Even Astronauts Can Get Lost.

     As an instructor pilot I had some important lessons that I wanted to be carved in stone in every student's soul. Things such as "Never try and rescue a bad approach- just go around and start again." and "If that engine blows, this bird belongs to the insurance company- just save yer' ass." or "If the takeoff roll doesn't feel, it ain't right, ABORT and figure it out on the ramp." Basic stuff like that later saved the lives of two of former students. One thing that I carved into the souls of those future pilots was, "If you don't know exactly where you are, if your position is in doubt... YER' LOST! Just admit that and take positive steps to find your exact position. Stuff your ego in your pocket, contact ATC and tell them you are lost. Admitting you have a problem is the first step in fixing the problem." Any pilot can get lost, even astronauts. That is a lesson I learned on February 5th, 1971 as I sat in front of the family TV set bathed in the pre-dawn darkness and gazing at the the stagnated television image of  the rise of Cone crater as I listened to the distant voices of Shepard and Mitchell.

The following is an excerpt from my book "Apollo Part Two" and my six book series "Growing up with Spaceflight" it is copyright 2015 Wes Oleszewski, all rights are reserved no part may be reproduced in any form.

There is a saying about the best laid plans of mice and men… and perhaps 13-year-old space-buffs. My alarm went off at 3:45 in the morning, exactly as planned and I sprung from my bed; wide awake as if it were noon. I had left my EVA-watchin’ equipment set up by the TV and had received orders from my Mom,

“Just don’t wake any of the rest of us up.”

Such was not a problem because I did not need any more background noise on my tapes anyhow. Turning on the television I discovered, to my shock, that the EVA was already underway! Looking around at all of the clocks, I could not figure out where I had made my mistake. I was up an hour and 45 minutes early, yet here were Shepard and Mitchell already heading toward Cone crater! Where had I gone wrong? I had planned it out so carefully! I sat there for the longest time puzzled and disappointed that somehow I had screwed this up. It was not until later into the EVA that I discovered that the crew had elected to start the event a remarkable two and one half hours early! There was no way that I could have planned for that.

Once Shepard had turned the TV camera to look at the crew’s path of travel toward Cone crater, the two astronauts vanished over the hill in about seven minutes. From then on all we had on our television sets was the image of what the crew thought was the rim of Cone in the background and the undulating terrain in the foreground with a series of glare splotches across the view from the upper right to the lower left. Most importantly for me, however, were the words “Live From The Moon,” on the bottom of the screen.

Trekking up toward Cone crater, Shepard and Mitchell were about to get a big lesson in the laws of lunar exploration. The human brain is hard-wired to judge distances largely based on how known objects appear within our atmosphere. Our depth-perception is based in large part by looking through the particulates suspended in the air. Even on a very clear day, there are still particulates in the air and thus we judge distance subconsciously by that standard. Additionally, a house, or a fire hydrant, or even a stop sign is a known object with a known dimension. Our sense of depth perception takes that known data and translates it into an approximation of distance. On the Moon, there is no atmosphere and there are no known objects, thus there is almost no depth perception. To make matters worse for the traversing crew, the photos and maps of their landing site that they carried with them and had studied until they were committed to memory, were all from a straight-down point of view. Almost none of their traverse training and been done with a surface point of view. If you want to see this difference, simply stand in your own living room and look down at your carpet. Then take a mirror and hold it edge-on at the surface and tilt it so you can see the same room from a surface level point of view. You will find yourself lost in a place with which you are very familiar. Next remove your depth perception and you have the situation in which the Apollo 14 crew found themselves. Now, you can make it worse by adding a boulder field with rocks the size of cars. Additionally, the crew found themselves walking in terrain that consisted of rolling hills some being 12 to 15 feet high. The result was that once they went over a hill they lost sight of anything beyond the next hill. Their landmarks were largely craters that were well defined in the over-head photographs of the area, but once actually down in the terrain those landmarks simply became lost in the undulations.

Furthering the problem was the fact that the approach to Cone crater was not a linear incline, rather its slope increased as the crew grew closer to the rim. Additionally, the crew had never pulled the MET for this distance up-hill while wearing inflated suits. The lunar soil was softer and deeper than anyone had figured and the MET had turned into a rolling pain in the butt. The two astronauts actually found they could make greater progress on occasion by picking the MET up and carrying it. Finally, ahead they saw a large rise and figuring that it was the rim of Cone crater they headed up it. What they actually topped was nothing more than another roll in the local terrain.

“We haven’t reached the rim yet,” Shepard reported dejectedly to mission control.

Mitchell, now also breathing heavily, added, “Oh boy… we got fooled on that one.” He later added that, “Our positions are all in doubt now…”

Running behind the time-line, they were nearly exhausted and now they were lost. Nothing looked familiar from their training. Instead of exploring a giant lunar crater, the Moon had handed them a funhouse of mirrors and confusion. The question was should they struggle on to that next ridge, the distance of which was anyone’s guess.

Sitting in my living room I knew that these two guys were in trouble and I was only a 7^th grader but even I could tell that this part of the EVA was clearly not going as planned, but all I could do was listen. In Houston, the grown-ups were in exactly the same state of affairs. The two moonwalkers sounded spent and you could hear their labored breathing over their microphones. These were guys in top physical condition and the lunar environment had rapidly sapped their strength.

“I'd say that the rim is at least 30 minutes away." Shepard estimated, "and what I'm proposing is perhaps we use that as the turnaround point. It seems to me that we spend a lot more time in traverse if we don't… and we don't get very many samples."

Mitchell disagreed saying that their objective was at the top of the next rise. Mitchell was in no mood for stopping, however,

"Oh, let's give it a whirl. Gee whiz. We can't stop looking into Cone crater. We've lost everything if you don't get there."

Although Shepard insisted after the EVA that at no time were they disorientated or lost, Mitchell’s real-time comment that, “Our positions are all in doubt now…” betrays their actual situation. If they were not disorientated, then they would have been properly orientated, in which case they would have simply turned in the correct direction and walked to the rim of Cone crater. Likewise, if they were not lost, they would have known that the next ridge straight ahead was a canard and not the rim of Cone crater as they decided it was at the time. The most difficult thing for pilots to do is admit that they are lost. It is far more palatable to just say that someone moved the crater on you.

