It is known as “the call.” I imagine most astronauts remember their call—the day, the time, the place—everything associated with one of the most important events in their life. It’s the call that takes ordinary U.S. citizens and gives them the opportunity to become extraordinary, to become a United States astronaut.
Susan and I were in Florida, at the Kennedy Space Center to be exact. She had been awarded an all-expense-paid trip to the famed Rocket Center as part of a NASA promotion called “space flight awareness.” This prestigious award is given to NASA and contract employees who have made significant contributions to their organizations in the name of the space shuttle program. Susan was being cited for her excellent work in the Shuttle-Mir Phase 1 program, the precursor to the International Space Station program in which we would one day be so intimately involved.
We were at Cape Canaveral to witness a shuttle launch firsthand. STS-91, the final Shuttle-Mir docking mission, was poised on launchpad 39A, ready to lift off and secure its place in NASA history as the final visit to the Russian Mir space station. Commanded by veteran astronaut Charlie Precourt, the space shuttle Discovery would carry a crew of six uphill, and seven, including Mir resident and native Australian Andy Thomas, back down. Pilot Dom Gorie, along with mission specialists Wendy Lawrence, Janet Kavandi, Franklin Chang-Diaz, and Russian cosmonaut Valery Ryumin, rounded out the shuttle crew.
The space flight awareness activities, most often scheduled two days before launch (L minus 2), were numerous and varied. Included was a luncheon featuring a briefing from brand-new astronaut candidate Lisa Nowak (a member of the sixteenth group of astronauts, she was to become infamous as the diaper-clad, pepper-spray-packin’ woman spurned by astronaut William A. “Billy O” Oefelein.). Bright and eager in her royal blue flight suit and yellow turtleneck, Nowak flashed smiles, shook hands, and signed autographs. It was a wonderful luncheon, and Susan and I got to be photographed together in front of the space shuttle Discovery launch background.
The biggest and most interesting party during the trip was the reception at the nearby Cape Canaveral port and cruise ship terminal. Attended by astronauts, NASA managers, contractors, and the awardees, the place was packed with folks enjoying fancy hors d’oeuvres and adult beverages. As we mingled with the crowd, we ran across several people with whom we were very well acquainted. Some of these VIPs made what we felt were strange comments. Brock “Randy” Stone, a former flight director and the head of Mission Operations at Johnson Space Center (and at the time my boss), told me it was “okay to relax.” The remark didn’t really sink in, although I did make a mental note of how odd it seemed for him to say something like that. While Susan and I were exchanging a subtle glance (complete with raised eyebrows), Jeff Bantle, then the head of the Flight Director Office and also a former flight director, sauntered over to where we stood with Randy. After he entered the casual chitchat, he suggested, “Don’t get too far from the phone.” I began to put two and two together. Jeff was a member of the Astronaut Selection Committee. I had recently stood before him and a plethora of other bigwigs to tell them all things Clayton Anderson in the hopes of solidifying my position as a viable astronaut candidate.
It wasn’t until Dave Leestma, another veteran astronaut and at that time the leader of Flight Crew Operations, happened by and said, “Hey, Clay, when are you going back to Houston?” that I dared begin to daydream. Quickly regaining consciousness, I doubt my answer was timely or succinct, but Dave’s response of “We’ll talk to you then” was intriguing. Having only spoken to him during the astronaut interview process, it seemed doubtful I would ever talk to him again—unless of course . . . maybe . . . you never know.
No, I told myself. Absolutely not. I simply couldn’t let myself think about selection. I was worried that if I let hope intercede, only to have it pulled away, the disappointment would be too great. Susan and I refused to discuss it any further, except for acknowledging the strangeness of the various interchanges. Though bolstered by their positive nature, we were still apprehensive about their intent. Oh well, we thought. Let’s drink more wine.
The next party, a huge celebration on the day before launch (L minus 1), was held at the Royal Mansions, a well-traveled Cocoa Beach condominium resort and regular hangout for Houstonian NASA folks. We were attending because Susan, as a member of the Shuttle-Mir Program Office, was invited. This bash commemorated the fast-approaching final mission and linkup between a space shuttle and the Mir space station.
