Mission STS-90, Columbia
Space is an immense, infinite void, full of grand and wondrous things. It’s hard to know where to start when it comes to thinking about how we fit into it. The shuttles we fly on are intricate vehicles with approximately 2.5 million moving parts that represent the heights of human engineering and design. But despite how complex they are, they function only when the entire team works together and manages the smallest, simplest things. The perfect alignment of tiles on the undersurface of the orbiter. Picking up all tools and trash when work on the vehicle is complete. Such things might seem trivial, but only by focusing on every detail, by adhering to every protocol, and by committing to excellence every moment can you send humans to space and bring them back safely. The greatest accomplishments often have the most humble origins.
A few days after my graduation, I had just returned to my office after a workout at the astronaut gym and was shaking the rain off my jacket when my phone rang.
“Good morning, Dave.” It was Bernadette Hajek, the assistant to Bob Cabana. “If you have a moment, Bob would like to speak with you.”
“No trouble at all,” I said. “I’ll be right there.”
I hung up and hurried out the door. Once again it felt as though I’d been called to the principal’s office. Bob Cabana generally spoke to us one-on-one only when there was an issue with our training. And getting called to the boss’s office without any explanation didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Why don’t they ever tell us what these meetings are about? I wondered as I took the stairs two at a time to my uncertain fate.
I knocked on his office door. “Dave, come on in,” Bob said.
“Hi, Bob. What can I do for you?” I asked.
“Why don’t you take a seat, Dave. I think you’ll want to be sitting when you hear this news.” Uh-oh.
I lowered myself into the chair opposite Bob. I waited. “Congratulations, Dave,” he said. “You’ve been selected as a mission specialist for STS-90. You’ll be flying on Columbia, on a sixteen-day shuttle mission. We’re calling it Neurolab.”
“Neurolab? As in neuroscience? In outer space?”
“It’s the Decade of the Brain and NASA has committed a dedicated research mission to study how the brain and nervous system adapt to space. Your medical background will be invaluable, Dave.”
It seemed too good to be true. Many astronauts waited months or years to be assigned to a mission that suited their skill set, so to find such a perfect fit so soon after finishing my ASCAN training was remarkable.
“I really can’t believe it. Thank you so much, Bob,” I said. “I’ll bring everything I have to the mission.”
“I know you will.”
“Can I ask who I’ll be flying with?”
“Rick Linnehan will be the payload commander, and two payload specialists will be chosen to fly with you from four that will train for the mission. The commander, pilot, and other mission specialist will be assigned later. In the meantime, you’ll begin your mission training immediately.”
I called Cathy as soon as I got back to my desk.
“Cathy, you’ll never believe it. I’ve been assigned to a mission!” I said breathlessly.
“That’s fabulous! When do you launch?”
“Not for another year at least, I imagine. It’ll take a while to train for all the neuroscience experiments we’ll be doing.”
“Neuroscience—that’s perfect for you! How long will you be up there?”
I paused. “Right now, it’s scheduled to be a sixteen-day mission.”
“Do you know what you’ll be doing?”
“Not exactly. Not yet,” I said. It dawned on me only then that although I had a general idea of what the mission entailed, I had no real idea of the specifics.
“Whatever it is, Dave, I’m sure it’s going to be incredible,” Cathy said.
It took several months for NASA to put together the rest of the crew, but finally, in early 1997, they were chosen. Our commander was Rick Searfoss, and I was thrilled to have two classmates with me, Scott Altman, our pilot, and Kathryn Hire, our flight engineer. We gathered in our crew office. They had just moved the contents of their desks to join us. It was time to get to know one another. The metal chairs squeaked as a couple of us leaned back and settled in for our introductions.
“Good morning, everyone. My name is Rick Searfoss, and I’m excited to be the commander for STS-90.” Rick looked every bit the U.S. Air Force colonel that he was, lean and muscular with squared shoulders. “This is my third spaceflight and I’m looking forward to flying with you all.”
Rick gestured to Scott. “Our pilot for this mission will be Scott Altman.”
“Call me Scooter,” said Scott as he leaned his six-foot-three frame back farther in his chair. “This is my first spaceflight, and I’m thrilled to be here.”