It was at that moment that Alan Shepard put away his Right Stuff white scarf, put aside his ego and made the absolutely correct command decision. They had not come all this way just to look into a crater, rather their mission was to sample boulders ejected from that crater. It was time to say that they were surrounded with what they had come for, sample the local boulders and complete their mission. Later, Shepard and Mitchell would look at photos of the boulder field and conclude that they were within 150-300 feet of the rim of Cone crater. Four decades later, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter would take high resolution photos of the landing site showing Shepard and Mitchell’s footprints running parallel to the crater’s rim, stopping and turning back within about 300 feet of their objective.  Had they kept going in their established direction, they would have walked right past Cone crater without ever seeing it.

Mitchell really wanted to press on to the next ridge, but Shepard insisted,

"I think we’ll waste an awful lot of time traveling and not much documenting."

Mitchell asked Houston how far behind the timeline the crew was. CAPCOM replied that they were 25 minutes down.

"We’ll be an hour down by the time we get to the top of that thing," Shepard insisted, noting how little geology had been done for the amount of walking that had been done,

"You got six samples," he flatly stated.

Shepard decided that the boulders that now surrounded the crew were the same as those found on the rim of Cone crater and it would satisfy the mission’s objectives to sample them rather than struggle on ahead; he was absolutely right. The crew did their sampling and turned back toward ANTARES.

When the two moonwalkers turned around and looked down hill, they were quickly able to pick out landmarks. Yet, as they began walking down into the undulation once again, they quickly lost sight of nearly all those landmarks with the exception of a single huge boulder. Using that and their own footprints they were able to accomplish the return leg of their traverse taking rock samples along the way.

Apollo 14's second and final EVA ended with Shepard's really fun golf shots and that turned out to be what the media and most of the public focused upon. My focus was on the fact that even astronauts, whom I considered to be the best pilots in the world, could actually get lost on the lunar surface! It was a lesson that would be driven home again 14 months later when Young and Duke strolled off to sample a boulder that was "...just over there..." and it turned out to be a rock the size of a three story house! We watched on TV as they loped off toward it and their figures seemed to shrink. Duke exclaimed, "Look'et the size of that rock!... The closer I get to it the bigger it is!" Without depth perception it is easy for the Moon to fool us little humans. It is also a lesson it the fallacy of Shepard trying to land the LEM without radar. He would have had to take extra time to attempt to judge his altitude and run out of fuel in the dead zone. Most of all it should be a lesson for the future.

If we ever do get back to the lunar surface, the Moon is more then happy to fool us again, and again, and again. 

For more on what it was like during Apollo 14, check out my books at www.authorwes.com

Apollo 14... A Half Century Ago- Launch Day!

It's amazing to look back at Apollo 14 and consider that it took place a half century ago. I was a 7th grader in one of the worst junior high schools on the planet. I'd survived my first semester at that place and learned a few lessons. First off, making the honor role not only earned me a new portable TV set from my aunt Dolly, but I also earned getting thrown up against the lockers by three thugs and told quite clearly, "Dat ain't cool." Additionally, I was given a new Apollo 14 mission patch and learned that you don't take a needle and thread and tack that patch onto your jacket, because the thugs will rip it from your chest and steal it, telling you, you didn't have nothin' to do with that. Those are words that burn into your memory at age 13, and experiences you don't forget- ever. So, how does one survive? Simple, you find a place to go in your own mind, a blanket to pull over your soul. The Apollo Program worked nicely for that, and Apollo 14 was a good start... or course I had to keep it to myself.

I'd been looking forward to launch day for ten months. The following is an excerpt from my "Apollo Part Two" volume of my "Growing up with Spaceflight" book series, and takes us back to launch day and my family living room...

(the following is copyright 2015 Wes Oleszewski all rights reserved) 

Launch day at KSC found a series of heavy rain showers moving through the area. Considering the self-generated lightning that had tossed Apollo 12’s launch into a tizzy and with the shadow of Apollo 13’s near-disaster hanging over NASA, Launch Director Walter Kapryan had some pressure on him. Adding to that was the feeling of many that if another major failure or accident should happen, President Nixon was poised to pull the plug on the entire program. Kapryan decided to call a hold in the count at T-8 minutes and two seconds and see what the weather was going to do. The hold lasted for 40 minutes and three seconds. All the while it appeared on our TV sets as if the weather over the shoulders of Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra was getting worse. As time went on it began to appear as if this may be Apollo’s very first scrub of a manned launch.

All of “us kids” were gathered in the family living room in front of the TV; my sister, brother and a few neighborhood kids were there. There was no point in changing the channel, all three networks had Apollo 14 coverage on. Together we waited out the hold while I held court and answered what questions were sent my way; illustrating my points by using my 1/200 AMT Saturn V model. Of course I had my trusty copy of “We Came In Peace” at my elbow too. Any questions that I didn’t know the answer to, I simply made up a response that sounded real technical. It was a skill that much later in life served me well as an airline pilot speaking to passengers.

At 3:39p.m. Eastern time NASA public affairs officer Jack King came on with one of more than a dozen announcements he had to make during the hold,

"This is Kennedy Launch Control remaining in the hold, T minus eight minutes and two seconds at this time on Apollo 14. Standing by for further advisories from the National Weather Service aircraft which is surveying the cloud conditions in the area. Just a matter of a minute or two ago, the director of flight crew operations Deke Slayton called in to Al Shepard in the spacecraft and mentioned to Al that at least it’s more comfortable up there than it was in the old days."

This was a reference to the protracted holds that took place prior to Shepard's Freedom 7 launch back in 1961, when his bladder forced Al to "wet his pants." From the Apollo 14 spacecraft Shepard replied to Slayton, "Oh, my yes."

Jack King then went on to state, "He also added to Deke that; we're in good shape up here. We're standing by for further reports… Holding eight minutes and two seconds. This Kennedy Launch Control."

Finally, at 3:55p.m. Jack King came on with some good news, announcing that the count would be picking up.

"This is Kennedy launch control. Mark. We have resumed our countdown at T minus eight minutes and counting on Apollo 14. We're still keeping a close eye on our weather conditions at this time but Launch Director Walter Kapryan has made the determination to resume the count. This should put us with a liftoff at three minutes past the hour if all continues to go well. We are now starting the chill-down of the engine chambers on the third and second stages of the Saturn V launch vehicle. This is one of the critical elements and has to do with hold time. The chill-down has to last a precise period. We feed in extremely cold helium into the engine chambers of both the second stage and third stage to condition them for the very cold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen that will be flowing into the chambers when they’re due to ignite later during the powered portion of the flight. All is still going well as far as the launch vehicle, spacecraft and the three astronauts on board. Coming up to the seven minute mark, Mark! Seven minutes and counting. This is Kennedy Launch Control.”