We found ourselves on the patio, enjoying seasonably cool weather and the excitement surrounding the anticipation of another successful liftoff. Susan, looking gorgeous as ever, was in huge demand. Not only was she an effective employee but she was damned good-looking and thus the target of many of the inebriated males in attendance—any one of whom could make or break her career. It was not easy for me to stand by and watch these guys hug my wife and try to get “final mission kisses.” Susan was up to the challenge, though, politely fending them off with a smile and a quick hip bump. Always a pro, she was gracious and calm. I admired her moxie.
Many key players attended this gathering: Frank Culbertson, the Phase 1 program office manager and Susan’s boss; George Abbey, the Johnson Space Center director; Yury Glazkov, the decorated cosmonaut and hero of the Soviet Union; and former astronaut Mike Baker, the director of operations in Russia. Abbey and Glazkov were seated together at one of the patio tables, enjoying the revelry . . . perhaps a bit too much. Eyes struggling to stay open, Mr. Abbey was well known for snoozing right in the middle of critical conversations, then waking immediately, seemingly not having missed a single second of the transfer of information. He is a truly amazing and brilliant man.
The staff arrived at their table to deposit a watermelon fruit bowl. Cut from the rind of the melon, with jagged edges gracing the top of its circumference, the natural container was filled to the brim with various fruits, beautifully done and perfect for an outdoor party on the Florida coast.
I stood quietly on the patio, a good distance away, hoping to appear a typical nonchalant partygoer. Having attended the spaceflight awareness gathering the night before, and hearing the innuendo that was prevalent regarding the astronaut selection process, I figured my best bet was simply to hang out and not do anything stupid. Keep my distance, observe silently, be polite. Minimal chatter would be my ally in the quest to avoid messing this one up in the final hours.
Yet here I was, only feet from a former cosmonaut and the most senior official of the Johnson Space Center, both well past their normal levels of sobriety.
Mr. Abbey made the first move. Awaking from one of his brief power naps, he spied the newly provided sustenance in the table’s center. Without missing a beat, and with the vigor and command presence of a bear chasing salmon, he stuck his large hand directly into the watermelon bowl, securing a solid handful of melon balls, strawberries, grapes, and whatever else lay within. His hand moved quickly to his mouth and deposited the entire fistful into a cavernous waiting gullet. Yury wasted no time following Mr. Abbey’s lead. His motions were identical, although his hand was considerably smaller. This was amazing—and disgusting. Anyone watching would undoubtedly lose their appetite for whatever remained in the bowl.
What happened next became a vision forever etched into my memory banks. An attractive woman, probably in her early fifties, with short blond hair and quite well put together, approached the table with enthusiasm and a wonderful smile. As she neared, Mr. Abbey leaped to his feet—or at least he tried his best to, given his current state of “relaxation.” Obvious acquaintances, they exchanged a few pleasantries, and then, with a swoop of his hand reminiscent of his attack on the fruit bowl, Mr. Abbey grabbed the back of her head and pulled her in for a French kiss that would have made James Bond envious.
Tom Cremens, a JSC budget expert and one of Mr. Abbey’s righthand men, was also observing the male-female bonding exercise. With more courage than I could ever muster, he yelled, “Jesus Christ, George! My wife won’t even let me do that to her!”
I am not sure whether Mr. Abbey even heard the remark or cared, but a roar of laughter erupted from the small crowd witnessing the sensuous exchange. I sank deeper into my incognito persona, observing everything. This was pretty humorous and revealing at the same time. I wondered how these guys would ever be ready for the launch.
On the morning of June 3, 1998, parties and celebrations had finished. Possibly suffering hangovers but most certainly carrying the memories of a lifetime, thousands of people were heading home from their visit to Spaceport USA. The space shuttle Discovery had done her part, delivering a spectacularly beautiful and safe launch into orbit. She was now less than two days from her rendezvous with the Russian-built dragonfly-like collection of anodized aluminum modules known as Mir as it orbited some two hundred miles above the Earth.
Totally exhausted but enthused about the United States and her space program, Susan and I had several hours to kill before our flight home to Texas. Traveling without our two-year-old son, Cole, our adventurous side prevailed and we left Cocoa Beach for Highway A1A, bound for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Canaveral Lock station. Florida’s Beeline Expressway, and ultimately Orlando’s bustling international airport, would just have to wait.
