The crew of STS-68, Space Radar Lab 2, flying Endeavour. Throughout our training syllabus, we were guided through the frantic schedule of classes and simulator sessions by our training team. Without their expertise, we would never have been ready in time for our planned Aug. 18 launch date.

The FFT trainer, once in Bldg. 9, is now at the Seattle Museum of Flight, still bearing the scuff marks from the boots of dozens of crews sliding down the exterior using their “Sky Genie” escape ropes. Egress training usually took half a day or so as we ran through all the orbiter escape modes: on the launch pad, on the landing runway at a remote site, in a crash landing, and exiting quickly from the overhead windows after discovering a jammed side hatch.

 

The first exercise is to use the Sky Genie to descend from the orbiter side hatch, a scenario that might take place in a forced landing at a remote airport with no ground support crew available to help us escape the cabin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This egress session was just a month after I’d returned from STS-59. The quick turnaround for another flight left our family’s heads spinning. The twin flight assignments seemed like a great opportunity at the time.

We spent dozens of hours training for orbital operations of Space Radar Lab 2 in the Fixed Base shuttle simulator in Building 5 at JSC. Here we are on the middeck during a long orbital simulation. The middeck of the fixed base was not high fidelity, but it had all the necessary pieces of the orbiter’s lower compartment required for normal and emergency procedures training. The galley worked, so we could sample space food during our longer exercises.

The cartoon dialogue in the photo above refers to the fact that I was training simultaneously for my STS-59 mission–my first–and STS-68 with Jeff and company–my second. Jeff and the rest of the crew never missed a chance to zing me on the fact that I was skipping many of their training sessions in favor of my imminent launch on STS-59, Space Radar Lab 1. If all went according to plan, I would fly on STS-68 just 4.5 months after launching on STS-59–a space shuttle record. But it was not to be….

 

For SRL-2 training we used both the Fixed Base sim in Building 5 and the GNS simulator in Building 35. I can’t tell from these photos which one we’re in, but perhaps some of our sharp-eyed instructor team can tell the difference. In the shot above, you can see a map over my shoulder of our SRL data takes (radar on and off), and the big Linhof camera in the overhead window for our science photography. Dan would be our shift commander and orbiter systems ace (he served as MS-2, the flight engineer, during launch and landing). I was the payload commander, working with fellow scientist Jeff Wisoff on the Red Shift. The aft flight deck would be our office for the 11-day mission, running the SRL-2 payload.

The Blue Shift–Dan, Steve, and I–train on the simulator middeck in the above photo, with the doorway out to “port” behind us; it led to the functional space toilet trainer across the hallway. It was useful to use that trainer during every simulator session, so the system operation was second nature by the time you got to orbit and experienced the call of nature.

JoBea Way (now Holt) was one of our Jet Propulsion Lab scientists for SRL-2, specializing in the boreal, or northern forests spread across the northern hemisphere’s high latitudes (think Alaska, Siberia and Canada). JoBea also served as one of our payload operations control center (POCC) communicators, taking an 8-hour shift each day in Houston while we were in orbit as the link between the flight crew and the science and experiment operations team. In the shot above on the aft flight deck, JoBea came over from Mission Control’s Building 30 to visit us in the sim and get a sense of our spacecraft routine during science operations. We astronauts did the same in reverse; when our shift was over, we’d pay a visit to the POCC to see how the team there handled operations.

Our crew of six included two EVA-qualified astronauts: Jeff Wisoff and Steve Smith. They trained for an unexpected spacewalk on STS-68, if needed for repairs or emergency closure of the payload bay doors or latches. As Jeff and Steve worked through their syllabus, including four underwater sessions covering most orbiter repair tasks, I visited to refresh my memory on their tools and to take some photos of them as they prepared to plunge into the 25-foot-deep pool. I’d trained for this same job on STS-59, a few months earlier. Here, Jeff is fully suited, on the donning stand, and ready to begin his training class. Steve Smith is on the other side of the stand. Crewmate and Endeavour pilot Terry Wilcutt took the photo.

Terry and I discussed Steve and Jeff’s work poolside at the Weightless Environment Training Facility in Bldg. 29 at Johnson Space Center. This building had once housed the Apollo-era centrifuge, but with the advent of the shuttle, the centrifuge gave way to the new WETF swimming pool for EVA training. The building also housed control consoles, life support systems, tool storage, a medical office, and diver and astronaut locker facilities. An ambulance was always parked at the WETF entrance during suited runs underwater.

Nearing our launch date in July and early August, we did a series of simulations, some lasting 36 hours, which helped get us ready with Mission Control for launch, orbit operations, and reentry.

During one long sim, the Red Shift team of Bakes, Terry, and Jeff went off duty for some shut-eye, leaving our Blue Shift (the night shift in Houston) on duty for 12 hours. Here I’m with Dan and Steve on the flight deck. About every 45 minutes, we’d punch a new set of attitude coordinates into the flight computer to keep us aimed accurately at our upcoming targets and reduce the radar echo distortion due to the Earth’s rotation. Here Dan has the ATL, the attitude timeline, in hand to enter the next set of coordinates. Steve is busy with videotaping our science targets, and I’m hovering over Dan’s inputs — we always double-checked them lest we miss or botch a maneuver (more than 400 during the mission, a shuttle record).

What’s going on above is that our crew is readying for reentry in a simulation running through “deorbit preparation,” or Deorbit Prep. I’d be on the middeck for reentry with Steve Smith. You can see one of our suits on the floor, ready for donning. Steve’s seat is behind me next to the galley, with a mesh bag containing his helmet, gloves, and kneeboard. The lockers at right are the forward storage lockers, containing our food. clothing, checklists, camera gear and film, and several science experiments. I’m wearing my Patagonia long-johns while I wait to suit up, meanwhile running through the checklist that prepares the middeck for reentry. On my left shoulder is the electrical lead for the EKG sensors I’ve got glued to my chest, to monitor my cardiac response during reentry. We’re not weightless, and the simulator middeck is a bit roomier than the real shuttle’s, and not all of the lockers and switch panels are in the right place, but we can practice all our steps here, including suiting up, strapping in, and reentry and landing. This training was very effective: in the real spaceship, I knew where every piece of gear was and where to find every switch and circuit breaker.