“We’ll have three mission specialists,” Rick continued. He turned to Rick Linnehan across the table from me. “Rick—sorry, this is going to get confusing, isn’t it?”
Rick Linnehan smiled. “Two Ricks on one shuttle. It’ll be fun.”
“I’m sure we’ll figure it out,” Rick S. said. “How was your last flight?”
“We had a great mission,” Linnehan said. “I flew on STS-78 in ’96. It was another life science mission, and Bob Thirsk was one of the payload specialists. Now we get to fly with Dave, and I’m already looking forward to another Canadian postflight tour.”
“Rick will be in charge of all experiments during the mission, so any science questions go to him. Otherwise, come to me,” our commander explained, before turning to Kay and me. “Dave and Kay, it looks like we’ll have at least three rookie flying snails on board, but I understand there may be more.”
“That’s correct,” Kay Hire said. Our class had changed its name from “the Slugs” to “the Flying Escargots” and one of Neurolab’s experiments required us to bring more than a hundred snails on board with us.
“Don’t worry. We’ll make sure you and your friends get there and back in one piece,” Rick S. said with a grin.
“Jay, Alex, Chiaki and Jim,” Rick S. continued, “I understand two of you will be picked to fly with us in a few months. I’ll let you know if I hear anything different.” The payload specialists were scientists in their own right, technical experts who would operate various experiments during the mission. There was a talented group to choose from: Jay Buckey, an experienced space researcher, was an internist in the school of medicine at Dartmouth; Jim Pawelczyk was an expert in space cardiovascular physiology and a professor at Penn State; Chiaki Mukai had already flown in space in 1994, was a cardiovascular surgeon, and had a PhD in physiology; and Alex Dunlap was a physician and veterinarian.
Rick continued. “All told, there will be seven of us on the shuttle when we take off, in addition to all the other creatures we’ll bring with us.”
“When will that be?” I asked.
“We’re scheduled to fly in March 1998,” Rick said. “There’s just a couple of more things. Rick and Dave, I’d like you to be the contingency space walkers. We don’t have any planned space walks for the mission, but if something breaks outside, you two will fix it.”
This was great news. Perhaps the reports from my ASCAN space walk training were better than I thought.
“Also,” he went on, “Dave will be one of the two crew medical officers. I’ll choose the other after the payload specialist selection is made.” Doctors on the ground, doctors in space, I thought. Months later, Jay and Jim were selected to fly the mission, and Rick chose Jay to be the second crew medical officer.
It was February 1997. My first thought was Our trip is so far away! But then I considered all the training and preparation we would need to do to become mission-ready, and suddenly a year didn’t seem like much time at all. Cathy and I chatted about it later that night.
“It’s hard to even think of everything that will happen between now and then,” I said.
“So don’t,” Cathy said.
“What do you mean?”
“Just take it one step at a time. It’s like the emergency department: you finish one case, and then you move on to the next.”
I looked at Cathy admiringly. “Good point.”
She got quiet then. “Dave, I have some news of my own.”
I was expecting to hear that she was going to be switching to a different airplane, but when she announced, “We’re going to have another baby!” I was thrilled. Meeting my new crew had been exciting, but it paled in comparison to the idea of meeting my newest child. Evan was now a very active young boy, and one of his favourite activities was to watch Disney’s The Lion King while playing with his toys. Often we’d both fall asleep watching the exploits of Simba, me in my flight suit, tired from an afternoon in the T-38, and Evan in his pajamas on my chest. I couldn’t wait until we added a younger brother or sister to the mix.
Cathy was still commuting back and forth to Toronto, and the next few months were a whirlwind. I spent my days learning how to become a proxy scientist for some of the best neuroscientists in the world, whose experiments we’d be conducting in space while they watched closely from the ground. At night I switched from reading books about the anatomy of baby mice to reading baby books to Evan as he drifted off to sleep. Goodnight Moon was his favorite.
In September 1997, I was about to enter a training session with Rick Linnehan, when one of the astronaut office assistants came running into the room.
“Dave,” he said breathlessly. “Your wife called—it’s time.”