As the count hit the two minute mark, CBS switched to NASA’s launch pad camera number 27 which was focused on the Q-ball cover at the tip of the launch escape tower.

    “What’s that? My Mom asked, “What’s that round thing there?”

I had no idea, but as she was asking me the question Cronkite said, “That’s the Q-ball, the shield, at the very top of the Apollo 14 spacecraft configuration that blows off 10 seconds before the launch…”

I turned knowingly and parroted, “That’s the Q-ball ma.” Seeing the line connected to the cover she asked,

“Well, does it just stay there?” Apparently she had not heard Cronkite.

“It comes off at T minus 10 seconds,” I replied as if I’d known that all along.

Then I made a mental note to later go and find out what that Q-ball thing was for. Later I discovered it was for measuring angle of attack as the Saturn V flew through the lower atmosphere. Of course it would be a few more years before I learned what angle of attack actually was, too.

As the count hit T minus eight point nine seconds the five huge F-1 engines came to life. Long range news cameras at the press site had their lenses blinded as the brilliance of the Saturn V erupted through the rainy gloom. Close-up NASA cameras showed clearly the release of the hold-downs and the retraction of the tail masts as the launch vehicle lifted off at 4:03 p.m. Eastern time. In the wide angle shot the Saturn V itself could hardly be seen as the blinding flame from the S-IC over-powered the TV images. In our living room everyone broke into applause.

“Looks just like 12!” I exclaimed in spite of myself, “Looks just like 12!”

Indeed, the TV images did look very much like those of Apollo 12. The cameras followed the rising Saturn V for exactly 36 seconds before it vanished into the dense cloud-cover. Thereafter, the cameras panned down to show Pad 39A smoldering in the gloom. As the shot switched to Schirra and Cronkite, the buffeting of the departing Saturn V was hitting the CBS press building and looking closely I could actually see the window glass moving. Schirra reached up twice and placed both of his hands on the glass to feel it move.

Walter Cronkite had warned the TV audience that once the Saturn V went into the clouds the long range cameras would lose it. However, he was happily surprised to be wrong as the picture from the Riviera Beach camera, located 133 miles south of the launch site, came in crystal clear. Oddly enough, that camera gave some of the best images of first stage separation, skirt separation and escape tower jettison ever seen on television. The S-IC first stage could be seen falling away for 22 seconds and later both the tower and the S-IC/S-II skirt could be seen tumbling away for 31 seconds. As I watched, entranced, Apollo 14 remained on the TV as a single bright spot right up until Mission Control announced that Apollo 14 had cleared the Atlantic weather and just as those words were spoken, the bright spot dropped behind some clouds.

Staging of the S-II and the S-IVB came on-time and Apollo 14 was inserted into orbit around the earth after 11 minutes and 43 seconds of powered flight. The crew read from their Command Module Computer an orbit of 99 by 102.9 nautical miles.

“Rogha- Go orbit, booster safe.” Shepard reported to Houston with a confident accent.

It did indeed appear as if everything was going exactly as planned. What Shepard did not know was that outer space and the Moon had plenty of surprises waiting for him and the crew of Apollo 14, and none of them were good. In fact Apollo 14 would end up dealing with more glitches than any other Apollo mission other than Apollo 13.

     Apollo 14 was the first mission that I recorded. I used these two 3M C-30 cassette tapes, which gave me a whole hour's worth of time to capture the entire mission... I decided I needed longer tapes for future missions. Just 15 minutes per side didn't really cut it. Believe it or not, these tapes still play.

Read all of Apollo 14 by getting Apollo Part Two

www.authorwes.com

Or look for it in e-book at Amazon.com

Coming soon!

Okay space buffs... announcing, shortly into the 2021 I will be opening my Growing up with Spaceflight Youtube page!

It'll be fun and it'll be informative and I'll be showing you all some cool stuff... along with plugging my books of course. 

Watch for the link here!

 

STS 2; I WAS THERE… Only this time I was closer.

The following is an excerpt from my "Growing up with Spaceflight- Space Shuttle" book. All content here is Copyright 2015 Wes Oleszewski and may not be reproduced in any manner. 

 

Excitement concerning STS-2, the second launch America's space shuttle, was at a similar pitch in the second week of November, 1981. Yet that excitement came with a different tone. Now, although most of America- indeed most of the world- knew that there was a space shuttle but, most folks still didn't really know how it worked or what it was all about. Still its existence had permeated into the public mindset. Just over six months after the launch of the first space shuttle, when the roar of the SRBs and main engines on the Space Transportation System (STS) had awakened the nation, folks they still weren't quite sure what they were looking at. Seven months after that first launch, NASA was preparing to give the public another lesson.

 

Launch day, November 12th, found me on a bus headed from the Embry Riddle Aeronautical University's campus in Daytona Beach, Florida to KSC. Unlike STS-1, this time I actually managed to find a seat on the bus. So, instead of being 14 miles from the pad and camped out over night on the riverbank I would be standing on the causeway about 8 miles from complex 39A. Just the prospect of being that much closer to a shuttle launch was exciting enough on its own merit. As our bus exited I-95 in the predawn darkness there was an atmosphere of confusion surrounding the launch time. Earlier the previous day there had been a failure of a multiplexer aboard the orbiter and talk of a launch delay. The news media of the day had not quite evolved to the point of 24/7 coverage. Thus we were left with whatever reports had been on the 11 o'clock news the night before. Even those were highly sketchy, some saying that the unit had been repaired others saying the new unit was being flown in from California. Of course if you are like me you were not going to take a chance on missing a launch so, we all piled on the bus anyway.

 

This was the second time around for this whole trip to KSC to see the second shuttle launch exercise. Originally, STS-2 had been scheduled to launch some six days earlier. At that time the countdown had gotten as far as T-31 seconds and then cut off at auto sequence start. The cutoff was caused by a high temperature sensed by the sequencer. This event had been caused by clogged oil filters in an APU and the entire launch ended up being scrubbed. We had all spent in uncomfortably cold Florida morning walking around the causeway and listening closely to the loop on small loudspeakers strung along the waterfront. It'd been a case where a long night turned into a disappointing morning for most folks at KSC. For me, however, any chance to get onto KSC and get close to complex 39 was a plus.

 

As our bus inched its way toward KSC word came from a local radio station that the troubled component aboard the orbiter that had caused all of the doubt the night before had been replaced. The downside was that there would now be a delay of several hours in the launch. Considering that our bus was in traffic so thick that we had recently been passed by an armadillo on the roadside, we all saw the delay as a very good sign. At least it would give us time to get to the causeway and get off the bus before the launch.

