels became a champion of sustainable energy, which he believed was a must in order to preserve the beautiful planet that he orbited 112 times.

Wubbo Ockels passed away on 29 May 2013 from kidney cancer—a disease that he had conquered in 2008, only to discover it had returned in 2013. Sadly, he could not defeat the disease a second time. At the time of his death, he was still active at the Delft University of Technology.

Ernst Messerschmid went on to hold a variety of important positions at the University of Stuttgart. He became professor and director of the Space Systems Institute (IRS) in 1986 and then served as the chairman of a collaborative research center involved with numerous projects at university institutes, industry, and DLR laboratories. Beginning in 2005 he took leave from the University of Stuttgart to head up the European Astronaut Centre (EAC), returning to the University of Stuttgart in 2007 as a full professor.

Reinhard Furrer became a professor and director of the Institute of Space Sciences at the Free University of Berlin in 1987, where he was employed until 1995. Flying remained his passion, and he made some very daring long-distance flights in single-engine aircraft including a 1981 solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean from Germany to Quito, Ecuador. Furrer was killed on 9 September 1995 when the Messerschmitt Bf 108 World War II–era lightplane he was riding in encountered problems immediately after takeoff and crashed into a nearby field during an air show at Berlin’s Johannisthal Airfield.

Sadly, two other members of the STS-61A crew are also deceased. Steve Nagel died on 7 September 2011 from advanced melanoma. Mission commander Hank Hartsfield succumbed to complications from back surgery on 17 July 2014.

Spacelab flights would take a hiatus following the loss of Challenger in January 1986 on the STS-51L mission. But both Spacelab modules flew again, and payload specialists continued to play an integral role on these missions. The next Spacelab mission (ASTRO-1) following STS-51L was dedicated to astrophysics and flew in December 1990 aboard shuttle Columbia on STS-35. The Germans flew a second highly successful Spacelab mission on STS-55 in April and May of 1993. The final Spacelab mission flew aboard Columbia on the STS-90 flight in 1998.

The four Spacelab missions flown from 1983 to 1985 laid the groundwork for the success of the next thirty-two missions. The Spacelab module flown on the D1 mission is now appropriately displayed in Germany at the Bremen Airport, whereas the first Spacelab module to fly resides at the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Museum in Washington DC.

Spacelab was truly an impressive and tremendously prosperous program. Thirty-six Spacelab missions (sixteen with the pressurized module) were flown over a period of seventeen years—totaling 375 flight days. According to Dr. Arnauld Nicogossian, NASA chief medical officer and acting associate administrator for life and microgravity sciences and applications, over eight hundred individual investigations were completed, leading to more than one thousand papers being published in technical journals. Well over 250 master of science and PhD degrees were awarded based on the research carried out on Spacelab. He cited many advances and discoveries that came from the research and investigations performed on Spacelab, including advances in protein crystal growth techniques, new insights into metal formation and structure, astronomical observations of distant galaxies, and many more. At a Spacelab forum held 10–11 March 1999 in Washington DC, Nicogossian shared an unexpected discovery: “One of the most fascinating stories about Spacelab is the discovery of the ancient caravan routes, which led us to the finding of lost water wells along roads which were covered by sand long ago. When those wells were opened up, they were able to improve irrigation in some areas.” Spacelab was living up to the grand expectations envisioned in the early 1970s.