12 International Goodwill

On launch day, you will have 800 million Muslims, 155 million Arabs glued to their television sets, to their radios, watching an American space shuttle carrying one of their own out into space. If that’s not bringing America closer to that part of the world, I don’t know what will.

Prince Sultan Salman Abdulaziz Al-Saud

“I just didn’t believe that we were launching until the last minute of it and the engines started, and then that changed very quickly when the SRBs fired,” recalled Saudi Arabian payload specialist Prince Sultan Salman Abdulaziz Al-Saud. The ignition of the three space shuttle main engines six seconds prior to liftoff definitely alerted the crew that something was happening beneath them, but when the 5.3 million pounds of raw power generated by the SRBs kicked in and the massive constraining bolts holding the shuttle stack in place were simultaneously severed, the shuttle leaped off launchpad 39A and left the crew in no doubt that their journey had begun.

During his postmission technical crew debrief, Al-Saud explained that the ascent to orbit was considerably smoother and much less noisy than he had anticipated, although he distinctly recalled a slight increase in the noise level as well as a noticeable jolt when the SRBs separated approximately two minutes after launch. He had no recollection of the external fuel tank separating from the orbiter just before Discovery reached orbit, quite understandable given the myriad of events the rookie astronaut was trying to process. “I appreciated the commander and pilot’s talk back to us through the whole ascent and just sort of keeping us informed of what was going on,” he later reflected. “I thought the g-loading was much more than 3 g’s through the acceleration.”

The two and one-half months of mission-independent training NASA had given Al-Saud were inadequate to get him up to speed for a shuttle mission, especially since he was a foreigner unfamiliar with NASA’s overall operations. Surprised that they were indeed launching on schedule, he explained that the terminal countdown demonstration tests that he and the crew had practiced relentlessly over the past several months were of tremendous benefit. However, he emphasized that at least six months of training would have been required to fully prepare him for spaceflight. Although he was confident that he was prepared, he later confessed that he did get nervous during the last few moments prior to launch.

French payload specialist Patrick Baudry—on board, according to the press kit, “as part of a cooperative project with the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) of France”—was the beneficiary of a slightly longer training regimen due to the shuffling of missions, which had become fairly common. Initially assigned to the STS-51E mission, Baudry was bumped to STS-51G when a faulty satellite led to STS-51E being canceled. The NASA crew of STS-51E was retained and moved to STS-51D. Specialized equipment required by McDonnell Douglas payload specialist Charlie Walker had already been installed in the middeck on Discovery, so there was no room to accommodate Baudry’s research experiments, hence his move to STS-51G, where room was available. Baudry had extensive spaceflight-training experience as a backup cosmonaut to countryman Jean-Loup Chrétien on a Russian Soyuz flight, but the impending launch on the shuttle (for which Chrétien was serving as his backup) was going to be a brand-new experience for him. Like Al-Saud, Baudry was appreciative of the updates coming from the commander and pilot during the climb to orbit. He stressed that it was “important for the middeck to have some information from the flight deck about the speed because it’s not only interesting but also, of course, prepares us.”

Al-Saud and Baudry became the tenth and eleventh payload specialists to fly on a shuttle mission. The Arab League countries hired NASA to launch and deploy its $45 million Arabsat communications satellite, and NASA’s standard customer agreement was that passengers were allowed to fly on the shuttle in exchange for purchasing satellite space. The inclusion of Al-Saud created quite a stir in the Arab countries, as this mission represented more than the deployment of a crucial communications satellite for the Arab world. The presence of the Saudi prince aboard Discovery promised to thrust them into the ever-growing technical world and change how the Arab countries were viewed by outsiders.

Dan Brandenstein served as commander on STS-51G, assisted by rookie pilot John Creighton. The remainder of the NASA crew was comprised of three mission specialists: John Fabian, Steve Nagel, and Shannon Lucid. Of these, only Brandenstein and Fabian had flown before.

STS-51G had an ambitious flight plan primarily dedicated to the deployment of three satellites. Morelos-A, Arabsat, and Telstar 3-D were all designed to improve communications in scattered parts of the world. A fourth satellite, Spartan 1, would be cast into orbit from Discovery’s payload bay, shadow the orbiter, and then be retrieved after seventeen hours of free flying. Its mission was to perform x-ray astronomy research. Neither Al-Saud nor Baudry would be involved in the deployment of any of the satellites; that job belonged to the NASA astronauts.