 

As we turned onto the causeway the bus was stopped by a KSC official. Some brief conversation took place between the official and our bus driver, then the bus made of 180° turn and started heading back. Just as we were about to panic the bus driver came over the PA system. He explained that he had been told that there was no more room for buses of the causeway and instead we were being rerouted to view the launch from the VIP site. 

A cheer went up.

 

Doubling back about a quarter mile we came upon a two lane road that led north toward complex 39. Called "Static Test Road" this easily overlooked little roadway led to another small road off to our right. That golf club shaped drive looped around and allowed our bus plus another dozen or so other buses stop and unload. Although we were only about three quarters of a mile closer to the pad now than we were at the causeway, it seemed to us as if we were right on top of 39A. We were told that our location was called "bunker number 7." Actually it really wasn't much more than a cul-de-sac cleared of the Florida undergrowth that had once been used for tracking cameras. There was, however, a small set of bleachers constructed at the south end and that was already filled with the real "VIPs" who had arrived earlier. I guess the term "VIPs" was only being used in the general sense here because those of us on the buses who were the causeway overflow mixed quite easily with these folks. Most of them were friends of families or crews, contractors, or spaceflight workers.

 

As the crowd grew and our "VIP" area began to load up with spectators. Everyone went looking for a good place to sit on the ground yet still be able to stand up and take pictures of the launch. Scouting around quickly my buddy Jeff and I saw one large open area that seemed to have a perfect view. We both commented that we couldn't figure out why no one had staked out this area so we headed over there and planted our butts on the ground. It took about 15 seconds before we realized exactly why no one else had taken the spot. You see- it takes about 15 seconds before the first couple of fire ants from the nest you’re sitting on to start stinging you. Leaping to our feet we bounded out of there sweeping away fire ants as we went. We spent a good part of the rest of the morning watching that spot as other people made the exact same mistake.

 

Of course no VIP site is complete unless it has some extension of the KSC gift shop to take the money from the VIPs. Bunker number 7 was no exception to this rule. Indeed a small portable gift trailer had been set up and was doing a good business. They probably would have gotten every dime that I had if I had had a dime. Unfortunately all I had was my camera, my tape recorder, my thermos of hot tea and a fairly well-squished peanut butter sandwich with really cheap strawberry preserves on it. In my college days I formed a strange habit that I still retain to this day- that is traveling around without as much as a penny in my pocket. Later in the morning I was sitting for a short time in the bleachers when one of the real VIPs sat down beside me and showed me an STS-2 postal cover. She told me they were selling them at the gift trailer for $1.75 and then you could have them officially stamped and even mailed off at the postal trailer. I told her "That's really cool," and that it would be fun to mail one off to my folks. She told me I should do that and I replied that the only problem was that I didn't have $1.75. She looked at me a bit surprised, then I explained that I was working my way through college by way of Kmart. Sympathetic she asked "Well… didn’t you bring anything with you?" I said "Yeah," as I reached into my backpack and showed her my well-squished peanut butter sandwich with really cheap strawberry preserves on it. She laughed and handed me one of her postal covers with orders to take it and send it to my folks adding that she fully understood about working your way through college. She even pulled a couple of postage stamps from her purse and gave them to me. She said, “One day, that’ll be a collector’s item.” 

Joe Engle and Dick Truly were strapped aboard the Columbia at about that same time. To most of the public they were unknown rookies who had never flown before and space, but to us spaceflight buffs these two pilots were far from being rookies. Engle, in fact, was already an astronaut who had flown in space before he joined NASA. He had flown the X-15 a total of 50 times between 1963 and 1965 with three of those missions reaching altitudes above 50 miles. This qualified him to wear astronaut wings. Additionally Engle and Truly actually had a one up on the first shuttle crew, Young and Crippen. To date Young and Crippen had performed one landing of a shuttle orbiter, but the crew of Engle and Truly had already performed two landings of a shuttle order. In 1977 Engle and Truly were two of the four pilots who flew the space shuttle Approach and Landing Tests with the orbiter Enterprise.

 

Glued to assorted portable radios and at least one portable TV, we monitored the count as it was broadcast by various local news stations. When the count neared the planned time to come out of the scheduled T-9:00 hold, Launch Director George Page elected to take a moment before resuming the count. It was his intention to keep his controllers cool, take a deep breath and make sure they were doing everything right. That little bit of extra hold time, however, really annoyed some of the newsman- of course that meant nothing to the launch director. After just a few short minutes the count resumed and the Columbia had the undivided attention of several million of people around the world.

 

After the previous week’s scrub nearly everyone seemed to be hypersensitive to the T-31 second mark in the count. As that point came and went a cheer and applause echoed through the crowd. Apparently everyone seemed to have the perception that if you got past that moment in the count you were good to go. In fact, I noticed for many years that passing the T-31 seconds mark and the start of redundant sense sequencing tended to draw a smattering of applause. The cold hard truth was that it meant nothing more than detection of problems were turned over to the computer and thus, anything that would keep you from flying could not be detected several million times faster than when you are off the sequencer. So there was really nothing to cheer about.

 

In the final seconds prior to the launch I went and stood on the bleachers with the real VIPs. The guy standing next to me was armed with a Super 8 movie camera. At main engine start he raised the camera to his eye, pulled the trigger and began filming. I guess he didn't expect what those of us who had been there for the previous shuttle launch had already experienced. A few moments after SRB ignition the shuttle reached out and grabbed us compelling everyone scream "GO BABY, GO!" A moment later I glanced over to see the movie camera guy, mesmerized and standing there looking up at the departing shuttle, his mouth hanging open and his hand with the running movie camera down at his side- filming the bleachers. I nudged him with an elbow and got his attention then pointed down at the camera."OH!" He said as he returned to filming the launch. For some reason the shuttle did that kind of stuff to you.

 

A little more than 8 minutes later the United States had accomplished something never before done- they had reused a manned spaceflight vehicle. Columbia was safely in orbit and soon we were safely back aboard the bus- feeling that strange sense of pride, as if we had launched Columbia ourselves.

If you liked this real life adventure, and would like to read the rest just go to www.authorwes.com  and get an autographed and personalized copy of his books, or if you prefer e-book, visit Amazon and see the whole set. Of course it's much harder for the author to autograph e-books because they're... ya' know... just ones and zeros flowing across the internet.