Other launch guests had told us the Canaveral Lock was a great place to view and possibly interact with those huge masses of gray homeliness known as manatees. As we strolled leisurely around the area in search of some of these Wilford Brimley lookalikes, my pager began to vibrate at approximately 1006 (it’s funny how I remember that; today I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast). As head of JSC Emergency Operations, I was leashed to my job with this now ancient technology known as a pager. I looked at the telephone number on its tiny pale-green screen. The pager continued its buzzing, suggesting I push the button signifying receipt. I was racking my brain trying to identify the number. Usually I was able to at least identify the city or state by checking the area code: 402 was Nebraska, 515 Iowa, and 713 signifies Houston. The numbers 321 predominantly displayed in the pager’s LED window did not ring a bell.
“It has to be for you,” I told Susan. “I don’t recognize the number at all.” Handing the pager to my well-connected wife brought an initial look that was equally questioning but followed by her swift response, “I think I know this area code. It’s Florida.”
Still not certain of the originator of the pager’s digitally cryptic message, I was feeling a desperate need to return the call. While my gut was telling me it was likely intended for Susan, the fact that the number meant nothing to her either presented another, more serious possibility—an emergency situation could have arisen at JSC. In my position as its emergency manager, it was imperative that we find a phone. Any hope I harbored for becoming an astronaut would be dashed against the rocks if I failed to respond to the needs dictated by my current job responsibilities. Keep in mind this was happening back in the dark ages of the late nineties, when we didn’t carry cell phones.
Finding a telephone at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Canaveral Lock presented a problem. It’s not your standard Florida tourist attraction. Aside from the two of us, nary a soul could be found anywhere in the vicinity. The only structure within view was a small shack set back from a concrete walkway twenty or thirty yards from the lock.
We approached it cautiously, searching for signs of life, feeling much like the cops on a Special Victims Unit episode on TV. A single metal-casing door with a square glass pane stood as a silent sentry, ready to serve as a staunch deterrent in our quest for the telephone holy grail. We continued our stealth approach, as if command leaders in the mountains of Afghanistan, until we were within inches of the window. We discovered a Windex shortage existed at this government facility. Peering through the dirty glass like a spy in a B-roll movie, I gingerly cracked the door open. Susan’s soft hand squeezed the trapezius muscle on my right shoulder. Using the door as my shield, I craned my neck to maximize my view of the interior. The place was void of humankind.
I took a deep breath. “Hello? Anybody here?” I called without much confidence. The words seemed to bounce around like unreturned serves in a racquetball court.
My eyes scanned the space for any signs of life. A black rotary dial telephone (parents, please explain this one to your children) sat in the middle of the room’s single desk. The five clear plastic pushbuttons on the bottom of this ancient communication device were dark, signifying that at least for now, no one was using the line.
Clutching my pager in my left hand, I grabbed the receiver with my right. Not knowing how to get a line out, I randomly pushed in the clear plastic button at the far left. It lit up and I heard the necessary dial tone. Feeling like a sophomore making his first call to ask a girl for a date, I fumbled through three misdials. My nerves were heading toward fever pitch. My breathing must have been twice its normal rate. Finally a connection was made. A calm, soothing female voice came on the line: “Astronaut Crew Quarters.”
Area code 321—I finally figured it out! A neophyte in the Kennedy Space Center area, I hadn’t known that 3-2-1 was chosen in honor of the many launches from the Space Port.
I politely identified myself and explained how I had received a page and was simply returning the call. The patient voice asked if I had dialed the correct number. Had I? I wasn’t sure. I said, “I think so, but Susan Anderson is my wife and it’s possible they are trying to reach her.”
The voice said, “Please hold. Someone will be with you in a minute.”
The fog began to slowly lift in my brain. I was putting it all together.
With a rush of adrenaline and anticipation I hadn’t felt since the birth of our first child, my body and mind began to tingle. “Susan—I think I know what this is!” I whispered to my beautiful bride.
Susan knew, too. She began to cry. The first of many dominoes had fallen, starting a sequence that was destined to change our lives forever.