I looked up at Rick, but he was already waving me out of the room.
I jumped into the car and raced to the hospital to meet Cathy.
“How are you doing?” I asked breathlessly when I reached her room.
“I’m okay,” Cathy answered, pausing to breathe slowly during a contraction. “I felt that one.”
Several hours later we welcomed our new daughter, Olivia, into the world. Like Evan, Olivia was a quiet, good-natured baby. She seemed to have a permanent smile as she looked around the room at us—that is, until she got hungry. Then her cry let us know who was in charge. Later that evening, while Cathy rested, I cradled Olivia in my arms. It struck me then how incredibly far away I was going to have to travel from my girl in just a few months’ time.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered, holding her a little closer to my chest. “No matter how far away I go, you and your brother will always be right here.”
Over the next few months, I tried to savor every single second I had at home. Evan was enjoying having a sister. Always attentive, he would bring her his favorite toy whenever she cried. When she was quiet, he was enthralled, but he didn’t seem too impressed with her crying.
As our launch date crept closer, I grew increasingly cautious about our mission. Even something as simple as cutting an apple in the morning warranted extra attention: one slip of the knife would impact my ability to perform the complex dissections and surgery we would be doing in space. NASA had a list of prohibited activities within six months of launch, and while I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be flying in any air races, the memory of being hit by a car on my bike as a child remained in the back of my mind. Anything can happen out of nowhere.
A couple of weeks before our launch, I was sitting at home in jeans and a T-shirt, reviewing the shuttle ascent checklist while eating dinner. I’d been spending more and more time at home, as I was about to enter the mandatory weeklong quarantine period that every astronaut goes through before a flight. I couldn’t risk catching so much as a cold without risking being medically disqualified from the mission.
The house was quiet, and my checklist and notes were spread across our pine dinner table. Its worn surface had seen a lot over the years, each stain and chip a testament to the many predawn coffees and late-night celebratory meals we’d had together since medical school.
Suddenly the doorbell rang. I glanced up, irritated by the interruption. It rang again before I made it to the door. We’re not expecting anyone, I thought. Through the door’s stained glass panels, I could see a woman. She was moving anxiously from side to side, turning to look away and then looking back as if waiting for something of great importance. I opened the door and realized it was one of our neighbors from down the street.
“Do you know CPR?” she asked before I even said hello.
Please don’t let this be a survey from the American Heart Association.
“Yes, I do know CPR. What can I do for you?” I replied.
“There’s somebody down the street who’s not breathing,” she said.
My medical instincts kicked in and we ran down the street to her driveway, where a teenage girl was lying on the pavement. A couple of people were trying to do CPR, but it was obvious from a distance that things weren’t going well. They have no clue what they’re doing, I thought as I raced up to them.
“Let me in, please. I’m a doctor,” I said.
The woman’s pulse was faint and she wasn’t breathing. Her skin was purplish from lack of oxygen. I knew immediately what to do, but I didn’t have any of the resuscitation equipment I would typically use. I had a decision to make—fast. It was obvious this woman urgently needed to be ventilated, but without equipment, that meant giving her mouth-to-mouth. If I helped, I could save her life. But by doing so, there was a chance I could ruin my quarantine period and impact the mission.
The decision was easy. I started giving the woman mouth-to-mouth. The flight surgeons are going to love this, I thought.
As an emergency physician, I had resuscitated countless individuals from cardiac arrest but had always done so in the bright lights of a hospital room with advanced life support equipment, defibrillators, and a team of highly trained professionals. Even though I had spent years teaching lifesaving, this was the first time I’d given mouth-to-mouth in a real situation, far from a hospital. I was on my own, in a dark driveway, surrounded by distraught family members. Their anxiety was palpable, almost infectious, but when the first breath went in successfully and I felt the woman’s lungs expand, I had hope.
As the air left the girl’s mouth, I heard an obvious wheezing noise from her chest.
“Does she have asthma?” I asked the crowd behind me.
“Yes, but it’s never been like this,” the girl’s mother said.
I continued giving breaths as the wail of the ambulance drifted from down the street. The paramedics arrived in a rush of noise and light.