The Wrong Stuff

 Watching Disney Plus and Nat. Geo.’s new “The Right Stuff” TV program I saw that the show has a propensity to present the wrong stuff and ignore some of the people who actually had the right stuff.

 

In the episode that was broadcast in the final week of October, 2020 the small bit of story line that actually involved spaceflight was centered around the Mercury Redstone (MR-1) chuff. For those of you who are not readily familiar with MR-1 it was actually two different Redstones and a single Mercury capsule. After the first attempt failed to fully launch the Redstone, that specific booster was replaced with a new one. You will probably remember the video images of the first MR-1 Redstone igniting, then immediately shutting down followed by the escape tower firing and leaving the capsule behind, followed by the spacecraft parachute popping out of the nose and deploying. The date was November 21^st, 1960. It was one of NASA’s more embarrassing moments.

 

I’ll set aside the fact that the TV show writers get the continuity totally screwed up as they go on to show John Glenn trying without luck to get the ear of “Senator John F. Kennedy” after the MR-1, as well as the New Year’s celebration welcoming in “1960” implying that MR-1 had taken place in 1959. In fact JFK had been elected President on November 8^th, 1960 and thus was the President Elect for 18 days before the MR-1 chuff. 

Hey, what difference does it make? Who’s gonna notice that sort of stuff?

 Where they really went into the wrong stuff is by, not only over dramatizing the question as to if or not a 30.06 rifle should be used to put a hole in the booster, which was on the pad and over pressurizing. Of course Flight Director Chris Kraft did not drive a jeep like a madman out to the pad and tackle technician who was headed toward the Redstone with the rifle. The decision not to do that was made over the intercom system between Mercury Control and the blockhouse. Kraft never left Mercury Control, it was too dangerous and he was actually more level headed than that. 

Thereafter is when some of the true Right Stuff, that the writes ignore, took place out at the pad.

 

The problem was that the Redstone booster was over pressurizing its LOX tank. That cryogenic fluid was trying to boil and nearly all of the vents were closed for the boost. One relief vent, however, was indeed dumping some GOX, but it not even close to being enough. To complicate the situation relays and switches inside the Mercury spacecraft were now set for the vehicle to be in space. When the escape tower jettisoned it activated a relay within the spacecraft that energized the bus which put the .05G switch as well as the Automatic Stabilization and Control System online. With that system on line and the RETRO ATT switch in "AUTO" the retro rockets could be fired, or with the .05G switch ready and waiting for a g-load so it could do its job, the whole retro package could be triggered to jettison. Any of that in the the resulting huge cloud of LOX would cause a monstrous explosion. The fact that the capsule’s parachute was hanging beside the booster also gave the concern that a stiff wind may come up, catch the chute and pull the vehicle over- also resulting in an explosion. What they had on hand at that moment was a fully fueled and armed rocket with no connection to the ground, so there was no ground control actions that could safe the systems. There was only one course of action; do nothing.

Albert Zeiler (2nd from the right)

 It was decided by Mercury control to simply wait until the batteries aboard the Mercury Redstone ran down. That alone would take nearly 24 hours, and no one was absolutely sure exactly if that was enough time. In the blockhouse at Launch Complex 5 it was also decided that the technicians there could leave in single carloads, each being a safe distance from one another. The following morning Group Chief Albert Zeiler, who was part of von Braun’s German rocket team, technicians Ed Fannin and Jay Campbell ventured out to Pad 5 and showed that they had the Right Stuff.

 Zeiler, using his launch vehicle savvy that dated all the way back to the V2 days, walked gingerly around the launch pedestal and made a visual inspection. The vehicle had settled down onto the launch ring but was not exactly centered upon it. 

Additionally there were some stress creases in the load bearing structure of the booster. Fannin joined him and they mulled over what to do next. Both the fuel tank and LOX tank were still quite full. Thankfully, one of the pad safety men had also arrived and began cutting the parachute shrouds one by one to ensure that the winds would not inflate the chute and topple the vehicle. Zeiler concluded that they must drain the LOX. It was the only way to turn this huge bomb into a relatively smaller bomb.

 

Now the most steely-eyed missile man of them all volunteered to do what only those with the actual right stuff would be willing to do. Jay Campbell ventured out and with a screw driver and a few assorted other tools on hand plus a nitrogen charged hose. He went to the base of the Redstone, and opened the service hatch to the engine compartment. Connecting the pneumatic hose to the LOX valve control port. He then smoothly backed away from the Redstone, and when he was clear enough he ran like the devil to the safety of the blockhouse. Nearby, Zeiler and Fannin were stationed at the auxiliary  pneumatic control panel. From there they commanded an slight flow of nitrogen down the pneumatic hose. That pressure was enough to push the valve aboard the Redstone open. As those two missile men dashed into the blockhouse a huge “wooosh” was heard as the LOX blew out through the vent. In short order the LOX problem had been neutralized as the tank was fully drained.

 

Now the Mercury spacecraft itself had to have its retro rocket package and posigrade rocket motors muted. The three retro rockets were solid fuel rocket motors wired to fire in salvo when triggered. Each of the three retro rockets weighed in at 66.4 pounds and had a five second burn that produced 1,148 pounds of thrust. The posigrades were three much smaller solid fuel rocket motors wired to fire simultaneously in order to separate the spacecraft from the spent booster in space. These rocket motors were basically Atlas retro motors with some upgrades to increase reliability, such as dual igniters. They each weighted 4.8 pounds and provided 420 pounds of thrust for about one second, which was enough to give the spacecraft a separation rate from the booster of 15 feet per second. They burned Arcite 377 propellant. The only way to disarm this system was to short out four electrical pins located behind the spacecraft’s umbilical door and then open the hatch and manually reach inside and throw the switch that would effectively disarm the system.

 

Three more steely-eyed missile men with the right stuff volunteered for the job. Two, Bob Graham and Bob Jones were allowed to volunteer because they were bachelors. The third man to volunteer was Pad Leader Guenter Wendt who, although married with a family, was not going to let anyone else touch that live switch.

 

The “A” frame gantry modified with its special two story white room, monkkered “Surf Side Five,” was carefully rolled into position along its rails with Wendt and one of the other two men riding aboard in the white room. Normally this process requires a lot of radio chatter as the self-propelled gantry is moved. Today, however it was radio silence as the third missile man operated the motor controls. They were taking no chances. Once stopped within inches of the spacecraft the men had to drill away the heads of the rivets holding the cover that surrounded the umbilical socket in place. It was like cracking a safe that could blow up in your face at any moment. Once the rivets were all compromised, they removed the plate and Wendt reached in and, as he later put it, worked as carefully as a brain surgeon to short out each of the pins. Next they gingerly opened the hatch and Wendt reached in and disabled the retro package. The MR-1 Redstone was no longer a threat.

