Chapter Twenty

FROM CHILDHOOD, it was obvious that Mark was smart as a whip. He studied hard with no prompting and earned excellent grades. He excelled in sports, too. His younger brothers and sister idolized him. Busy with a procession of babies, Ruth was grateful for her second child’s self-sufficiency.

On the same day that Alan Shepard launched into space in 1961, nine-year-old Mark and a friend were kept in from recess. To commemorate the launch, the boys took all the art clay the school had and molded it into projectiles. After wetting the clay in the water fountain, they threw the “missiles” onto the ceiling of their classroom. During the middle of class, as the teacher was explaining how to diagram a sentence, the clay missiles lost their grip and began to plop down onto students’ heads.

The teacher pulled Mark aside and asked for an explanation. Mark told her that he thought the missiles would stay up there forever. She looked at him thoughtfully and told him, “You need to go to the library and learn about gravity.”

So Mark went to the city library, found a book on Sir Isaac Newton, and prepared a report for class. A whole new world opened up. Mark began reading all the biographies and autobiographies the library had. While watching the Alan Shepard flight into space, he’d made a decision: he knew what he wanted to do when he grew up. And every step he took from then on would bring him closer to that goal. His elementary, junior high, and high school teachers all would unknowingly contribute to his dream.

Someday, Mark would travel in space.

He became a Boy Scout and achieved the highest ranking of Eagle Scout. He was pleased to learn that an extremely high percentage of astronauts had taken part in Scouting, and a large number of those were Eagle Scouts. After high school, he was accepted by the Air Force Academy. He earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and spent years flying fighter jets. He then entered MIT to earn a degree in mechanical engineering, specializing in advanced composite materials, something NASA valued.

One Christmas, Mark came home and began talking about NASA’s astronaut program. Ruth was busy in the kitchen but finally began to wonder why he was going on about the subject. Then she realized: this was Mark talking.

She looked at him.

“You wouldn’t want to go up into space, would you?”

Mark held her gaze. He spoke directly, as all the Lees did.

“Yes, I do.”

After two decades of working toward a single goal, it was the first time Mark had mentioned a word of his plan to his family. They were surprised, but Charles and Ruth had always supported their children and encouraged their aspirations. They would support this idea too.

No one doubted Mark’s abilities, so no one was surprised when, out of more than five thousand applicants, he was one of just seventeen accepted as an astronaut candidate.

In January 1986, seven months after Mark completed his training, the shuttle Challenger exploded seventy-three seconds into its launch, killing everyone on board. The images of debris falling back to earth replayed on television screens across the United States and around the world. Excited schoolchildren had been watching the launch live in American classrooms as Christa McAuliffe became the first teacher to head to space. As a result, the tragedy —and the danger of space exploration —was magnified.

Mark, who had just become the first in his astronaut class to be assigned to a future space flight, called his parents. He needed them to understand just how dangerous this really was. His resolve had not wavered —neither did their support.

In late April 1989, the extended Lee family gathered on the narrow strip of Cocoa Beach, just south of Cape Canaveral. Mark was scheduled for his first space flight on the shuttle Atlantis. Two days before launch, NASA hosted the astronauts and their families for a beach house barbecue. Like all the guests, Mark’s family members were examined by a doctor before being allowed into the house. The government took no chances that someone would pass along a sore throat or fever to a crew member.

Despite the unspoken sense that this might be their last time together, the mood at the barbecue was upbeat. As usual, Brian lightened the conversation with wisecracks, but they all felt the gravity of the occasion, the sense of purpose. After a couple of hours, the five Atlantis crew members had to leave. Ruth hugged her boy tightly, but she did not cry.

While the crew finished preparations, the families were treated to a tour of the Kennedy Space Center and a nighttime visit to the launchpad. Their buses were driven to the foot of the massive structure, now illuminated with brilliant lights. A guide explained the different components of the pad: The enormous fuel storage tanks. The sophisticated venting system designed to contain exhaust and contaminated water after the launch. The eight enormous bolts, four inches in diameter, that held the rocket boosters to the platform and that would split in two at ignition. The escape baskets, which could slide the astronauts into a bunker in case of emergency.