“What happened?” the lead paramedic asked me.
“I believe she had a respiratory arrest following an asthma attack. She needs to be intubated and rehydrated, and we’ve got to give her bronchodilators.” The paramedic looked at me in surprise. “I’m an emergency physician,” I explained.
The two paramedics got right to work. They quickly realized that to save this girl we’d need the combined skills and efforts of all three of us. Within minutes we had reversed the course of the severe asthma attack. The girl was breathing on her own. The girl’s mother and I both rode with the paramedics in the ambulance, and by the time we got to the hospital, the girl was conscious.
The next day I went into Johnson Space Center to see our flight surgeon, Dr. Smith Johnston. “Hey, how are things?” I said casually as I walked into his office.
“Great,” he responded. “How are you doing? Ready for the flight?”
“Actually, there’s something I need to tell you that may be relevant to the mission. I don’t think it will be an issue, but just in case,” I said, still trying to be as casual as possible.
“What’s that?” Smith asked, leaning forward and looking me straight in the eye.
“Last night I had to perform mouth-to-mouth respiration on a teenager who had a respiratory arrest from status asthmaticus.”
“You did what?” he asked looking at me in disbelief. I slowly repeated what I had said.
Smith leaned back in his chair, contemplating the full impact of what I’d told him. Finally he said, “Did she make it?”
“She did. The paramedics got there and I intubated her. We gave her fluids and some epinephrine, and she was starting to breathe by herself by the time we reached the hospital.”
Then Smith got to the million-dollar question: “Did she have an upper respiratory tract infection? Pneumonia or anything else that caused the severe asthma attack?”
“Not that the family was aware of. They’d been painting inside the house and she had come over for a visit. Maybe that’s what set off her attack,” I said.
“Okay. Wow. How do you feel?”
“I’m fine. I’ll let you know if I get any symptoms in the next couple of days, but overall I think the risk is low.”
“I appreciate you telling me,” Smith said. We continued to chat about some of the medical things that I might have to deal with as the crew medical officer. It didn’t look like it would be a problem.
Our conversation came to a close. “Thanks again, Smith,” I said. “I’ll let you know if I don’t feel well.”
Just a couple of days before we were to go into official quarantine, the doorbell rang again. When I opened it, the girl and her parents were standing outside. She was bright-eyed and healthy.
“Can I come in?” she asked. “I wanted to talk to you about what happened earlier this week.”
“Of course,” I said, and we all went into the living room to sit down. Her parents shook my hand again, saying “Thank you” repeatedly. As we sat down in the living room, I thought about how unusual it was for me as a doctor to see someone after I’d cared for them. I had resuscitated lots of people in the hospital—sometimes successfully, sometimes not. But none of them had ever come by to say thank you, and I’d never spoken to any of them in a personal capacity afterward, especially not in my living room.
“I wanted to thank you,” the girl said.
“Of course,” I replied. “I’m a doctor—I was just doing my job.”
“No, I don’t think you understand,” she said, her eyes burning into me. “I want to thank you for saving my life. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with my life. But after what happened, I’m thinking of becoming a doctor. It’s incredible to think that, with the right skills, you can actually save a person.”
I was stunned. In a few simple statements, she’d captured why I’d first wanted to become a doctor. These were the moments that made all the stress, studying, and challenges worthwhile. They call mouth-to-mouth resuscitation the “kiss of life.” She was right: it’s a rare gift to be able to save somebody’s life. This girl’s words were a reminder not to take that gift—or life itself—for granted.
“I’m really happy to hear you’re interested in medicine. That’s fantastic,” I said. “I hope it works out for you.” We parted ways and she went off with her parents’ arms around her.
I returned my attention to the present. Thankfully, I didn’t get sick, so there was nothing to worry about. The rest of the week was a blur, and before I knew it, quarantine and the launch were upon us.
We spent three days in quarantine in Houston before flying down to the Kennedy Space Center in our T-38s. After we arrived, Rick addressed a crowd of reporters and other onlookers, including our families.
“It’s a beautiful day in Florida,” he said. “From what I understand, Columbia’s doing great as we start the countdown. We’re rested and ready to go.”