 

If the writers of the TV series wanted drama, this should have been it. Instead we got Gordon Cooper’s wife confronting his ex-mistress in a motel room and von Braun dressing like Santa… even though Christmas was a full month away.

 I’ve seen it stated on social media, in defense of the writing, that “…this is a story about the people, not the rockets.” To that I reply, look at the names I’ve presented here- they were people too, and they certainly had The Right Stuff.

 By the way folks- the research to find the names of these individuals took me less than 45 minutes.

For more of the Real Stuff check out Wes' 6 book spaceflight series
at www.authorwes.com

ALT: THE FIRST FLIGHT

The following is an excerpt from my book "Growing up with Spaceflight: The Space Shuttle." This material is copyright 2015 Wes Oleszewski and may not be reused, copied, redistributed, or reprinted in any form.

THE ALT:

ENTERPRISE-  AUGUST 12, 1977

It was just after 11:50 Michigan time on the humid morning of August 12, 1977 as the first Shuttle orbiter ever constructed sailed effortlessly through the sky over Edwards Air Force Base. My eyeballs were glued to my bedroom’s TV set and I don’t recall breathing during the entire flight. After just over two years without any hint of United States manned spaceflight, the space-buff in me had reawakened. There may even have been a few drops of drool on my bedroom floor in front of where I was seated. I had shut the entire world out as I teleported myself into that T-38 chase-plane whose TV camera was capturing the flight. Of course I wasn’t really there. You could tell because there were no nose prints on the canopy glass.

Two years earlier, at 5:18 pm Eastern time on July 24, 1975, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) came to an end when the Apollo Command Module splashed down. Unfortunately, during most of the two years following ASTP, very little was heard as far as progress on NASA’s next venture in space, the Space Shuttle, was concerned. Instead the media was garnished with sound bites and brief filler stories where only the Shuttle and space program critics had the stage and danced to the tune of the negativity that was their trademark. Their song was the myth that if the Shuttle was canceled “all of that money” being spent would be sent instead to whatever federal program they favored. Everyone from astronomer and hater of manned spaceflight Carl Sagan to congressional blow-hard William Proxmire got into the act. Indeed all would be right with civilization if only the Space Shuttle were to be cancelled.

However, just a year and a half after the ASTP, the orbiter test bed ENTERPRISE was flying at Edwards AFB on the back of the 747 carrier aircraft. At first, the media did not see this as much of a story, but by August 12, 1977, when the first free flight of the Approach and Landing Tests, (also known in spaceflight speak as “the ALT,”) took place the media came back, at least for the moment and so did many folks in America. Coverage began early in the morning and ABC News nearly covered the event from wheels up to wheels stop. After all, the network brass at that moment saw the Shuttle as new and somewhat exciting. TV rating points may be gained. For myself, the ALT blended both of my passions: aviation and space. The first ALT free flight took place just 14 days before I left home to attend the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida to begin my aviation career. Two weeks before I embarked on that adventure I would be introduced to the Space Shuttle and an orbiter by the name of ENTERPRISE.

To me as well as a lot of other space-buffs, somehow the Space Shuttle was pie-in-the-sky compared to what Apollo had been. After all, spaceflight had to be done with giant tall rockets and capsules, didn’t it? A big glider that was boosted piggy-back into orbit and then simply sailed back to Earth to land on a runway seemed to be more like science fiction. As far back as Apollo 15, in the summer of 1971, the makers of Tang were running commercials depicting the all fly-back version of the Space Shuttle. They were pressing the official NASA line that the Shuttle would be making its first spaceflights in 1978. Yet it all looked like something out of a bad movie about the future. All of that changed for me on the morning of the first ALT flight.

Leading the news on the morning of August 12, 1977, was not the news of the ENTERPRISE and the ALT. Although that was the largest story of the day, the lead story was the fact that the court had ordered New York City’s “Son of Sam” serial killer David Berkowitz to undergo psychological evaluation; gee, there’s a shocker. Oddly, in that same day’s local news, my cousin Paul was also featured because he had served in the Army with Berkowitz. Paul even displayed a baseball glove that the killer had loaned to him, but never reclaimed. The news then went back to national subjects and the ENTERPRISE.

Much to my personal delight all three networks were giving saturation coverage to the ALT in their morning news programs. All three had gotten their star spaceflight anchor crews out to the desert at Edwards Air Force Base to announce the event. CBS had stationed their long time space reporter Morton Dean to sit at a desk in the desert and broadcast the flight, aided by technical advisor Leo Crupp from Rockwell International, which had constructed the ENTERPRISE. Similarly, ABC’s Frank Reynolds and Jules Bergman also were in position. NBC, however, came up with a somewhat different angle on coverage. Of course, they had Roy Neal, a veteran TV space reporter who had been covering flights since the first Mercury missions, standing next to what looked like a night-stand that had been “borrowed” from his hotel room. That piece of furniture was now being used to hold up a model of the Shuttle and 747 carrier aircraft. But back in the NBC New York studios they had anchored the coverage with Jack Perkins, aided by a big-screen projection TV and seven “high school science students.” The premise being that if the ALT’s moment in history was to have any meaning at all, it would have the most meaning for the “youth of America.” A valid point considering that most adults in the country at that time were indifferent toward the Space Shuttle program, including those who were running NBC. In the end, after the ENTERPRISE had landed, and Jack Perkins asked what the students thought of the flight. Those “high school science students” mercifully contributed less than a minute of adolescent stammering and interjections that decades later still remain somewhat painful to listen to.

The mechanics of the ALT were fairly straightforward. Using a Boeing 747 aircraft that NASA had purchased from American Airlines and heavily modified to carry Shuttle orbiters on its back, the ENTERPRISE would be taken aloft and then released to glide down and land on the dry lake runway at Edwards. Of course nothing in NASA can ever be that simple. In the case of the ALT a great deal of data was to be obtained and thus a great deal of planning, organization and practice had been involved. There had to be check points and calls in the mission profile to ensure that absolutely everyone was at the exact same point, on the exact page, at the exact same moment. Even this straight forward drop-test would be handled by Mission Control in Houston and thus was treated more like a lunar landing than an unpowered flight test from the Right Stuff days at Edwards.