David Leestma came on the phone. After some agonizing small talk with this highest-ranking astronaut, he asked me the question I had been waiting to hear since I was five years old. “Are you still interested in being a long-duration mission specialist?”
Trying to sound as astronaut-like as possible, I stammered, “Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir!”
No longer interested in manatees, we headed to Orlando International Airport. We were so excited we couldn’t contain our enthusiasm, yet we only had each other to share it with, like when you have a big secret and are dying to tell someone but you can’t. Once inside the airport and safely checked in for the flight back to Houston, we initiated an attack on the nearest set of pay telephones. The first call went to my mother—who wasn’t home. The second call went to my sister—who wasn’t available either. The third call? You guessed it—my brother, but he wasn’t in his office either. We did hit the jackpot when we dialed up the in-laws in Anderson, Missouri.
My father-in-law, Jack Harreld, answered the phone and was the first to actually hear the news. Not much of a telephone conversationalist, he said nothing but burst into tears on the other end of the receiver. I was truly touched. Since my father had passed away in 1984, Jack had served as the father figure I now lacked, and he did it unconditionally with pride, honor, and understanding. I was excited that he was the first to hear the news. We randomly continued our attempts to contact all our other family members until we had to board the plane. The rest would have to wait a bit longer to get the wonderful news.
The week after NASA had issued the official press release announcing the astronaut class of 1998, I found myself playing right field at JSC’s Gilruth Recreation Center softball field complex. Roaming the green grass of field number 3, feeling like I was still twenty-five years old, I was enjoying one of my favorite pastimes of my early middle age.
Hearing a ping from the aluminum bat and seeing the red-stitched, white leather softball soaring rapidly my way, I instinctively put into action the training techniques that had been drilled into me from years spent on the baseball diamond. Hearing my father’s baritone voice saying, “Son, it’s easier to run forward than to run backward,” I rotated to my right and, continuing to accelerate, ran ever deeper into the far corner of right field. Sensing that this one was well hit and might recoil off of the top of the eight-foot-high chain-link fence surrounding the outfield, I slammed on the brakes to give myself room to play the carom.
While my mind was willing, my body was not. I felt a sharp pop in my left knee. The intense pain was short-lived but not the instability that came with it. As I tried to slow down to establish a good fielding position it felt like my knee was going to break sideways.
All I could think was “This isn’t good” as I gingerly braced myself to throw the now-retrieved ball to the infielder screaming at me from second base.
Recusing myself from the remainder of the inning, I managed to jog off the field to the dugout, telling myself that nothing had really happened to my leg and I would be able to finish the game after a short break to let my knee return to normal. As the minutes wore on and I took my turn in the batter’s box, it became painfully obvious something serious had occurred and I wouldn’t be playing any more softball for a while.
The next week I had an appointment with world-renowned orthopedic surgeon Daniel B. O’Neill, son of mission operations director John O’Neill. It took him only one tug on my lower leg to confirm the diagnosis I had been dreading. I had torn my left anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). I zigged when I should have zagged. The damage was severe enough that I would now need the good doctor’s services and a boatload of rehabilitation.
Since Dr. O’Neill knew I had just been selected as a new astronaut candidate, I was scheduled for what turned out to be very successful surgery on June 26, 1998, just forty-eight hours after the injury and less than two weeks since receiving my life-changing phone call from Dave Leestma. Feeling sheepish and fearful that my time as an astronaut had lasted all of two weeks, I put in a nervous call to Duane Ross, the dean of astronaut selection. In a roundabout way I mustered the courage to ask him if I was going to be kicked out of the corps because of my softball ineptitude.
He laughed his quiet unassuming laugh. After a slight pause for effect, he said, “No—short of being arrested, once you’re in, you’re pretty much in.”
Relieved at having survived my first obstacle, I threw myself into a daily, three-hour-plus rehabilitation regimen, fully expecting to report for astronaut duty in August no worse for the wear. I did make sure that I wore long and loose triple pleated slacks to my office in the Emergency Operations Center every day to cover up the fact that a full-length knee brace was part of my wardrobe.