Check out the shuttle drink bag just to the left of my head; it would ordinarily be velcroed to the wall.

Steve, I think, took the shot below, with me pondering my next switch throw on the overhead communications panel on the middeck. I’m holding the Deorbit Prep checklist–my bible for this phase of flight.

 

Read more about STS-68 in Sky Walking: An Astronaut’s Memoir, by Tom Jones.

Early in 1992 I was assigned to my first space shuttle mission, which would carry the first Space Radar Laboratory payload into orbit. In all I trained over 27 months for this specific mission, and of course another year of basic astronaut training up front. Here I’ll post some training situations experienced by our STS-59 crew. At first we were assigned to shuttle Atlantis, but as the schedule matured, our orbiters were switched and we knew by early 1993 that we would fly on shuttle orbiter Endeavour.

Linda Godwin was the payload commander for SRL-1, and worked for several years with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on early planning for the next round of shuttleborne radar, SIR-C (the NASA/JPL C- and L-band radar instruments). I joined her on the crew manifest in January 1992, and we spent the next couple of years learning more about the Earth science studies planned for the mission. These visits to the far-flung investigators of the SRL science team took Linda, me, and the rest of the crew to several of our “supersites,” where multidisciplinary field teams would obtain ground-truth measurements to compare with the orbital radar results.

One of them was Death Valley National Monument, California. In April 1992, Linda and I visited Death Valley with the JPL SIR-C (Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C…the third and most advanced version to fly) team to learn about alluvial fans, dune fields, sand sheets, and wind/sand interactions.

 

Death Valley was not too uncomfortable in April, but it helped that our group stayed overnight at Furnace Creek Inn, sitting on a hot spring above the valley floor. While at Death Valley, we visited dune fields, flash-flood-carved canyons, volcanic craters, salt flats, and sites instrumented so the Radar Lab’s orbital data could be compared with ground truth gathered by the science team.

 

We had another Earth science investigation at Mammoth Mountain, California, where at about 11,000 feet a hydrology team ran a snow lab, aimed at measuring the water content of snow pack using space-based radar. The snow pack water content is a vitally important measurement for states like California, which rely on spring snowmelt to fill reservoirs supplying farmers and urban residents with water. Linda and I, with our JPL science team,  descended beneath the snow cover to visit the lab and see theory put into practice.

From cold to hot–I trained on Space Radar Lab’s volcanic science targets by visiting Hawaii’s active volcano, Kilauea, with volcanologists Peter Mouginis-Mark and Scott Rowland. In May 1993, we hiked beyond the public parking area to the ocean entry point for Pu’u O’s lava flow. Later that night, we climbed the pali to find open lava skylights. Here I am with a 2000-deg F flow running beneath our feet on its way to the Pacific, building new land.

 

Another example of our Earth science training was when Linda and I joined members of the Italian science team at the volcanology supersite at Vesuvius on the Bay of Naples. We ascended the slopes of the volcano, visited the Italian observatory on the mountain flanks, toured the active crater called Solfatara, and got a look at the ruined Roman city of Pompeii.

Remarkably, in the 25 years since these visits, Vesuvius has not yet blown its top. But it will soon!

The Phlegraean Fields are the cluster of active and dormant craters and cones on the shores of the Bay of Naples. The region has been more active of late and have threatened an eruption in the latter half of the 2010s. Monitoring this active region is one of the jobs of a permanent, spaceborne radar observatory, which can detect surface inflation and deflation as magma enters or leaves the chamber deep beneath the Bay of Naples.

 

The Bay of Naples volcanic field was one of our science sites for volcanology, and Italian scientists had instrumented Solfatara to help Space Radar Lab 1 study the Phlegraean Fields region. This cluster of volcanic craters within the Bay of Naples caldera has been violently active within the past 1000 years, and along with Vesuvius, presents one of the greatest threats to the Napolitan population. Linda Godwin is at upper right in the photo, heading toward another sulfur vent.

On the German leg of our trip, Linda and I took a flight over the instrumented radar test range at Oberpfaffenhofen, north of Munich. This site would be used during SRL-1 for radar calibration, beam width and polarization measurements, and comparison with airborne radar images. We would later take so many radar images of Oberpfaffenhofen that our crew termed it “Over-Flown-Too-Often.”

Not that Linda and I hogged all the good field trips (although we did take the majority, as science reps on the mission). Our entire crew sans Chili headed for the geological wonderland around Flagstaff, Arizona in May 1993. The U.S. Geological Survey staff there, involved in several SRL-1 radar investigations, guided us through volcanic fields, desert terrain, sand dunes, and dry canyons. The USGS scientists and our JPL science team together provided an excellent geological context for many similar landforms we would observe around the globe.

Note the cinder cone at upper right, serving as our backdrop on this day in the field.

Contrasting with the desert terrain around Flagstaff was our supersite near Chickasha, Oklahoma, outside Oklahoma City. This largely flat agricultural region was the focus of an intensive program of soil moisture investigations, with the goal of using space- or airborne radar to extract soil moisture measurements, and convey them to the area farmers. This information would save money by only applying irrigation when and where necessary. During our visit, Linda and I flew on a NASA C-130 transport equipped with a microwave soil moisture sensor. Good, solid, B-52-like low level flying: I liked it!

One of the emergencies we practiced for our STS-59 mission was a gliding bailout scenario, exiting the orbiter if our ship could not make it back to a runway. In that dire case, we would bail out from the orbiter, descend by parachute, then stay alive while awaiting an ocean pickup. Just before Christmas in 1993, the crew reported to the WETF in Bldg. 29 for a refresher on water survival training. We practiced with most of our survival gear on the deck surrounding the 25-foot-deep pool, then “graduated” by dropping from a hoist into the water, simulating a parachute descent into the ocean. We then scrambled into our raft, baled out the water, and closed the spray shield to ride out the swells while we waited for a helicopter rescue (which, in the WETF, never showed).