Ruth felt her heart racing as she studied all the vital pieces and complex parts that had to work perfectly together to take her son into space and bring him safely back home.

Above them loomed the massive external tank, nearly half the distance of a football field and weighing over a million and a half pounds, most of that liquid oxygen and hydrogen. Clinging to its sides were the two solid rocket boosters, which would power the launch during the first two minutes of liftoff, and the familiar white body and finlike wings of the orbiter Atlantis itself.

It was the most stunning sight that Ruth, who’d grown up climbing trees and marveling at her family’s first washing machine, had ever seen. As she tilted her head back and looked at the fearsome expanse of machinery standing ready to transport her thirty-six-year-old son, it was astonishing to think that her family was a part of all this.

In the end, Mark’s first launch was scrubbed at T-31 seconds due to a problem with a pump. The relaunch would take place in four days. While they waited, the Lee family visited Disney World, SeaWorld, Rocket Park, and the IMAX theater at the Space Center. They tried to ignore the tension knotting their stomachs.

Finally, on the morning of May 4, they boarded buses for the LC39 family viewing center. It was a warm day, with a bright sun heating the tarmac and glinting off the bus windows. Every one of the Lees wore a red shirt proclaiming, “Viroqua, Wisconsin, home of astronaut Mark C. Lee.”

As the buses prepared to roll from the loading area on Merritt Island, Uncle Ole stood up and addressed the people settling into the rows of seats. The extended Lee family filled over half of the bus that was packed with other astronauts’ families and friends.

“Excuse me, and hello, I will be your tour guide this afternoon,” Ole said in an exaggerated monotone.

“Here comes a sermon,” someone tossed out, followed by a ripple of laughter.

“No, just a song.” Ole cleared his throat, then winked at Ruth and laughed. “All joking aside. My name is Ole Nordsletten, the proud uncle of astronaut Mark Lee. A group of people up in Seattle like to call me Reverend Ole.

“I’m sure each of you has a million memories attached to those boys out there like we do. I remember Mark as just a little fella running around the farm out in Viroqua, Wisconsin. And now we’re going to see them go down in history.”

Ole took a deep breath as his eyes swept the faces on the bus, resting again on his little sister. He remembered the day his parents brought home little infant Ruth —the girl who always laughed at his jokes and brought an unquenchable sunshine to their family.

“This is a remarkable day, and I’m incredibly proud of my sister, Ruth, my brother-in-law, Charles, and of course my nephew Mark. I am sure each one of you feels the same for your astronaut. If there are no objections, I would like to offer up a prayer for a safe launch, a successful mission, and the safe return of our loved ones.”

There were approving murmurs throughout the bus. Ole closed his eyes and in his deep voice sent his prayer beyond the shuttle’s destination. Ruth thought of her parents and how amazed they’d be by all of this. Olava had been gone for almost thirty years, and her father had passed away in 1974 on the day of Mark’s graduation from the Air Force Academy. It seemed impossible that he’d been gone fifteen years already.

Once they reached the viewing area, the family settled into the stands for a long wait. Loudspeakers broadcast feeds from mission control and launch control. A narrator explained what was happening as the launch timeline moved forward. Astronauts were on hand to answer questions. Three miles away, the shuttle shimmered through the heat.

From behind her sunglasses, Ruth stared at the launchpad. A light breeze ruffled her short hair. She knew that Mark was already in the shuttle crew compartment, lying flat on his back with his feet in the air, strapped in for hours of preflight checks and procedures. Her stomach clenched with a mixture of emotions. Excitement. Fear. Immense pride.

The crowd was silent as a pleasant male voice started the countdown. Everyone tensed, not knowing whether the count would be aborted, as it had been days earlier. But at T-14 seconds, as 300,000 gallons of water poured onto the launchpad to muffle the powerful sound waves, steam began to billow underneath the shuttle.