The “cool factor” of astronaut selection set in very quickly. Well wishes were continuing to come in by email and telephone, including a call from Texas Democratic congressman Nick Lampson of Beaumont. Then representative for NASA’s home district, he provided kind words of congratulations. Being a native Nebraskan, I had speculated that this type of call might come from the representatives of my home state; it hadn’t dawned on me yet that I had been a Texan longer than I had been a Nebraskan and I now lived in Mr. Lampson’s district.
Being a novice astronaut, the phone call that ultimately blew me away was the one I received from the PE (Personal Equipment) Shop at nearby Ellington Field. I was told I would be receiving a “holey joe” (NASA lingo for interoffice mail envelope) containing a couple of forms for me to fill out. Once that task was completed, I would then be able to head out to Ellington Field for a meeting, the content of which was not clear.
For me to be journeying to Ellington Field was a major deal. This was a special, almost revered place where United States astronauts challenged the skies in high performance T-38 jets. So recently bestowed with the title of astronaut, I still considered myself an outsider. I was in awe as I headed for Hangar 276.
A huge white hangar with massive thirty-foot sliding doors at both ends served as the parking garage for NASA’s fleet of sleek T-38 jets. Having never before been to the PE Shop, I parked my car and headed for the interior of Hangar 276. It was midmorning and the hangar was only partially full of its cadre of aircraft. Many were on the flight line, prepared for pilots and astronauts to take them out on a sortie or two.
I took in a huge gulp of air as I entered the hangar, perhaps more from reverence than anything else. I was spellbound, my eyes fixed on these graceful supersonic air force hybrids. I was snapped from my trance when one of the flight line mechanics noticed me and asked if he could help.
“I’m supposed to go to the PE Shop,” I blabbered. He pointed me to a royal blue door on the hangar’s southwest side, where a sign, also royal blue, read “PE Shop.” I opened the door and climbed rubber-lined steps to the home of astronauts’ personal equipment.
There was not a lot of activity in the large open rooms. To the left was a room full of sewing machines. Royal blue jackets and flight suits cluttered the tabletops in this cockpit for highly skilled aviation haberdashers.
Faded photographs in cheap black frames adorned the walls, featuring famous astronauts and mission montages signed by crewmembers. To the right was a long, narrow room with two tables pushed end to end. On top, a myriad of components of the aviators’ parachutes were strewn. There were the beige chutes themselves, and the army green backpacks that would eventually carry the carefully folded cloth. Bulbous water floatation devices for the chute’s shoulder harnesses sat ready in the sequential and highly critical order required in packing the chutes.
I stood in the chute packing room mesmerized by its sights, smells, and secrets. A gentleman in navy blue pants, athletic shoes, and a gray cotton t-shirt stepped into the room and said, “Hello, Clayton!” While I was still trying to figure out how he knew my name, he introduced himself as “Sarge.” He was there to provide me with my equipment—my astronaut equipment.
Sarge, born Ervin Knehaus, led me to the end of the chute room and into a much smaller area that contained, surprisingly enough, a wooden picnic table. It was a break room of sorts, but on one wall was a full-length mirror. Along the other walls stood drab government-issue storage and filing cabinets. Sarge disappeared into an even smaller room, more like a closet, and emerged with a huge army-green duffel bag which he plopped down on the picnic table. He unzipped the bag and began quickly handing the items to me with only the briefest of explanations.
Like a barker at a carnival, old Sarge announced: “Here’s your flight boots, here’s your kneeboard, here’s your flashlight, here’s your wristwatch, here’s your flight jacket, here’s your sunglasses, here’s your pub bag, here’s your flight gloves, here’s your garment bag and your duffel bag, and here’s your two blue flight suits. Try them flight suits on.” A bit embarrassed but feeling like a kid in a candy store, I dropped trou and threw off my shirt in a hurried effort to begin donning my royal blue flight suit for the very first time. A size 42 long, just as I had indicated on the paperwork, it felt scratchy and stiff, carrying the smell of a garment fresh out of the package. I stood silently in front of the mirror, gazing at the reflection that most certainly was me but not believing my eyes.
“How’s it fit?” Sarge asked.
“I guess it fits great,” was my uneducated reply. “How does it look to you?” I wanted confirmation from someone who was not as ignorant as I.
“Looks good to me,” Sarge replied. “Now try on the jacket.”