 

One of our most familiar training facilities was the fixed base simulator, in Building 5 at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The “fixed base” didn’t move, but it had a very realistic and functional flight deck for shuttle orbit training. The downstairs (or middeck) was less high-fidelity, but it still had working switches and circuit breakers, a functional galley, storage lockers, and next door, a working space shuttle toilet (practice makes perfect). In the photo above, Jay and our crew are rehearsing our launch and post-insertion procedures for the critical couple of hours after liftoff. During post-insertion, we got out of our suits and transformed our rocket ship into an orbiting laboratory.

 

We also had many orbit training sessions in the flight deck of the Guidance and Navigation Simulator training facility (“the GNS”) across the street from Building 5. This simulator had been upgraded to supply good visuals out the simulator windows, and helped handle the heavy load of crew training in simulation sessions for our flight and other crews training in parallel.

We were often given several cameras to train with during these simulator sessions, to build equipment familiarity and practice good in-cabin photography techniques. These snapshots were a result of this training with a Nikon camera body and flash.

Behind Linda is the functioning galley of the space shuttle’s middeck. In front of her seat are the forward storage lockers; the labels read “Menu Food,” as we usually prepared and ate some space food during these sessions. Her parachute is on the seat as we practice post-insertion routines for stowing our suits and parachutes.

Out the door to her left was the shuttle toilet trainer: we weren’t weightless, but other than that the commode worked just like the real one. It even had a “seating simulator” so you could use a TV camera aimed “up the chute” at one’s bottom, giving one the right “feel” for correct body positioning on the commode. We were assured the closed-circuit TV picture could not be broadcast out of the waste control system simulator room.

Our training took us all over the space center to the various shuttle training facilities. The FFT pictured above is now on display in Seattle at its Museum of Flight. Its shuttle crew cabin was fairly accurate (although it was not a simulator; most switches did not work), and we used it to practice stowage of our gear (where stuff goes), photography, TV camera techniques, galley operations, and habitability (how you live in a spaceship).

Ya gotta eat, right? And the same is true in space. In the shot below, Vickie Kloeris, at left rear, and her colleague, dietitian Gloria Mongan, go over menu choices and nutrition advice with (from left) Kevin Chilton, Rich Clifford, and (across table at right) Tom Jones and Linda Godwin. We had already visited the JSC food lab to try nearly everything on NASA’s space food menu in a marathon lunch session. Now we are reviewing our draft menus with Vickie. By the way, Vickie is still running NASA’s space station food operation at Johnson Space Center, ensuring the menu selections (nearly 200 items) continue to expand and get even more appetizing. I think that’s my office desk at center rear, because my USAF Academy diploma is on the wall to the left of the Mars image.

 

Because of our intensive science photography goals for the mission, we worked with JSC’s Earth Observation specialists to learn our many Earth science objectives and to become familiar with our ground science targets. These sessions amounted, I think, to earning a master’s degree in geography and Earth science.

To help bring all of our training into context, Sid planned a camping trip for the crew at nearby Brazos Bend State Park, TX. We camped out from Thursday morning until Saturday evening, with Thursday and Friday devoted to discussing our flight plan and our various responsibilities on the mission. Sleeping in tents and sleeping bags was a foretaste of the “space camp out” we would all soon undertake. It was our first chance to see each other in the morning, unshowered and grubby from a night’s sleep in the great outdoors. After cleaning up, we launched into mission planning, photography training, and long conversations about how best to get our work done during the intense operations planned for SRL-1. A nice surprise was that each of us took on responsibility for one meal, and so shared everyone’s favorite foods and culinary skills. I remember Jay made a great seafood paella. On Saturday our families came out for an entire day visiting us, sharing a big crew dinner before we all headed home. The campout was a real team-builder.

 

For rookie fliers like me, a mandatory training exercise was exposure to the shuttle’s launch g-profile. I was to experience the launch accelerations in the Brooks Air Force Base centrifuge, near San Antonio, TX. I did several 8.5-minute runs in the centrifuge cab equipped with a shuttle seat and wearing the full Launch and Entry Suit (LES). Here, Al Rochford, who started out helping strap in Mercury astronauts for NASA, helps me don my gloves just before the runs commence. I’d experienced as many as 7 g’s in T-38 aerobatics, but a sustained 3 g’s during the final minute of the shuttle’s ascent was a different animal. It’s hard to breathe and to raise an arm accurately to flip a switch.

 

 

Linda Godwin and I were designated as the EVA (spacewalk) repair crew for Endeavour on STS-59. We studied our spacesuit systems, emergency procedures for dealing with suit failures, and the various mechanical repair tasks we might have to undertake to fix Endeavour in orbit. Some examples of these repairs included winching closed the payload bay doors, installing mechanical latches to clamp the doors to the fuselage or knit the centerline edges of the doors together, and cutting jammed pushrods that might prevent a door from motoring closed. We practiced in four underwater sessions lasting 4 to 6 hours each, descending into the blue depths of the Weightless Environment Training Facility in our old centrifuge building, Building 29.

Closer to launch, in early 1994, our entire crew practiced orbiter bailout and ground egress procedures in JSC’s Building 9, using the Full Fuselage Trainer (FFT). The FFT was a mockup orbiter fuselage (no wings) with an accurate physical representation of the crew cabin, though only a few of the systems actually worked. It was not a simulator, but instead a trainer for emergency procedures, galley operations, photo and TV training, stowage operations (where everything was packed), and so on.

Let’s say the orbiter ran off the runway on landing and we had to get out quickly. We used ropes: the Sky Genie rope slide attached to our suit’s parachute harness and enabled us to get out the side hatch and slither to the ground.

That was only about 10 feet. But if the side hatch was jammed shut, or fire made it unwise to get out on that side, we could jettison the top left window in the cabin ceiling and go all the way over to the starboard side for our egress path.