Baudry would be in charge of two life sciences experiments, the French echocardiograph experiment and the French postural experiment. These investigations were designed to assess the effects of weightlessness on the cardiovascular and sensorimotor systems, and were similar to investigations carried out on the Russian Soyuz T-6 mission for which he had trained in 1982.

Patrick Pierre Roger Baudry, with a master of science degree in aeronautical engineering from the French Air Force Academy of Salon-de-Provence was born 6 March 1946 in Cameroon, West Africa, a French colony at that time. Baudry came ever so close to flying on a Russian spacecraft several years before STS-51G. The Soviet Union allowed foreigners the opportunity to become cosmonauts through their Intercosmos program, whose mission was to aid Soviet allies with their spaceflight aspirations. In April 1979, under a similar program, France was invited to have one of their countrymen join a Soviet crew on a flight, and CNES solicited candidates for a joint mission scheduled for 1982. Baudry applied and, along with Jean-Loup Chrétien, was one of two Frenchmen selected as CNES astronauts on 12 June 1980. He had earned his fighter pilot wings in 1970, flying F-100 and Jaguar strike aircraft at locations in France and Africa. In 1978 he was assigned to the Empire Test Pilot School located in Boscombe Down, England. He graduated following a year of learning how to push high-performance aircraft to their limits, earned the Patuxent Trophy, and then moved to the Flight Test Center in Brétigny-sur-Orge, France, in 1979, where he flew variations of Mirage, Jaguar, and Crusader jet aircraft. He accumulated over 3,300 hours of flight time in one hundred types of aircraft.

Jean-Loup Jacques Marie Chrétien was the first backup payload specialist to have already flown into space. Born in La Rochelle, France, on 20 August 1938, he attended the College Saint-Charles à Saint-Brieuc and the Lycee de Morlaix. In 1959 he enrolled at the Ècole de l’ Air—the French air force academy—located in Salon-de-Provence, earning a master of science degree in 1961 in aeronautical engineering. He was awarded his wings as a fighter pilot and pilot-engineer in 1962. He next served seven years in the Fifth Fighter Squadron in Orange, France, as a fighter pilot in an operational squadron where he flew Super Mystere B2 aircraft and then Mirage III interceptors. The next rung on the ladder was French test pilot school—Ècole du Personnel Navigant d’Essais et de Réception (EPNER). Afterward, Chrétien served a seven-year stint as a test pilot at Istres Flight Test Center, where he had the fortune to supervise the flight test program for the Mirage F-1 fighter. From there he transferred to the South Air Defense Division in Aix en Provence, where he was deputy commander from 1977 to 1978. Chrétien had over eight thousand hours flight time in a variety of high-performance aircraft, including Russian-made jets.

Several months after their selection as CNES astronauts, Baudry and Chrétien began training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, located in Star City, Russia. They both qualified as cosmonaut engineers on the Soyuz spacecraft and Salyut 7 space station complex and trained for a variety of scientific endeavors, including physiology, biology, materials processing, and astronomy.

Chrétien was given the nod as the prime crew member for the Soyuz T-6 mission; Baudry served as his backup. Commander Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dzhanibekov, flight engineer Aleksandr Sergeyevich Ivanchenkov, and research cosmonaut Chrétien launched on 24 June 1982 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome headed for the Salyut 7 space station. After successfully docking with Salyut 7 and its crew of Anatoli Berezovoy and Valentin Lebedev, the visitors spent almost seven days conducting joint Soviet-French experiments, including French echography cardiovascular monitoring system experiments. Soyuz T-6 and its crew departed the space station on 2 July 1982, landing a little over forty miles northeast of Arkalyk in northern Kazakhstan.

Chrétien gained much fame as the first Western European to make it into space. In honor of his achievements, following the mission, he was appointed to the lofty position of chief of the CNES Astronaut Office. By 1984 he had made his way to JSC in Houston with hopes of more space adventures.

The birth of Prince Sultan Salman Abdulaziz Al-Saud occurred in Riyahd, Saudi Arabia, on 27 June 1956. Born into the Saudi royal family as the nephew of King Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, he received his early elementary and secondary education in his birth city. His next destination was the United States, where he earned a degree in mass communications from the University of Denver. He netted his private pilot’s license in 1976.