Sarge had obviously done this before. Under his watchful eye and patient guidance, the sizing process proceeded smoothly, ensuring a proper fit for the jacket, flight suit, and standard-issue boots and gloves. Sarge was unrelenting in his quest to make sure everything met my satisfaction. I was in awe.
“Now you need some custom-made flight boots,” Sarge nonchalantly stated.
“I do?” I can only imagine the silly look on my face that greeted this salty old veteran. After all, he’d just given me a fine pair of boots.
“Yep, we need to measure your feet. Take a seat and pull your socks off.”
With an ancient, well-worn tailor’s tape, he carefully measured every inch of my feet, mumbling and making notations on a form that would serve as the blueprint for my custom footwear.
“What kinda boots ya want?” Sarge asked expectantly.
“Uh, what kinda boots ya got?” I queried, not certain of the meaning of his question.
“Well, we got yer lace-ups, we got yer zippers, and we got yer buckles,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“Uh . . . what kind do most people get?”
“Most astronauts, they like the buckles.”
“Well, that’s what I want!” I blurted enthusiastically.
“What color boots ya want?” He asked.
Fighting the urge to let him know that I thought this was getting ridiculous, my response was a hesitant. “Uh, what color boots ya got?”
“Well, we got yer Italian brown leather or your cordovan or your basic black,” he offered.
“Uh . . . what kind do most people get?” I repeated.
“Most astronauts, they’re kinda partial to the Italian brown leather.”
“Well, that’s what I want!” I confidently responded. I was starting to get the hang of this.
“What kinda heels ya want?” he asked.
“What kind of heels do I want . . . really?” I was beginning to feel like part of an Abbott and Costello comedy routine. “Uh, what kind of heels do you have?”
“Well, we got yer rubber heels and we got yer leather heels.”
“What kind do most people get?”
This time his reply to my constant question caught me totally off guard. “You don’t wanna slip and fall on your ass, do ya?”
“Uh, no, sir.”
“Then ya wants the rubber heels.”
“Okay, that’s what I want, the rubber heels.”
Wrapping up his tape measure and gathering his tools, Sarge signaled that I had satisfied his near-insatiable need for boot specifications.
Our next endeavor was getting a flight helmet. He led me back down the steep staircase and across the hangar floor to another door, once again matching the royal blue motif but this time bearing a sign: “Helmet/Chute Room.”
Inside this crowded room were rows and rows of shelves subdivided into individual bins. Each bin contained a military-green soft-sided bag. At the base of each bin were blue placards with the last name of the bin’s owner. The names of several astronauts, including Culbertson, Camarda, and Coleman, commanded my attention as we moved down the center row toward the back of the room.
Along each wall were evenly spaced thick wooden pegs, each one supporting the weight of a hanging parachute. All the chutes were facing the same direction, as if in military formation.
From there I was escorted into an even smaller room behind the rows of shelves and the stash of dangling parachutes.
“You’re going to need a flight helmet,” said the new personal equipment “helmet guy,” Chris Sandoval.
“Okay!” Another brilliant reply from the rookie astronaut.
“What color of helmet would you like to have?” he asked.
Oh no, I thought, a bit exasperated, we’re going to do it all over again. This time, though, I allowed my brain to do a small amount of processing before reentering the world of comedy routines.
Preemptively striking against my friendly foe, I asked, “Can I please look at some of the other astronauts’ helmets?”
“Sure, let’s go take a look,” was his accommodating reply.
We began to grab random helmet bags from the shelf of bins just outside his office door. The first one revealed a baby blue (that’s right—totally baby blue) helmet that belonged to the eccentric but brilliant astronaut Story Musgrave. Not my style. The PE Shop expert grabbed the next bag and unzipped it to reveal a bright yellow helmet with black lightning bolts painted on each side. This was the helmet of Frank Culbertson. Again, a helmet color scheme that was not going to float my boat. The third and fourth bags contained identical helmets, painted darker blue, with a metallic finish one might see on a sports car or a Texas Tech Red Raiders football helmet. It looked good to me—simple yet elegant and “astronaut-like.” But when the PE Shop guy told me that many of the astronauts of the 1996 class had chosen this type of helmet, I no longer wanted one. I wanted to stand out among my peers.