This was fun stuff, but also a little intimidating. The top of the orbiter is a good 25 feet in the air, and sliding off the side in a heavy launch and entry suit on a single rope and carabiner took some trust in our trainers and suit technicians. None of us fell too far.

The final act was using the escape slide from the orbiter hatch. Again, off the runway and a need to get out of the cabin in a hurry, we could deploy the escape slide for a quick exit. Here we are practicing using the Cockpit Configuration Trainer, or CCT, which is just the nose of the orbiter. The CCT could be tilted into the vertical for launch strap-in and launch pad egress training. I think the CCT is now at the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH.

To get out, one opened the hatch and then triggered the airline-style escape slide using a T-handle just inside the hatch. Now the slide is out, and we just have to skid down its surface.

Training for one of her missions, Rhea Seddon caught an ankle at the bottom and broke it. She was able to heal in time for launch, but it sure put some of her training dates in doubt. Our techs were very careful to help us land squarely on both feet.

Imagine the adrenaline pumping as you returned from space and then had to escape the cabin and hustle away from a potentially explosive or toxic propellant release. It would be a race between adrenaline and free-fall deconditioning. I like to think we’d remember how to run–or at least hobble–if the situation demanded it.

The final exercise was clipping my harness onto the escape pole for a high-altitude bailout from the orbiter. Below, we practice the procedures to clip into the pole and then roll out of the hatch. Later, in the Weightless Environment Training Facility, we would roll out the hatch, down the pole, and drop ten feet into the water — leaving out the static-line parachute opening and the long descent down to the ocean. Here, we just fall off the pole and drop 6 inches onto the mat.

As launch day approached, we spent more time in the mission simulators: the motion base for ascent and entry training, the fixed base in building 5 for orbit operations, and the GNS (guidance and navigation simulator) in building 37, also for orbit operations. I can’t tell which one we’re in in the photo below, but I suspect it’s the Fixed Base in Building 5.

The camera at upper right is the Linhof mapping camera, with its 4×5-inch negative. The Linhof lived on that window bracket so we could tilt it to aim at our ground target. On the switch panel behind me are orbit maps and a copy of the science timeline that governed all our observations in the 24/7 SRL operations. The IBM Thinkpad laptop at left had a major improvement over shuttle laptops–a color display.

We continued to take classes on all the skills needed for any emergency we might encounter in orbit. Two of us were trained as emergency medical technicians for physical problems we might encounter. Here, veteran NASA instructor Mike Fox teaches me how to refine my cardiopulmonary resuscitation skills. Mike’s experience in physiology and diving went back to the Apollo program–we miss you, Mike.

 

Eventually, the training flow narrows and all classes point directly toward launch day. At the end of February 1994, our crew flew to Kennedy Space Center and spent two days in an intensive inspection and familiarization tour of Endeavour in the Orbiter Processing Facility. This was the Crew Equipment Interface Test (CEIT), one of the few chances we would have to get inside the orbiter, check out all its nooks and crannies, and familiarize ourselves with our future home in space.

 

 

Our final training session at the Cape was in late March, 1994, when our crew participated in our countdown dress rehearsal, the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test. See my photo album for that exercise: STS-59 Endeavour Countdown Rehearsal: Mar. 23-24, 1994

Finally, after a week in quarantine, it was time to go. Here is our spaceship the night before our April 8 launch attempt. Our families met us to take a look at Endeavour bathed in xenon searchlights. Night viewing is a spectacular sight, and an emotional experience for crew and families.

Read the whole story of STS-59 in my memoir, Sky Walking, available online and at my website, www.AstronautTomJones.com.

During March 22-24, 1994, our STS-59 crew arrived at Kennedy Space Center for our Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT). We were just over two weeks from launch on STS-59, Space Radar Lab 1, aboard shuttle Endeavour. This being my first flight, arriving for a dress rehearsal of our launch countdown was a galvanizing milestone for me. Our ship was nearly ready, as were we. TCDT was the last major milestone we faced in our flight training for the mission. Here are some photos from our 3-day experience.

 

 

The most thrilling activity we undertook during our safety briefings and exercises was the chance to drive NASA’s M-113 armored personnel carrier. Should we have to escape from the launch pad and shelter in the blast bunker, we might have to evacuate an injured crewmember, using the M-113, to a helipad clear of the danger zone. Yeah, it’s fun to drive a “tank”. (Soon after, NASA painted its APC’s a highly visible yellow-green.)

 

The shot below gives you some idea of the scale of a space shuttle ready for launch. The external tank and orbiter will be accelerated by those boosters and the main engines (above) will be accelerated to 25,000 feet per second in just 8.5 minutes, pinning an astronaut to his or her seat under a 3-g load. Looking at that stack, it’s almost incomprehensible to imagine yourself as a physical participant of such a process.

 

We flew to the Cape in our T-38 Talon training jets, landing at the shuttle landing facility (SLF) near the VAB. Endeavour had rolled out some weeks before, as shown in these photos. On March 23, we conducted some fire fighting exercises and safety classes, enjoyed crew quarters meals, and toured the launch pad and the crew escape systems, like the slide-wire baskets, we would practice with the following day. Our concluding event that day was a press conference held near the blast bunker and slide-wire basket landing area near the perimeter of Pad 39A.

 

 

We finished our press conference work and returned to crew quarters, all of us headed for an early bedtime the night before the terminal count demo test with our launch controllers. We enjoyed some final suit checks before turning in.

Aiming at a T-minus-Zero at around 10 am that day, we rode to the launch pad early in the morning on March 24. Crawling into the orbiter for the first time in the vertical position was an eerie, yet thrilling experience. Our crew climbed into our seats with the help of our technicians, and our Astronaut Support Person, for this mission, our fellow astronaut Andy Thomas. After the countdown reached zero, launch controllers declared a pad abort and ordered a crew egress exercise, practice for a rapid escape from Endeavour to the slide-wire baskets across the gantry.