Following college, he was appointed in 1982 to be a researcher in the Department of International Communications at the Ministry of Information in Saudi Arabia. The prince became involved in the 1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles, California, as deputy director for the Saudi Arabian Olympic Information Committee. After completion of the Olympics, he was appointed acting director of the new Department of Advertising at the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Information.

Al-Saud’s backup was Maj. Abdulmohsen Hamad Al-Bassam, a Royal Saudi Air Force fighter pilot born in Unayzah, Saudi Arabia, on 12 December 1948. He holds a bachelor of science degree in air science from King Faisal Air Academy located in Riyadh.

The concept of a communications satellite was initially brought forth by the Arab Telecommunication Union; the Arab Organization for Education, Science, and Culture; and the Arab States Broadcasting Union. In 1976 the Arab League endorsed the creation of an institution for satellite communications located in Riyadh, called the Arab Satellite Communications Organization (Arabsat), leading to a series of satellites to be named Arabsat. Dr. Ali Al-Mashat, managing director of Arabsat, explained that the Arab world was badly in need of a way to improve communications. Arabsat 1A was launched in February 1985 but quickly encountered problems. The satellite was nursed to life, but it never lived up to the Arab League expectations. A replacement was desperately needed.

Al-Mashat recollected that the Arab League wanted to deploy Arabsat 1B through NASA, and following negotiations, an agreement was soon reached to carry the satellite into space on the shuttle, where it would be deployed to the desired orbit. An agreement was reached in 1984 to select an Arab astronaut—a payload specialist—to accompany the satellite. According to Al-Mashat, Saudi Arabia was behind this effort more than any other Arab nation—they even paid the way for some of the other Arab League countries to keep the project going. As the head of Arabsat, Saudi Arabia decided to nominate a payload specialist to accompany their satellite into space.

According to a documentary by SilverGrey Pictures, directed by Pierre Salloum, NASA requested that Saudi Arabia nominate twenty individuals for medical screening. Al-Saud did not become aware of the opportunity until late in the process but managed to beat the deadline for consideration. Abdulmohsen Hamad Al-Bassam recalled that he and his squadron mates were asked to consider volunteering for the payload specialist position by their squadron leader, Prince Mansour Bin Bandar. He had received information that one of them should volunteer to become an astronaut, but most of Al-Bassam’s comrades shook their heads in disbelief, making light of the chance of a lifetime. Although skeptical of his chances, Al-Bassam was intrigued with the opportunity and did not hesitate to throw his hat into the ring.

Following a lengthy and demanding process by Saudi Arabia and NASA, Al-Saud was chosen as the prime payload specialist, with Al-Bassam as his backup. There were no experiments yet developed for Al-Saud to conduct while in space; that came later.

Initially, it appeared that Al-Saud might not get the chance to compete for the opportunity to represent Saudi Arabia on a mission into space. According to Al-Saud, his uncle, King Fahd, was not convinced that the twenty-eight-year-old prince was the right man for the job. Ben Evans reported in “‘The Sultans of Space’: The Multi-Cultural Mission of STS-51G” that King Fahd was worried that Al-Saud’s selection might be viewed as nepotism. The king was also not convinced that his young nephew was up to such a demanding task. Al-Saud recalled that his father decided to talk to the king, making a case that his son was worthy of representing Saudi Arabia in this grand adventure. In the SilverGrey Pictures production, Al-Saud, based on his father’s recollection of the incident, quoted the king as asking, “Is he strong willed? Is he up to the responsibility? Will he endure that tough training?” Al-Saud’s father assured him that his son was up to the undertaking, and the king finally gave his wholehearted endorsement.

Al-Bassam believes that the royal blood of the prince could have played an important role if the decision had been made solely by the Saudis. But he did not believe that NASA would have been that naive. Instead, he insisted that the prince was chosen for his competence; he was the most qualified candidate.

Al-Saud informed reporters at a press conference that his flight had generated immense interest in the Arab world. “Look at your own experience when John Glenn or when the shuttle went up,” he said. “You would not believe what’s going on in the Middle East right now. It’s just basically fired up the interest and enthusiasm among our generation, the older generation, and even the young kids. The enthusiasm that this trip will generate will be identical, I think, to that generated by the space program here in America.” Because the launch would also coincide with the end of Ramadan, the holiest month in the Muslim year, Al-Saud said he had to seek religious guidance on fasting and prayer. “I asked religious leaders in Saudi Arabia, and I said, ‘How do I pray to Mecca? By the time you find it, it’s gone!’ But as Muslims, God has told us that we can pray to him anywhere in the world facing any direction.”