Aside from the actual flight testing and data crunching, there was also an element of “show” added to the first ALT. NASA had been under fire from the usual gang of spaceflight haters both in the government and in the media. Critics were constantly after NASA to prove that the Shuttle program was “worth it.” So, it became important to put the best public face on the ALT. Stylized tents for VIPs were erected where a good view of the runway could be had. Invitations to all sorts of guests who would be spaceflight friendly were sent out and huge numbers of cars and campers were allowed onto the base to witness the event.

ENTERPRISE crewmembers, astronauts Fred Haise, commander; and Gordon Fullerton, pilot; were not allowed to eat breakfast at home and then just come to work at the flight line. Instead they were corralled into a special room adorned with historic aerospace photos and a pot of flowers and made to eat the “astronaut’s breakfast” of steak and eggs in front of the cameras. Haise, the spaceflight veteran, just casually jumped through that traditional hoop; Fullerton appeared obviously uncomfortable. Of course the cameras then followed the crew all the way up the mate/de-mate structure’s ladder to the ENTERPRISE itself. Again, Haise waved and smiled; Fullerton appeared obviously uncomfortable.

THE ALT:

AN EVOLUTION TO THE ERA OF LIMITS

NASA had the high hopes that this fairly simple mission would place a successful face on the Space Shuttle and that it would at least mute the critics for a short time. As the morning news shows signed off they announced their times for the start of their ALT coverage. Although the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) would release brakes for takeoff at 11:00 in the morning Eastern Time, the actual separation of the orbiter was planned for 45 to 50 minutes later. Thus, CBS and NBC would start their coverage at 11:30. ABC, however, would be starting their coverage with the SCA’s takeoff at 11:00. So I sat in my basement bedroom and glued myself to the local ABC station; WJRT channel 12 in Flint, Michigan. Cable TV was still five years into the future for my little farm town community of Freeland and I was forced to use an antenna to snag the signals out of the air. How primitive!

One of the little, lesser-known, facts about the departure of the SCA and ENTERPRISE is that when Haise and Fullerton were sitting in the cockpit, they could not see any hint of the huge 747 that was carrying them.

“It was kind of like riding a magic carpet ride,” Haise would later recall “You’re just moving along the ground and then you take off.”

Following the takeoff of the SCA and ENTERPRISE, the networks had little to do other than “fill” because the picture that was being broadcast from a NASA T-38 chase plane was simply the SCA, the orbiter and the other chase planes with blue sky and clouds as a backdrop. Thus there were clips of the “new” Shuttle EVA space suit, the “rescue ball” for emergency crew transfer, and the launch manifest. That manifest, it was said, would one day achieve 56 Shuttle flights per year! And finally there was the new type of astronauts called “Mission Specialists.” The jobs speculated for the Shuttle included building a solar power station in orbit that could beam back energy and one day provide as much as 25% of America’s electrical energy. Then there was the building of a space station to provide a permanent presence in space. Of course, only half of those predictions ever came true.  ABC even filled several minutes with clips from “Buck Rogers,” “Star Trek” and the hit movie of the summer of 1977: “Star Wars.”

There also were the interviews with the politicians who were on hand to watch the event. Foremost among them was California Governor Jerry Brown. He had joined the 1976 presidential race on the motto that the United States was entering an “era of limits.” That tag line became his campaign motto as he lost in the primaries to Jimmy Carter, who then took on the same motto to a somewhat lesser degree. When Brown failed to be nominated, he held on to his “era of limits” ideal and took it with him back to California. The problem was that an era of limits directly conflicted with the concept of a Space Shuttle. Reporters were keen to stick a microphone in Brown’s face and pose that question. Considering that billions dollars in Space Shuttle funding were being sent to California and that state was set to hugely benefit from the program, the reporters were in the hope that Brown would squirm. Yet Brown, the pure politician, simply circle talked and turned the question on its heels.

Brown said that the Shuttle was, “…marking an evolution in the era of limits. The planet is limited and that’s why it’s so important that we expand beyond.”

Fortunately, Brown was speaking far from the ENTERPRISE’s touchdown zone, because if the aircraft had gotten some of that greasy slick stuff that he was spewing, onto its main landing gear it may have slid off the end of the 15,000 foot runway, or even off of the seven-mile-long dry lake.

THE ALT:

GO FOR SEP.

While the mission climbed toward its designated release altitude, I am sure that most folks who were not directly involved with the Shuttle program had little clue as to just how complex the orbiter’s systems were. In Apollo, both the Lunar Module and the Command Module had computers to support their share of functions. Those computers combined had less computing power than a common calculator that grade school kids would carry in their backpacks 35 years later. The ENTERPRISE, however, had a set of five computers, four of which worked as redundant units controlling nearly every aspect of the vehicle. Yet a safe landing could be made with just one computer. The fifth computer acted as a back-up in case something happened to the four primary units. The orbiter’s fly-by-wire system that manipulated the aerodynamic control surfaces completely depended on those computers. In 1977, the use of computers to completely control anything, let alone a flight vehicle, was close to science fiction.

Reaching their pre-release altitude of 26,500 feet the SCA and orbiter were placed on their launch heading. At the controls of the 747, designated “905,” was the most experienced drop pilot on the planet: Fitz Fulton. Acting as his “co-pilot” was Tom McMurtry, who, with flight engineers Lou Guidry and Vic Horton, made up the rest of the crew. At the designated moment Fulton would “push over” into an eight degree dive and once the speed of 270 knots was reached the ENTERPRISE would be released by Fred Haise. CAPCOM “Bo” Bobco in Houston was working the flight with the ENTERPRISE crew with a snap and manner that made you think the vehicle really was coming back from space. Haise and Fulton, however, could not avoid a bit of Edwards test flight banter.

“Thanks for the lift, Fitz,” Haise casually quipped.

“You bet,” Fulton replied, “any time.”

Finally, the crew aboard 905 counted down the final seconds to pushover. They called the maneuver.

 “Houston copies pushover,” Bobco dutifully replied.

Upon reaching 270 knots in the eight degree descent, Fulton called “Launch ready.” Almost simultaneously Haise hit the button and fired a series of explosive bolts that held the ENTERPRISE to the SCA. Separation took place at 22,800 feet; slightly higher than planned.

At the moment of separation, Fulton pulled 905’s throttles to flight idle and opened the speed brakes while banking. Aboard the ENTERPRISE, Haise was holding in a five degree, nose-up attitude command. 

The two aircraft cleared one another nicely.