 

In the photo above I’m nearly finished strapping in with the help of our suit techs and ASP Andy Thomas. My parachute is still not attached to the harness (see left chute strap dangling at lower right), and my oxygen line on my left thigh is still not mated. My helmet is the practice version; just a clear visor. On launch day it will have the full dark visor as well as the clear one. Sleep bunks are to my right. My kneeboard and Radio Shack timer sits on the airlock hatch cover just off my left elbow. Activated at liftoff, the timer tells me our ascent milestones, such as staging, 3-g throttling, and time to MECO.

We concluded our dress rehearsal with a simulated countdown to T-minus-Zero, when Launch Control declared a pad abort and an emergency egress from the shuttle cabin (a Mode 1 egress). Linda Godwin swung open Endeavour’s hatch, and I followed her out into the White Room and across the swing arm and gantry to these escape baskets. Unfortunately, when I smacked the release paddle just out of view to the left, we didn’t go anywhere: the basket was chained firmly to the service structure of the pad. No zipline ride for us!

Our real STS-59  launch would come just over two weeks later.

 

 

Whenever I speak here at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, hosting “Astronaut Encounter,” I always pay a visit to the tallest rocket standing in the Rocket Garden, the Martin Marietta company’s Gemini-Titan II.

I remember it well because it was the first real rocket I ever saw. Growing up in a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland, I lived just a couple of miles from Martin’s Titan II assembly building. There, from 1964 through 1966 the company was stacking and testing these rockets to carry the Gemini astronauts into space. The Titan II was an Air Force intercontinental ballistic missile, designed to carry a 9-megaton nuclear warhead to the other side of the world. NASA chose this powerful booster to propel the Gemini spacecraft into orbit, and my town was, for a little while, one of the key locations in the Space Race of the 1960s. Gemini would be how NASA learned the techniques in orbit it would need to go to the moon by 1970.

As a 10-year-old Cub Scout in 1965, my Cub Pack took a field trip to the Martin Marietta factory during an open house. I stood there on the factory floor, awed at the sight of these 100-foot-tall rockets being built to carry our astronauts into space. The rockets I saw were built to carry Gemini 7 and 8 into space, in late 1965 and early 1966.

Those Titan IIs made an indelible impression on me, and from that moment on I read everything I could about the job of being an astronaut, what qualifications were required by NASA, and how the astronauts would fly to and land on the moon. It’s safe to say the Titan II launched me on my career path toward becoming an astronaut.

Here at the KSC Visitor Complex, you can see the Titan II, get close to and peer inside the Gemini 9 spacecraft, and learn the stories of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronauts. Of course, you can see the ship that I flew, the space shuttle Atlantis, and get almost close enough to touch her. I lived on Atlantis for 13 days in 2001, helping build the International Space Station while leading three spacewalks.

On your visit to the Visitor Complex, look up at some awesome history, be inspired, learn how we’ll return to the moon, and tackle the challenges of exploring Mars. We’ve got an amazing story to tell, and we’re looking for explorers who want to play an exciting role in our nation’s future.

Tom Jones flew four space shuttle missions, the last on Atlantis to the International Space Station. He speaks frequently at the KSC Visitor Complex. His website is www.AstronautTomJones.com.

 

I spent last week speaking at Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor Complex, meeting guests from all over our home planet, from Australia to Lithuania and everywhere in-between. One beautiful evening produced this sunset over the Rocket Garden. The tallest rocket is the Martin Marietta Titan II, which launched the Gemini astronauts; a dozen of these boosters were built for NASA at the factory a mile from my boyhood home in Middle River, MD. The silvery rocket at far left is a replica of the Mercury-Atlas, the type that launched John Glenn and the other Mercury astronaut into orbit in 1962-63. At far right on its side is the NASA Saturn IB, built by Chrysler and McDonnell-Douglas. Saturn IBs (developed by Wernher von Braun’s team at Marshall Spaceflight Center in AL) launched the Apollo 7 mission (first Apollo piloted flight in 1968), the three Skylab crews, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project flight in 1975. Rockets and temps in the low 70s–a combo hard to beat. Looking forward to my next speaking trip there.

www.AstronautTomJones.com

I’m compiling here a few of my favorite Earth images from my second mission, STS-68, flown on Endeavour, carrying Space Radar Lab 2. This Earth-imaging radar sensor package, combined with a carbon monoxide pollution sensor, was a joint project of NASA and the German and Italian space agencies.

Mt. Rainier, Washington (NASA caption)

This is a radar image of Mount Rainier in Washington state. The volcano last erupted about 150 years ago and numerous large floods and debris flows have originated on its slopes during the last century. Today the volcano is heavily mantled with glaciers and snowfields. More than 100,000 people live on young volcanic mudflows less than 10,000 years old and, consequently, are within the range of future, devastating mudslides. This image was acquired by the Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C and X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on its 20th orbit on October 1, 1994. The area shown in the image is approximately 59 kilometers by 60 kilometers (36.5 miles by 37 miles). North is toward the top left of the image, which was composed by assigning red and green colors to the L-band, horizontally transmitted and vertically, and the L- band, horizontally transmitted and vertically received. Blue indicates the C-band, horizontally transmitted and vertically received. In addition to highlighting topographic slopes facing the space shuttle, SIR-C records rugged areas as brighter and smooth areas as darker. The scene was illuminated by the shuttle’s radar from the northwest so that northwest-facing slopes are brighter and southeast-facing slopes are dark. Forested regions are pale green in color; clear cuts and bare ground are bluish or purple; ice is dark green and white. The round cone at the center of the image is the 14,435-foot (4,399- meter) active volcano, Mount Rainier. On the lower slopes is a zone of rock ridges and rubble (purple to reddish) above coniferous forests (in yellow/green). The western boundary of Mount Rainier National Park is seen as a transition from protected, old-growth forest to heavily logged private land, a mosaic of recent clear cuts (bright purple/blue) and partially regrown timber plantations (pale blue). The prominent river seen curving away from the mountain at the top of the image (to the northwest) is the White River, and the river leaving the mountain at the bottom right of the image (south) is the Nisqually River, which flows out of the Nisqually glacier on the mountain. The river leaving to the left of the mountain is the Carbon River, leading west and north toward heavily populated regions near Tacoma. The dark patch at the top right of the image is Bumping Lake. Other dark areas seen to the right of ridges throughout the image are radar shadow zones. Radar images can be used to study the volcanic structure and the surrounding regions with linear rock boundaries and faults. In addition, the recovery of forested lands from natural disasters and the success of reforestation programs can also be monitored. Ultimately this data may be used to study the advance and retreat of glaciers and other forces of global change. (P-44703 October 3, 1994)