NASA and CNES had reached an agreement on 23 March 1984 to fly a Frenchman on the shuttle, and Baudry and Chrétien were given the nod. The experiments that the French had planned for the shuttle mission were almost identical to the ones that Chrétien had performed on the Soyuz T-6 flight. Baudry backed up Chrétien on that mission, and he knew the experiments inside and out, so it seemed only fair and logical that Baudry should be chosen to fly with NASA. According to Chrétien, NASA administrator James Beggs saw it differently; flying Chrétien again would provide a much more accurate comparison of the scientific results. Chrétien felt it was a tricky situation, as NASA pushed hard for a long time to have it their way. The head of CNES asked Chrétien one day if he felt it was fair to deny Baudry the chance to fly, which he had earned with two years of diligent training with the Russians, and Chrétien said that he “could not tell him yes.” CNES held their ground and, in the end, won out; Baudry was selected as the prime crewman on the shuttle flight, with Chrétien serving as his backup.

Baudry and Chrétien planned their arrival at JSC for an early 1985 launch on STS-51E, but the move to STS-51G awarded them more time—almost a year—to train. Most of that time was spent doing mission-dependent training in building 32 located at JSC, learning the experiments. Mission-independent training for the payload specialists lasted the normal two to three months just prior to the scheduled launch. Chrétien recalled, “So we spent almost one year here. But we are in building 32 with the experiments, and in close relation with the PI [principal investigator] and mostly the echograph PI and neurosensorial [investigations]. There [was] very, very little training on the shuttle as a payload specialist. Mostly, at that time, you spent very little time with your crew. That was the main difference with the formal training on the Soyuz.”

Baudry loathed the abbreviated mission-independent training and, according to Chrétien, wanted no part of being a passenger. He wanted to “be on the flight deck” and learn how to fly the orbiter. The flight crew understood, and “they took him many times on the ascent-entry training.” Ten years following the flight of STS-51G, Chrétien went through astronaut candidate training with NASA at JSC, eventually flying as a mission specialist on STS-86 in 1997. For him, that experience underscored the difference in the training for the payload and mission specialists, saying, “When you go through mission specialist training after, you understand what are the difference[s].”

Baudry would have been fully capable of replacing Chrétien on the Soyuz T-6 flight had it become necessary. Conversely, Chrétien didn’t believe the level of training that he received from NASA as a backup payload specialist was adequate for him to replace Baudry on STS-51G. There were two complete crews for the Soyuz mission, with the same training regimen. There was no backup shuttle crew for Chrétien to train with. Chrétien pointed out that if the crew was in “building 9 . . . and you have a session training, where is the backup guy?” In the NASA system, at least on the STS-51G mission, the backup was the odd man out. Chrétien described his mission-independent training on STS-51G as “mostly to follow, to look, and just get my own culture on the system here—the only real backup training that you get then is on the experiments.”

Once Al-Saud was selected to represent Saudi Arabia, Dr. Abdallah E. Dabbagh, director of the Research Institute at the University of Petroleum and Minerals (UPM) in Dhahran, was directed to develop the scientific experiments for the prince to carry out once in orbit. Dabbagh traveled to JSC in March 1985 to meet with NASA payload integration personnel, who suggested several existing experiments, settling on four concepts. An ionized gas experiment was developed by a PhD candidate belonging to the Saudi royal family, which involved Al-Saud taking video shots of ionized gas clouds formed by the firing of the orbiter’s engines. Another, the phase separation experiment, would assess how Saudi, Kuwaiti, and Algerian oil samples mixed with water in the microgravity environment. Al-Saud was also assigned to perform Earth observations and take extensive photographs of his homeland, which they expected to fly over forty-nine times. He would also participate in the French postural experiment that Baudry was scheduled to operate.

Al-Saud and Al-Bassam arrived at JSC on 1 April 1985, followed several days later by Dr. Manzour Nazer, assistant leader of the Arabsat scientific experiment team. Before the end of April, other Arabsat team members had joined them at JSC to prepare the scientific experiments and observations for flight and to train the Saudi Arabian payload specialists in how to operate them.