Also at the instant of separation, however, the orbiter’s Master Alarm went off. One of the four main computers, General Purpose Computer (GPC) number two, had dropped off line. Fullerton went through the procedure to isolate that GPC and the flight continued. This failure was later traced to a crack in a poorly soldered joint on the “queue” circuit board. The result was that the manufacturing method used to build those boards was later changed, as was the inspection process. Then all orbiters had their computers retro-fitted with boards made with the new process. THAT is what flight test is all about.

Haise’s first maneuver was to conduct a “practice landing” at altitude. In other words he put the orbiter into something similar to a pre-flare attitude and checked its handling. It handled fine, but on my TV set at home I kept hearing Haise and Fullerton talk about a “sideways lurch” being there. The “lurch” was the result of the pilots being seated substantially above the orbiter’s center of roll axes, as well as the short wingspan of the vehicle. When a roll input was placed into the controls, the nimble orbiter snapped into the roll and the seated pilots, rather than feeling rotation, instead felt as if they were being tossed sideways.

So sure were the engineers that this lurching event would be present that NASA had special vertical stabilizers added under the Shuttle Training Aircraft’s (STA) wings to help simulate the lurch. The STA was a modified Gulfstream II corporate jet whose controls and airframe had been altered to allow it to approach like a Shuttle orbiter.

Flying the ENTERPRISE, the crew found that the orbiter controlled very well. The orbiter was pitched down to an attitude that would maintain 207 knots of airspeed. Although the vehicle’s tail cone allowed it to pitch down less than the -22 degrees that would be needed for orbiters returning from space, the descent was still plenty steep. Haise quipped that it flew better than the STA. Houston, however, thought that they spotted a discrepancy. It was reported to the crew that it looked to Mission Control as if the ENTERPRISE’s lift to drag ratio (L/D) was “perhaps” slightly low, meaning the ENTERPRISE could come up short of the runway. Haise was cleared to start his base leg turn early to correct the problem.  Fullerton, who was then at the controls, began the base turn, but Haise slowed him down. Eyeballing out the window and checking his own instruments, Haise knew that Houston was wrong and they were in fact high on the L/D. When he passed that thought to Mission Control, they quickly replied with an order to apply 30% speed brakes. Apparently, they saw that Haise was correct. A heartbeat later, Houston recommended 50% speed brakes. Houston’s misevaluation about the L/D and the early start of the base leg had actually added a bit of energy to the ENTERPRISE’s flight path. Haise's cool test pilots judgement had gone a long way toward preventing an embarrassing over-shoot.

Haise had plenty of landing surface to aim at on the dry lakebed; in the neighborhood of seven miles worth. So the little added energy did not bother him at all.  He simply lined up and guided the ENTERPRISE down. Per the flight plan, the speed brakes were retracted at 2,000 feet above the ground as Fullerton armed the landing gear. Exactly 1,100 feet later, Haise entered into the pre-flare and raised the nose up from the dive-bomber descent to an easy -1.5 degrees approach angle. At an airspeed of 270 knots Haise commanded the gear down. Fullerton simultaneously pushed the landing gear deployment button. Planned gear-down speed had been 250 knots, but considering that Haise had picked up some extra energy in Houston’s botched L/D call, he used the gear deploy as an approved method for scrubbing off speed. The landing gear fully deployed at 265 knots, prompting its three cockpit indicators to go from a tiger-tail indication to the “DN” indication. Unexpectedly, there was no sound heard in the cockpit when the landing gear deployed, but the chase planes confirmed what the gear indicators had read. Haise guided the ENTERPRISE gently toward the runway, and with a bit of float, caused by the excess energy, the orbiter settled gently onto the runway.

I sat there stunned, gazing at my TV set with my mouth hanging open. The Shuttle was REAL. The darned thing could really fly like an airplane! It was the most fantastic thing I had seen in spaceflight since Conrad and Kerwin had deployed the SAS wing on Skylab. 

Yet some in the mass media had a different outlook on the ALT. After all it had not flown like pair of pliers, as some had predicted, and there had been no spectacular crash, or unforeseen emergency. So the if-it-bleeds-it-leads news media simply began to shrug the day’s event off. Closing out his 26 minutes of live coverage on NBC, Jack Perkins finished with his mumbling group of “high school science students” and, in a hollow attempt to link the ALT to current pop-culture and the red-hot movie “Star Wars,” he looked into the camera and said that this means that,

“…today we’re a little closer to Wookies than we were yesterday.”

It was the most moronic statement made that day- including the babble from NBC’s high school science students.

Famed radio broadcaster Paul Harvey led his daily “News” broadcast with the flight of the ENTERPRISE and then in the same breath stated that this day was also the one in which,

“…a man in Oklahoma set a world record by throwing a cow chip 179 feet.”

So it was that August 12, 1977, would pass into the pages of history with the headlines of the day documenting a mass-murderer, the ALT and cow chip throwing.

At the time of the ALT missions, NASA’s Public Affairs Office had told the news media that they predicted the first Shuttle launch could take place in “the spring of 1979,”  two years after the first ALT. Watching the event, it struck me that I would be down in Florida getting my degree in aviation during that time. NASA also predicted that flight rates would eventually reach more than one launch per week! Surely I would be there to witness some of that myself. It was a very exciting thought. Of course neither the folks in the news media, nor myself bothered to talk about that 1979 date with the folks at the National Space Technology Laboratory (later know as the Stennis Space Center) who were testing the Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME) during that time period. The SSMEs would not be de-bugged and flight capable at 100% rated thrust until the spring of 1980, and would not be flight ready at 104% until early 1981.

I also had no idea that the ENTERPRISE herself was far from being an orbital vehicle. In fact, she was in reality little more than an engineering test bed. Her SSMEs and RCS engines were mock-ups, as was her thermal protection system. Her mid-deck did not exist and there was no plumbing for operational SSMEs. Fiberglass made up a good deal of her components as well as her Orbital Maneuvering System pods. She was more of a flying mock-up than an actual orbiter. Yet, sitting there in Michigan that August morning in 1977, and watching the ENTERPRISE fly that first ALT, I was blissfully unaware of any of those shortcomings. All I saw was the future for me and the future for America’s space program. I immediately set to work building a small balsawood flying model of the ENTERPRISE. In a way, it became a metaphor for both my dreams of my immediate future in aviation and for the Shuttle program itself. That is because when it was done, I stored it in the hanging ceiling of my basement bedroom as I shipped off to college; over the years mice dragged it off into a corner and chewed it to pieces.

Much more about the ALT missions can be found in Wes' book.

You can get a signed and personalized copy HERE

or

You can get it in e-book or in print internationally HERE