The area above is my stomping grounds, the region where I grew up, and I can see my entire youthful experience in this single photo, from the Appalachians to the Atlantic Coast. I grew up in Baltimore, and now live and work near Washington, DC. So much U.S. history is also captured in this shot, from the formative moves toward independence in 1776, to major battlefields of the Civil War, to the great Emancipation in 1862 and at the Civil War’s close. During WWII, the Martin aircraft factory in Baltimore built the B-26 Marauder bomber, and in the 1960s produced the Gemini-Titan II boosters that jump-started my space interests. During the mission, my brother watched me soar overhead in Endeavour before dawn from his home in Fredericksburg, VA, in the Chesapeake region.

For more of my mission information, see www.AstronautTomJones.com

 

This month is the 23rd anniversary of the Space Radar Lab 2 mission, STS-68. I was the payload commander, flying with my crewmates Mike Baker (CDR), Dan Bursch (MS2), Steve Smith (MS1), Terry Wilcutt (PLT), and Jeff Wisoff (MS3). An ambitious follow up to the successful STS-59, Space Radar Lab 1, SRL-2 was aimed at flying the multi-frequency, multi-polarized Shuttle Imaging Radar-C, X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar, and the Measurement of Air Pollution from Satellites sensors in the northern hemisphere late summer, to compare SRL-1’s spring mapping results to those from a contrasting season of the year. STS-68 would also test radar interferometry, a technique to create highly accurate, three-dimensional maps of Earth’s topography. (More info at www.AstronautTomJones.com)

My crewmates and I rehearsed our countdown procedures at Kennedy Space Center on August 1, 1994.

Jeff Wisoff was seated to my left, close to the galley and side hatch. Note my clear helmet visor, indicating a “practice” helmet. We kept the dark visors for the real launch day, to avoid scratching them during our practice sessions like this one.

Our launch was planned on August 18, 1994, but at dawn on that date, when Endeavour’s main engines (SSMEs) ignited, the #3 engine violated a redline constraint, and the GPCs ordered an abort and engine shutdown. They automatically called for a shutdown when the discharge temperature on MPSSSME Main Engine #3 High Pressure Oxidizer Turbopump (HPOT) exceeded its redline value. The HPOT typically operates at 28,120 rpm and boosts the liquid oxygen pressure from 422 psia to 4,300 psia. There are 2 sensor channels measuring temperature on the HPOT. The B channel indicated a redline condition while the other was near redline conditions. The temperature at shutdown was at 1563 degrees R. while a normal HPOT discharge temperature is around 1403 degrees R. The redline limit to initiate a shutdown is at 1560 degrees R. This limit increases to 1760 degrees R. at T-1.3 sec (5.3 sec after Main Engine Start). Main Engine #3 (SN 2032) has been used on 2 previous flights with 2,412 seconds of hot-fire time and a total of 8 starts. This was the first flight for the HPOT on Main Engine (SSME) #3.

What all of this meant to me on the middeck (sitting next to Jeff Wisoff), was that as I felt the SSMEs rumble to life, I began mentally counting down the six seconds til booster ignition at T-minus-zero. Braced against the massive jolt of those SRBs exploding into life, I instead felt the engine vibration die away just as Terry Wilcutt shouted “Right engine down!”, accompanied by the blare of the master alarm. This meant serious trouble.

Out the hatch window to my left, I noted the gantry structure seeming to sway left and right under the vanished shove from Endeavour’s main engines–that was US swaying back and forth. Jeff and I hurriedly threw off our parachute straps and prepared to scoot across the middeck to open the hatch; we might all have to make a beeline to the escape slides on the far side of the gantry’s 190 foot level. We stayed on intercom, waiting for the word to egress.

Within the first minute, Launch Control had our pilots executing the pad abort checklist, entering computer commands that would stop the backup flight software from jettisoning our solid rocket boosters at T+2 minutes (embarrassing and deadly). As Jeff and I cleared our seats in the middeck and stood by to open the hatch, we heard reassuring words from Launch Director Bob Sieck’s team that the computers had executed an orderly shutdown, and no fire or explosion risk was evident.

“Damn! We’re scrubbed!” Jeff opined that we’d be set back at least three weeks by the necessary engine changeout. In fact it would take six weeks for our rollback, engine change, and rollout. STS-64 would slip ahead of us and fly in early September with its LITE laser sensor payload. Our new launch date would be Sept. 30, 1994.

The launch team did a superb job on our abort–the last pad abort in the space shuttle program, and the one that came hair-raisingly close to leaping off the pad with one engine down. That would have meant an immediate scramble to perform a Return To Launch Site (RTLS) abort, flying backward through our Mach 5 exhaust plume to attempt a dicey landing back on Merritt Island. If anyone could pull it off, it would have been Bakes, Terry, Dan, and Steve. Assuredly, no one wanted to be the first to try an RTLS.

September 30 was set as our new launch date. STS-64 in the meantime had flown its successful LITE Earth-science mission, with the additional milestone of Mark Lee and Carl Meade test-flying the SAFER EVA jetpack. Our crew had taken a week-long vacation, then got back into simulations and recurring training to polish our space radar abilities. I thought we used the extra time to good effect, and we proceeded to the Cape even better prepared than we were in August. We were certainly more rested than on our first attempt.

One piece of bad luck befell us: on the day we entered quarantine, five of us came down with cold symptoms. We suffered through four days in Houston of runny noses, aches and pains, and sore throats, but with constant flight surgeon attention we slowly improved. Our flight to the Cape was on the Shuttle Training Aircraft, the Gulfstream jet, to spare our sinuses the drastic cabin altitude changes experienced in a T-38.