Being a wealthy member of a royal family also came with certain privileges for Al-Saud. During his training he stayed in a plush four-hundred-dollar-a-day hotel suite in Houston and was driven to and from work in a chauffeured limousine with two bodyguards.

The flight crew got along quite well with the payload specialists. Creighton felt that Baudry was “highly qualified” to fly into space because of his experience as a pilot. But initially, none of the flight crew knew how Al-Saud would fit into the mix. The French customs were similar to those of Americans, and although Al-Saud had spent considerable time in the United States and was accustomed to wearing Western attire, he had spent most of his life wearing the traditional Saudi Arabian robes and head scarf, or keffiyeh. Al-Saud was Muslim. Brandenstein confessed that “we’d been around Frenchmen before. I figured we knew and understood that enough, but the other was a total mystery to us.” Thus, Brandenstein wished to learn about the culture of Al-Saud to reduce the likelihood that someone might say something offensive to him. Fortunately, the Saudi Arabian Oil Company—Aramco—had an office in Houston, so Brandenstein invited them over to teach the crew as much about Al-Saud’s culture as possible. “We were told not to tell any camel jokes when Sultan showed up, and the first thing he did when he walked through the door was to say, ‘I left my camel outside,’” John Fabian recalled, laughing. “So much for the public affairs part of the thing.” Brandenstein needn’t have worried; Al-Saud’s American education had taught him American ways. Brandenstein explained that he was “more Americanized . . . than the Frenchman was. A lot of times we’d say . . . a subtle-type joke that the Frenchman didn’t understand, and then Sultan would lean over and explain it to him. So it turned out to be a neat crew.”

For his part, Al-Saud said that his experience flying American-made F-15 Eagles and F-5 fighter bombers helped a lot in his preparation for the seven-day mission, commenting, “I’m working over sixteen hours a day to be ready.”

Creighton remembers that the flight crew was also very fond of Al-Saud’s backup, who was equally impressed with Al-Saud. According to Creighton, Al-Bassam had never met anyone from the royal family. “It was obvious to all of us that Prince Sultan had grown up in different financial circles than the rest of the crew,” he said with a laugh. He agreed with his commander that they all “got along pretty well.”

Training progressed well for the payload specialists. However, there were several areas where the Saudi contingent was not pleased. The process for obtaining proper security clearances and approval for them to be admitted into JSC was inefficient, resulting in embarrassment, inconvenience, and loss of time. The office space allocated to them was too small for two payload specialists and two assistant team leaders, making it nearly impossible to hold team meetings in the cramped quarters. They also desired to have a full-time secretary, but JSC could not provide an extra office. Otherwise, the Saudi Arabian contingent was extremely complimentary of the JSC efforts to make their brief stay in Texas as pleasant as possible.

On launch day, a smiling Baudry sported a jaunty French beret as he and his crewmates sauntered out of the Operations and Checkout Building on their way to the launchpad. Baudry and Al-Saud were in a jovial mood, waiting in the White Room to be deposited inside Discovery, laughing, smiling, and shaking hands with the White Room technicians. Fabian, Al-Saud, and Baudry were seated in the middeck for launch; hence, they were the final three astronauts to enter the orbiter. Neither Baudry nor Al-Saud displayed any outward signs of fear or nervousness, although they were fully aware that they were about to launch into space atop the equivalent of a bomb powerful enough to level the entire launch complex and then some. But on this day the rocket gods were with the crew.

On a hot and humid Florida morning, Discovery and its crew blazed a fiery trail into a blue cloudless sky a mere forty-two milliseconds late, beginning what would become a near-perfect mission. Baudry had carried out ascent-profile simulations during his training for the Soyuz T-6 mission and expected the shuttle acceleration to be less than that of the Soyuz, although to him they surprisingly felt about the same. As Baudry said postmission, “I had to strap down again at the end of the ascent because of the upside component of the acceleration. And I think it’s because of the seats and the position.” He speculated that the inclination of the seat might have increased the g-forces. The sensation that he experienced was more likely due to the relationship of the thrust vector of the main engines and the centerline of the orbiter, instead of inclined seats. Regardless, the launch was much different than he had expected.