Ruth’s heart was pounding so hard that she could actually hear it.

At seven seconds, bright flames ignited on the shuttle’s main engines. Great clouds of steam nearly obscured the entire launchpad. Then the countdown completed: two, one, zero . . . and liftoff.

The sound hit the crowd a few seconds later. Even as they cheered, the noise thundered against their bodies, an insistent percussion. Ruth’s eyes were locked on the shuttle, whose rockets were like infernos pushing it upward. She could feel her heart tugging toward them, toward Mark. Tears slid from beneath her dark glasses. Tears stained nearly everyone’s cheeks —the majesty of the spectacle fairly demanded it. Nothing they had ever seen, or ever would see, had prepared them for the flames blazing under the rockets, colors of an intensity and brightness unlike any they’d witnessed before.

With memories of the Challenger explosion still fresh, the first two minutes were agonizing. But as the clock ticked on and the NASA feed continued its calm details, a sense of relief swept through the families. They hugged and slapped each other on the back, their eyes continually glancing skyward. All too soon, they were hustled onto buses and driven away.

Celebrations went well into the evening, with plenty of snacks and drinks to go around. The Lee family stayed riveted to the NASA channel on cable. Nerves dissipated as the shuttle safely reached Earth’s orbit. Having already stayed extra days, most of the family scrambled to book flights and parted ways the next day. Ruth said good-bye to her children, her brothers, and her sisters-in-law. She and Charles flew back to Wisconsin.

After four days in orbit, the shuttle returned, landing in California. Ruth was relieved to hear Mark’s voice when he called. He told her how bumpy the launch had been, like driving down a gravel road full of ruts. He’d been impressed by how small Earth appeared from space. It took just ninety minutes to go all the way around it in the shuttle. When he returned, the world felt smaller, the human experience both more trivial and more momentous.

During the next eight years Mark would go on three more space missions and would conduct four space walks, spending a total of thirty-three days in orbit and traveling around the earth 517 times. His parents and most of his siblings and extended family were present at every launch.

Especially harrowing for the family was his third mission in 1994, during which Mark performed an untethered space walk while flying an experimental jet-pack outside the shuttle. The walk produced stunning photos of Mark, in a brilliant white suit and gleaming gold-faced helmet, floating above the blue curve of Earth with the fathomless black of space behind him. Some hundred and fifty miles below, his anxious family listened to the NASA feed and waited for word that he was safely back on board the shuttle Discovery.

Traveling to space was an experience shared by only a handful of people in human history. Thanks to a certain stubborn determination and decades of focused work, the boy from Wisconsin had fulfilled his extravagant dreams.

* * *

After the first shuttle launch in 1989, Ruth made her own changes. Her nest had nearly emptied out. For some time, she’d worked part-time doing bookkeeping for her church, but as Christmas approached, Ruth wanted to add funds to the holiday budget. She applied to be a seasonal employee at a busy store that had sprung up two miles away. In many ways, the new Walmart had now become the town center.

After the holidays ended, Ruth’s manager asked her to stay. She enjoyed the bustle and energy of the place. It wasn’t long before part-time turned to full-time. Ruth worked at Walmart for almost twenty years before retiring at the age of seventy-eight.

Ruth enjoyed chatting with customers, many of whom knew her family. It seemed as if the whole town of Viroqua eagerly watched televised reports of Mark’s space travels. Ruth’s other children had all worked hard to build successful lives for themselves, too. She couldn’t have been prouder of each one.

As time marched on, Ruth acknowledged a truth about life: “You can only depend on change.”

Life was more than she might have imagined as a girl sitting in the tops of trees. It had taken her far beyond her beginning at a home for unwed mothers in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Ruth knew nothing about her conception, but sacrifice and prayers had prevailed against the tragic assault on a sixteen-year-old girl at Scatterwood Lake. Great beauty had risen from ashes.

Redemption had occurred, but something else was on its way, something that Ruth hadn’t expected but which would bring her abundant joy. Something that a very old woman had waited for nearly all her life.

Restoration was coming.