When we arrived at the Cape, Dan Bursch stepped off the jet in his Groucho Marx disguise, telling reporters that our chances of avoiding a launch abort were better if Endeavour didn’t know he was in the launch area. Our spirits were certainly on the upswing as our three days in Florida at crew quarters drew to a close.

Our launch was timed for dawn on September 30, with Endeavour taking us into a 57-degree inclination, circular orbit, about 120 nm up. At that altitude our orbit would drift west at such a rate that we could image each of our science targets three times each day, from slightly different radar incidence angles.

The liftoff was exhilarating–this time I knew what to expect! I occupied the same seat as on SRL-1, with Jeff Wisoff to my left. No abort this time–the boosters came alive with a punch to the gut and we soared aloft. Much of the cabin dialogue we exchanged during launch is in my book, Sky Walking: An Astronaut’s Memoir. I’d asked that the side hatch window cover again be removed, so I had a terrific view of the gantry turning from gray, to red, to white-hot as the boosters lit. The following eight and a half minutes were punctuated by pyros firing to sever the boosters at two minutes, and then the attention-getting 3 g’s during the final minute of the ascent. During those final seconds I truly experienced the power of the space shuttle’s three main engines, just hurling our 100-ton orbiter toward the injection altitude and velocity. A miracle of technology and physics.

Below, another beautiful view of our dawn liftoff, as Endeavour jolts off the pad. During my second ascent to orbit, I was able to enjoy the physical and mental impressions a bit more methodically, recording my comments on a microcassette recorder during the eight-and-a-half minute climb to our 120 nm mapping orbit.

After MECO, it was off to the races, with Steve Smith and I teaming up on video and still photography of the external tank as it drifted away, below us. Then Jeff and I threw ourselves into converting the middeck into its orbit configuration, and getting the rest of the crew out of their suits and on into their orbital jobs. We had only about 5 hours until my bedtime; the Blue Shift of Steve, Dan and I were due for our first sleep period while Jeff, Mike, and Terry activated SRL-2.

Before launch, our crew had a chance to examine the Space Radar Lab and its SIR-C/X-SAR radars up close, nestled in Endeavour’s payload bay. C-band panels line the left edge, and the larger L-band panels cover most of the 12-m-long antenna. Along the port edge, next to the robot Canadarm, the German/Italian X-SAR antenna is folded downward toward the sill of the payload bay.

Below, SRL-2 is in orbit. Space Radar Lab 2 had some new wrinkles, added since our April flight of SRL-1. The JPL folks had added a gold decal that matched one the Germans and Italians had placed on the X-band antenna. And the Langley Research Center also added a label to their Measurement of Air Pollution from Satellites (MAPS) instrument, positioned right in front of the radar antennae. It all made for a spectacular view out the back windows of the cabin:

We also had about 160 radar imagery recording cassettes aboard, up from the hundred or so we took aloft on SRL-1. The radar imaging schedule was even more ambitious than in April–and I’d thought that was intense!

I had thought I was over my cold, but upon arrival in orbit and a night’s sleep, I ran into its aftereffects. My sinuses were clogged, and without gravity, NOTHING was coming “down” out of my nose. My head felt like a balloon, and my face was reddened as if by a sunburn. I took to the medical locker to find the decongestants, and over a week or so, I slowly improved. The rest of my crewmates also dealt with the congestion lingering from our colds, and the natural stuffiness from the fluid shift headward, caused by our transition to free fall.

Jeff Wisoff, assisted by the pilots and coordinating with Mission Control (MCC), got SRL-2 up and running on his long first shift in orbit. When I woke from my quick 6 hours of sleep and talked to Jeff, I found he’d been “running” flat out with the activation for his entire shift, barely having time to grab a drink or a quick snack. I got cleaned up in a hurry and took over with Dan and Steve as quickly as we could, to spell the Red Shift from their labors. Having been up more than 18 hours, they were understandably tired. We tucked them into bed and ran with our Science Timeline, our program of observations.

 

We discovered the tile damage on the first day of the flight, after opening the payload bay doors and inspecting the cargo bay. MCC determined that the heat loads on the upper half of the OMS pod were mild enough that the tile damage would not be dangerous. That greatly eased our minds. It was several days later that we discovered the source of the damage, looking up through the window and noticing a missing piece of tile just outside the outer pane. The tile tore loose during ascent and flew back to strike the OMS pod.

The radar imagery returned resulted in wonderful images, like the one below, all across the disciplines of the Earth sciences. As we woke for our first work shift, Jeff, Terry, and Bakes called us upstairs to see a spectacular volcanic eruption in Kamchatka. Everyone grabbed a camera to capture images out the windows, while the radar lab obtained thousands of detailed images, revealing details obscured by the eruption plume.

The eruption was a true serendipitous gift from nature. If we had launched in August as planned, we would have missed this rare geological event. Now we had a ringside seat.

Our wide-angle 90mm lens on the Linhof camera captured the view below. The Linhof produced a 4×5-inch film negative, with incredible detail. Each magazine held 100 frames, and we refilled magazines with fresh film inside a light-tight bag, stowing the exposed film in canisters and manually spooling a new roll into the magazine. The film reloading was part of our nightly housekeeping routine. But it was hard to tear ourselves away from the windows!

We were able to monitor Kliuchevskoi’s eruption for a solid week, using the SRL to track eruptive phases as weather fronts came and went across Kamchatka. During a TV downlink to MCC, I described how the radar beams interacted with lavas of varying roughness, using three samples from Hawaii to illustrate the viewing geometry. I had chunks of aa, pahoehoe, and andesite lava aboard–in free fall, I had to take care to not release rock dust or slivers of lava into the cabin from their ziploc bags.  The andesite sample was a more viscous, stiff lava, erupted from some of the more recent cinder cones on Mauna Kea.