Discovery settled into an orbit approximately 217 miles high at an inclination to the equator of just a tad over twenty-eight degrees. While the flight crew quickly got down to work deploying satellites out of the payload bay, Baudry and Al-Saud began their assigned tasks. Incidentally, once in orbit, the side hatch was secured with a lock. As Fabian recalled, “We put a lock on the door of the side hatch. It was installed when we got into orbit so that the door could not be opened from the inside and commit hari kari [sic], kill the whole crew; that was not because of anybody we had on our flight but because of a concern about someone who had flown before 51G.” Adding a lock to the orbiter side hatch became a fairly routine practice on flights carrying payload specialists.

Baudry, with help from Shannon Lucid, carried out the first French echocardiograph experiment assessment shortly after they reached orbit and then a second time on the first day of the mission. They would repeat the experiment at roughly the same time on each day of the flight. Data were also collected prior to the mission, and this would be collated once they were back on Earth, comparing it to the data Chrétien had collected on his Russian Soyuz T-6 mission.

Baudry and Al-Saud took great pride in completing their assignments to the best of their abilities. As part of the French postural experiment, Baudry carried out investigations that tested an array of activities measuring the electrical activity of muscles based on a variety of well-orchestrated body movements. Following fifteen minutes spent retrieving all the necessary equipment from out of stowage compartments in the middeck and then hooking up the biochemical electronic sensors to his body, Baudry began to conduct one phase of the experiment. As he stood perfectly erect in the middeck, with both arms by his sides as if at military attention, he swiftly thrust his arms outward, perpendicular to the length of his body. The paraphernalia he had previously attached to his legs and face recorded the ensuing results. His crisp body movements and the stern expression on his face provided testimony of his commitment to doing the best job that he possibly could. The experiment took sixty-five minutes to conduct, including setup and calibration, all contingent on other activities planned for the crew.

Both French experiments worked as planned, with only minor problems, all of which were predictable, making the French team on the ground very happy. Flying the French echocardiograph experiment on Discovery was a huge advantage over the Soyuz T-6 flight, on which Chrétien had to wait until he arrived at the Salyut space station to begin operating his experiments due to the cramped conditions on the Soyuz spacecraft. Baudry related that the scientists on the ground were elated by his efficiency. “I could start work with the [French echocardiograph experiment] one hour and fifty minutes after MECO [main engine cutoff]. And to have the first data recorded three hours and a few minutes after MECO, which was quite exceptional, and they did not expect so much. So they have exactly what they wanted and even more than what they wanted.”

In spite of his enthusiasm over the spectacular beginning to his research, Baudry was not impressed with the orbiter as a research station.

Generally, the orbiter without Spacelab is not very good—[it] doesn’t offer good space to make science . . . because there [are] too many people. You are all the time disturbed. And, for some experiments, it’s very good to have good concentration. And, with the noise of the loudspeaker, with the movement around you . . . it’s very difficult situation to work with on the mission. A good example is the cleaning of the filters. And that was a big surprise for me to see that to clean the filters was made twice on the mission and also that it took such a long time. And I did not realize at all that before the mission when you go in the middeck, you see somebody trying to work and you feel as if you don’t want to disturb him, but you have to work. I’m not a scientist, but I tried to be one, and really that was the worst situation to work properly. But if the work could be done, it’s because many of us really tried very hard to leave some peace during some periods.

Baudry believed steps could have been taken prior to the mission to make the situation more bearable and efficient. A crew activity plan developed early in the mission planning may have allowed the payload specialists to provide some input into how the scientific investigations were to be carried out. Clearly annoyed by the time required to clean filters and other disturbances, Baudry made it clear to NASA that “this kind of thing should appear in the [crew activity plan].” Al-Saud concurred with Baudry’s view in his postmission report, citing the treadmill as one of the activities that disturbed his investigations. Consequently, the treadmill was hardly used during the mission, because it was excessively noisy, which disturbed crew members. Brandenstein agreed: “Several of the crewmen used it periodically, but there was not a great deal of use made by all crewmen due to conflicts with PS experiments.” A more efficient crew activity plan may have allowed crew members to gain much-needed exercise at times when the payload specialists were not working in the middeck.

Al-Saud soon discovered that performing his traditional Muslim prayers in space was not going to be as easy as it is on Earth. In the weightless environment, he found it difficult to assume the proper prayer position. He also worried that an attempt to force himself into the proper configuration might induce the onset of SAS; therefore, he had to improvise.