When the questions finished, Cathy walked forward with Evan. I pulled a Woody Toy Story character out of my helmet bag to give him. He was thrilled. Olivia was with our nanny, Maria, back at the hotel, sleeping through the event.
The weather forecast looked good for the launch, and when we weren’t reviewing our checklists or signing the stacks of photographs in the briefing room in crew quarters, we were at the beach. Since the early ’60s, the astronauts had kept a beach house for use prior to launch. It was part of a subdivision that NASA purchased to expand Kennedy Space Center, and it had become a special place for crew and their families prior to launch.
Forty-eight hours to go, I thought as I rolled onto my stomach to tan my back.
“Make sure you don’t get sunburns on your backs,” Rick yelled to us as we lay on the beach. “It can make it pretty painful lying in your seat for launch.”
The NASA Beach House at Kennedy Space Center—here shown as it looked in the 1960s, before it was renovated—has been an important place for astronauts and their families for decades, giving us a place of peace to be before a flight. Photo courtesy of NASA
A little while later, there was a flurry of activity back at the beach house, and Rick called to us again. “We have to go back to crew quarters. The president wants to speak to us about the mission.” We all leapt to our feet, grabbed our flip-flops, and ran to our convertibles. I had barely climbed into the back with Jay when Scooter took off, with Jim riding shotgun.
“You better slow down. We’re still on the air force side of the Cape, and the MPs might give us a ticket,” I yelled to Scooter.
“Not today they won’t,” he yelled back. “I have the perfect excuse: the commander in chief wants to talk to us.”
Ten minutes later, we were in our blue flight suits in the crew quarters briefing room. Rick S., Scott, and Kay were seated at the table in front of us with Rick L., Jay, Jim, and me in a row behind them. We waited expectantly, looking at a video camera that would connect us to the president, who was touring the simulator building at JSC with Senator John Glenn and Peggy Wilhide, the head of public affairs at NASA headquarters. Peggy was excited about the Neurolab experiments and hoped we’d be able to brief the president on the research we would be doing.
“I hope you find out a lot of things about the nervous system,” President Clinton said when he appeared on-screen, “because I’m getting to those years where I might need them.”
“Thank you, Mr. President, we’ll take that as one of the challenges we try to meet,” commander Rick joked.
“What experiments will you be doing on Neurolab?” President Clinton asked. Clearly, Peggy had been able to capture the president’s interest in the research.
Rick, Scooter, and Kay did their best to describe the science of the mission, but somehow they didn’t quite capture it. When they got to the experiment on blood pressure regulation, Jim, who was the crew expert on it, looked as though he wanted to vault over them to answer it properly. After the interview, Peggy called, “Hey, great job, you guys, but you could have talked more about the experiments.” I caught Jim’s eye across the table and we both smiled.
The night before you lift off to go into space is tough. You’re thinking about the mission and everything you will be doing, but you also find yourself wondering, Is this my last night on Earth? What’s going to happen? What if I don’t come back? Of course, you try not to dwell on those thoughts, but it’s not easy. Most people don’t get the world’s best sleep the night before liftoff.
The day of the launch itself was scheduled down to the minute, with little time to spare. The last chance I had to talk with Cathy and the kids was the night before. I called their hotel. All the families were staying in nearby Cocoa Beach, ready to board buses that would bring them to the Cape to watch the launch the next morning.
“Evan, say good night to Dad,” Cathy said, holding the phone to Evan’s ear. But Evan was more interested in playing with Woody from Toy Story than he was in his dad’s spaceflight.
“I’ll see you soon, Evan,” I said. “I love you.”
Cathy took the phone back, and I caught Olivia cooing in the background. “Give Olivia a kiss for me,” I said.
“I will,” Cathy replied. “You better get some rest.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Try counting stars.”
I had to laugh. “That might work.”
“Be safe up there. I love you,” she said.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” I said. “I love you, too.”
I knew that Cathy was worried, and I admired her strength. She remained so calm and steady. The kids were too young to understand the risks, but Cathy knew as well as I did that the next day would be as dangerous as it was exhilarating.