I searched other bags, trying to hone in on something that would work for me. Not having much luck, we returned to the office for a chance to look through a huge three-ring binder containing all the various colors and styles that were available. It was then that I had my helmet epiphany.
“How about maybe a solid red helmet with a white visor?” I asked. My thought was that the red and white could stand for my beloved Nebraska “Big Red.” It also occurred to me that as an equal opportunity school advertisement, it also represented the colors of my alma mater, Hastings College, and one of the colors of the Iowa State Cyclones. Not really a concern, the happenstances were an added bonus.
I learned that I could also get a customized logo painted on the helmet’s visor. As I looked through the mammoth binder, the NASA meatball and the symbol some call the “NASA swoosh” caught my eye. The swoosh logo is basically a representation of the innards of the NASA meatball—letters on a field of stars with the red chevron across the letters. In its purest form, this logo has the NASA letters in white, the chevron red and the stars are blue. The meatball logo, the more recognized of the two, is represented by a basic circle, predominantly blue, and is smaller than the swoosh. The size of the meatball would be quite small on my helmet visor, so I suggested that we go with the swoosh. With that major decision documented on the requisite forms, we moved to the next phase of my equipment orientation and adornment.
“You can get something on the back of your helmet, too,” my trusted aide revealed. I asked what he meant by that.
“Well,” he said. “You can get your name, or your wife’s name, or your girlfriend’s name or,” after pausing briefly, “your wife and your girlfriend’s names,” he stated matter-of-factly.
Shocked by his candor—and the deadpan delivery—I was speechless for a moment before stuttering, “H-h-how about Clayton C. Anderson?” I asked.
“Sure, that would be fine. What kind of font do you want it in?”
“What do most people get?” Here we go again, I thought.
“Usually they like to use the scripted font, like this one.” He pulled down one of the helmets and pointed out a name beautifully painted on the back, a military flier’s call sign that I didn’t recognize. Accepting his recommendation with a perceptible nod, I had apparently answered all his design questions.
Chris now told me we needed to figure out the type of oxygen mask best suited to the shape of my face. We tried several different styles (who knew there would be multiple styles?), hooking them up to a generic gray flight helmet, two bayonet fittings sliding into the two silver slots affixed to the outside of the helmet’s ear cavities.
I put it on and was struggling to breathe through a mask supplying no oxygen when he grabbed the end of the hose now sprouting from in front of my nose and attached it to a black military-type oxygen supplier. He flipped the dial to the “on” position and my breathing became easier. Satisfied that this might be a good fit, Chris moved the knob to the “test” position.
The shock to my system was intense. A serious push of oxygen came through the mask at a constant flow level. Air began to shoot out from under the mask just under my eye sockets. It became difficult to blink as the flow battered my untrained eyes. Chris noticed and turned the system off. He took the mask off and I watched as he delicately maneuvered the straps attached to the metal triangles serving as stabilizers on the sides of the rubber container.
“Try it now,” he instructed. I went through the newly learned ritual of clipping in the bayonet fittings. We did the test again. This time the mask felt awfully tight from the bridge of my nose to near the bottom of my chin.
The rotary switch in the “normal” position, he asked again, “How’s that feel?”
“I don’t know. How’s it supposed to feel?” I asked, my voice muffled by the thick military-green rubber mask.
Not at all affected by my attempt at levity, Chris asked, “Does it feel uncomfortable on your face? Is it too tight?”
I released the right bayonet from its locked in position. “Yes!”
Having apparently exercised all his options for sizing on this mask, we went to a second larger, and more rounded, style. The process was repeated, but this one was way too large. We ultimately returned to the first mask and resized the straps, finally being able to secure a fit that while a bit snug did everything necessary to keep the oxygen flowing within the confines of the mask and not leaking out anywhere on my face.
Chris asked the inevitable question, “How does that feel?”
I held to the exact same reply I had used earlier, and in an effort to be a team player, I suggested I would “try this for a while and see how it works.”
This would be the very mask I would wear while amassing over 650 hours of flight time in the T-38.
I walked away from Ellington Field that day with a bit of a hop in my step. Knowing little to nothing about the unbelievable adventure I was about to undertake, I felt for the first time like a real live astronaut.
The rest, as they say, is history.