Al-Saud planned to photograph Saudi Arabia from the overhead windows in the aft flight deck during daylight passes. He was primarily interested in the country’s geology, including hydrological features, sand dune morphology, urban areas, forestry, and turbidity in the waters of the Red Sea. He humorously tried to broker a deal with Saudi Arabian geologists, saying, “If [there are] any mineral findings, the crew gets half, and they said no.” Al-Saud’s photography assignments from the aft flight deck proved to be much more difficult than expected. His training had taught him the expert use of the camera, and he was thoroughly knowledgeable of the landmarks he was to photograph. The problem was that the speedy orbiter moved so fast that he had difficulty locating landmarks in time to snap good pictures. He believed it was much easier to identify the features from the pilot’s seat but not practical to move back and forth between the two locations. A crew member sitting in the pilot’s seat to relay upcoming features would have vastly improved his photographic reconnaissance. He also advised that there was not enough detailed information provided in the payload specialist checklists and commented that geological features should have been better defined for his Earth observational work.

The phase separation experiment was designed to assess how different concentrations of oil mixed with water in the microgravity environment. Using a simple, transparent Plexiglas container comprised of fifteen chambers, which held the various oils and water, Al-Saud captured his observations and photographed the container after he had thoroughly shaken it. There were hopes that the experiment might provide results that could help engineers and geologists coax more of their prized oil out of the giant Saudi oil fields, as well as improve oil spill cleanup procedures.

In support of a Saudi Arabian PhD student at Stanford University, Al-Saud used Discovery’s TV cameras to take photographs of the orbiter’s thruster plumes, so that experts could assess how the plumes affect operations measurements and communications associated with space vehicles. The data from this investigation would also be examined at the University of Petroleum and Minerals to assess the impact of gas particles on solid surfaces. As well, Al-Saud photographed the plumes emanating from the rocket engines of the Arabsat satellite when they were fired shortly after it was deployed.

Finally, Al-Saud carried out a controversial experiment associated with the end of the Muslim religious holiday Ramadan, designated by the first observance of the crescent of the moon with the unaided eye. His job was to locate the new moon while looking out the window of the orbiter following sunset on 17 or 18 June. Brandenstein had concerns that Al-Saud might take advantage of this opportunity to make a religious statement, which carried the potential for criticism from people around the world. Tactfully, Brandenstein talked to Al-Saud prior to the mission to make it clear that he was to keep religion out of his comments.

The Spacelab missions were loaded with a plethora of scientific investigations, requiring long days of work that kept the payload crews busy throughout most of the mission; rarely did they have time to float up to the flight deck and sightsee. Al-Saud had the opposite problem on STS-51G. He didn’t have enough work to keep him busy and soon became inured to witnessing repeated sunrises and sunsets. Al-Saud now wished that NASA had developed a hefty schedule of additional tasks for him to carry out, some required and others optional, which would have given him something to do once he completed his regularly assigned tasks.

Al-Saud had one more recommendation for NASA regarding foreign payload specialists. His fellow citizens were immensely proud of his accomplishment, and they would be hungry to know more about his spaceflight once he returned home. Unfortunately, he had very little to bring back to show them, other than a few photographs and standard video taken as time permitted. He dearly wished that a crew member had been trained to produce high-quality video images of him in orbit, so that he could take it back to his home country for publicity reasons.

Al-Saud predicted at a 28 May 1985 news conference that his inclusion on STS-51G would have an incredibly positive effect on the relations between the United States and the entire Islamic world. Confident that the Arab world would be mesmerized by one of their own citizens flying into space on an American spaceship, Al-Saud was extremely optimistic of more space adventures for his own countrymen. With little surprise, his flight truly had a tremendous and positive influence on the Arab world countries, which he would quickly realize once he returned to his home country.

Brandenstein guided Discovery to a soft landing at Edwards Air Force Base in the early morning of 24 June 1985. Shortly afterward, the crew made trips to both France and Saudi Arabia. According to Ben Evans in “The Sultans of Space,” Baudry was in the middle of a divorce at the time and even had a Russian girlfriend who was the daughter of a KGB agent; thus, tactfully the spouses were not invited to accompany the astronauts on their trip to France. Creighton recalled that it is still “a sore subject around my house to this day, because it was a wonderful trip.” Laughing, he continued, “I mean, nobody wines and dines like the French.”

Saudi Arabia was next on the postmission travel schedule. The crew flew into the capital, Riyadh, without Shannon Lucid, who was quite annoyed because Saudi Arabian women did not have the same civil rights as men, as Nagel recalled. The crew spent a few days in Riyadh; visited Al-Saud’s family farm as well as the royal summer palace in the mountains, where they experienced the lavish lifestyle of the royal family; and spent a lot of time visiting and talking to children. Lucid was finally convinced to fly in for a short visit but didn’t linger.

Neither Baudry nor Al-Saud flew into space again. Baudry was appointed in March 1986 as adviser to the chairman of the Aerospatiale Company. He next became advisor for manned spaceflight at the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, now Airbus Group NV, in 1993 until 2003, as well as a senior test pilot for Airbus. He participated in the early planning of the Hermes space plane, planned to be launched on a French Ariane rocket, but the project was cancelled in 1992 after a series of delays and funding problems. Baudry was later appointed as a UNESCO (United Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) goodwill ambassador in September 1999 for his efforts to organize the European Space Camp for young people.

Jean-Loup Chrétien went on to fly into space twice more; his second flight came in 1988 with the Russians on the Soyuz TM-7 mission, which included taking part in an EVA. From 1990 to 1993 he carried out pilot training for the Russian Buran spacecraft at the Moscow Joukovski Institute. Selected as part of NASA’s astronaut group 15 in 1994, he flew his final space mission on STS-86 in 1997. Retiring from NASA in 2001 following a career-ending accident at a local hardware store, Chrétien entered the business world in the Houston area.

Al-Saud did not rest on his laurels following his return from space. He entered the Saudi Royal Air Force, where he qualified to fly several types of civilian and military aircraft, reaching the rank of colonel prior to retiring from military service. He accumulated over seven thousand hours of flight time, including jet aircraft, helicopters, and gliders. He also owns a commercial transport pilot certificate from the United States. In 1985 he was a founding member of the Association of Space Explorers—an international, nonprofit professional and educational organization. Fourteen years following his only flight into space, Al-Saud returned to the United States, where he earned a master of science degree in social and political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, New York.

In 2008 he became the president and chairman of the Board of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage. He has also been involved in a host of charitable and humanitarian organizations. Since his flight into space, he has been bestowed with an overabundance of medals, Orders of Honor, and other awards, including an honorary doctorate degree in science from the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia.

Al-Saud, a humble man, remains passionate about space exploration, including its history and his brief contribution on STS-51G. He contends that he has not been able to repay his country for the opportunity to travel into space, which changed not only his life but the lives of millions in the Arab world. He is honored to have met many astronauts and cosmonauts and has become friends with many. Al-Saud never imagined that he would one day join the space program and fly into orbit. While that flight lasted only eight days, for Al-Saud the real bonanza came after his flight, with the opportunity to use his experience in space to encourage children to dream and to aspire to do more with their lives. He still recalls the excitement in the faces of the people of Saudi Arabia when he returned home following his flight.

Following the STS-51G mission, Maj. Abdulmohsen Hamad Al-Bassam returned home to the world he had known before being selected to participate in the payload specialist program. He rose to the rank of general in the Royal Saudi Air Force before retiring from the service. Later, he was assigned the role of air force attaché at the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in London, England.

The deployment of satellites on STS-51G—its primary objective—went off without a hitch, causing many to call it a textbook flight, a much-needed success for NASA after a string of shuttle missions that had encountered a variety of pesky problems. Although Baudry and Al-Saud were not NASA astronauts, the entire crew worked as a team, and without a successful program by the payload specialists, the crew would not have considered the mission 100 percent successful. On orbit, Al-Saud and Baudry both received much-appreciated assistance from the NASA crew. Brandenstein gave the crew high marks, stating, “The crew that I took with me on 51G was superb.”

Al-Saud reflected on his time in space shortly after his mission ended. “I think the Earth observation went very well,” he reported. “Everyone had a special interest in keeping me in touch with the timeline, and we did all the passes we wanted to do. I think we got some pretty good pictures. So I think everybody had a vested interest in seeing that the PSs get their experiments done. And especially because the rest of the mission was going very well, they just wanted the rest of us to have a good mission too.”

STS-51G was the fourth mission in 1985 to carry payload specialists, with four more coming down the pike before the end of the year. STS-51G may not have had the scientific audacity of Spacelab or the intrigue of a DoD mission, but the payload specialists on STS-51G were just as committed to pulling off a flawless mission. They had trained hard, formed a strong bond with the NASA crew, performed well on orbit, and made a significant contribution to a highly successful mission.