Our shift work was 12 hours on, an 8-hour sleep shift, plus 4 hours for “post-sleep” and “pre-sleep”. In those periods, we talked things over with the Red Shift guys, had breakfast, dinner, and exercise, and took care of necessary housekeeping. One of the challenges was giving Jeff, Terry, and Bakes a good night’s sleep by keeping quiet in the middeck. Even opening a locker could wake up that crew in their sleeping bags, inside their bunks, so we tried to get our lunch like church mice, then eat on the flight deck. Once I dumped a chunk of scrambled eggs that I’d insecurely anchored to a tortilla–it went flying all over the flight deck, and Dan had to help me gobble up the floating egg debris. Dan’s homemade chocolate chip cookies crumbled in their ziploc–getting them out without crumbs floating everywhere required true astronaut skill. From home, with the help of the JSC Space Food Lab, I’d brought TastyKake chocolate cupcakes and Butterscotch Krimpets, enough snacks to carry me through the 11-day mission.

In the test above, Steve had a laser on his headstrap, and his job was to rotate his head to put the laser dot on a series of targets about 6 feet away on the middeck lockers, forward. The sequence of pointing was random, and the package Steve was wearing recorded his eye motions as well as his response and pointing time. Looks a little like The Terminator if you ask me. Mike Baker helps with the checklist. Note the tortillas in the ziploc bag on the Middeck Equipment Rack (MER) behind Baker, with the galley to the right.

When I enlarge the photo, I see my crew notebook also velcroed to the lockers above Mike’s left shoulder. And I’m actually visible behind Mike, taking a look out the side hatch window (or scrubbing the bathroom!).

The recorders were adapted from digital tape machines that flew in recon aircraft to record digital imagery data. One of the three on our flight deck failed about 8 days into the mission, so Jeff and Steve removed it and replaced it with a spare recorder that’d been flown up underneath our middeck floor. Pretty handy mechanics. Within 4 hours they had the new machine up and running again.

All too soon, our 11 days in orbit were coming to a close. We remained an extra day in orbit hoping for added science, and to await improving weather at Kennedy Space Center, but Mission Control directed us home to a landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California on Oct. 11, 1994. Commander Mike Baker, assisted by pilot Terry Wilcutt, brought Endeavour to a gentle landing on Runway 22 at Edwards. Our orbiter performed superbly from start to finish of this successful mission to Planet Earth.

Just after wheels stop on Endeavour, I was to unstrap from my middeck seat and stand up. The blood pressure measurement gear would record my response to standing erect in 1-g, once again. I knew when the equipment was working when my left arm’s pressure cuff inflated, but it never recovered after touchdown. The taped data from entry, however, were good, and so was the audio tape I made as we rode back through the atmosphere. I have to give credit to the designers for creating a rig that would work inside our pressure suits, and yet still be easy enough to don and operate. After return to Houston, I sent the investigators an apology for the verbal tirade I recorded, grousing about the troubles I had getting the batteries replaced and activating the system. My only excuse was being up for a very long day…around 18 hours by the time we landed, and we still had postflight medical tests to endure.

STS-68 is a highlight of my speech, “Sky Walking: An Astronaut’s Journey” — contact me here at my speaking information page.

Space Shuttle Endeavour Mission Highlights, STS-68

 

September 30 – October 11, 1994

(published by National Aeronautics and Space Administration as MH – 030/11-94; reformatted by author)

 

Commander:                         Michael A. Baker (CPT, USN)

Pilot:                                        Terrence Wilcutt (Lt.Col., USMC)

Payload Commander:        Thomas D. Jones (Ph.D.)

Mission Specialist:              Daniel W. Bursch (Cdr., USN)

Mission Specialist:              Steven L. Smith

Mission Specialist:              Peter “Jeff” J. K. Wisoff (Ph.D.)

MAJOR MISSION ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Second successful flight of the Space Radar Laboratory (SRL) payload studying the Earth’s land surface, oceans, and atmosphere as a key element in NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth.

• Successful testing of a new radar technique called “interferometry.” Endeavour obtained topographic information of unprecedented clarity by using slightly different shuttle positions to provide 3 dimensional images of the terrain.

• Gathered global air pollution data with the Measure­ment of Air Pollution from Satellites (MAPS) instru­ment. MAPS measures atmospheric carbon monoxide, monitoring its production and transport around the globe.

• Compared radar imaging results with those from SRL-1 (STS-59, in April ’94), determining the impact of natural and human change on Earth’s ecology, hydrology, oceanography, and geology. Operating around-the-clock and unaffected by weather, SRL-2’s radar instruments mapped 9% of Earth’s surface.

• Demonstrated the ability of an advanced, multi-fre­quency, multi-polarized radar to assess the state of Earth’s surface over a full seasonal cycle, laying the groundwork for a permanent environmental monitor­ing platform.

• Scanned large areas of the Southern Ocean with an on-board radar processor to reveal important information on wave and storm dynamics in this antarctic sea.

• Conducted investigations into plant reproduction under microgravity conditions, and produced large, high-quality protein crystals for analysis of the molecular structure of alpha-interferon, a cancer­ fighting drug.

• Forged international scientific links with the Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C and the X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) experiments.­ The SIR-C/X-SAR science team included 49 science investigators and 3 associates repre­senting a total of thirteen nations.

• Flew the first in a new series of life sciences experi­ments, “Biological Research in Canisters (BRIC), which subjects small organisms to microgravity in search of subtle effects on reproduction and growth.

Space Radar Laboratory-2

The goal of the 65th space shuttle mission was to demonstrate again the potential of new technolo­gy in observing the home planet from space. Endeavour’s vantage point, offering near-global access and a broad view of Earth below, provided a superb test of the Space Radar Laboratory’s capabilities for surface and atmospheric monitoring. As they did on the first Radar Lab flight on STS-59 in April, SRL’s imaging radars (SIR-C/X-SAR) again made surface measure­ments without regard to darkness or the weather below, providing the kind of access necessary for permanent monitoring of the global environment. Complementing the radar experiments, Endeavour’s atmospheric pollu­tion sensor (MAPS) tracked global production and distribution of carbon monoxide, an important combustion-produced trace gas that plays a role in the chemical pathways leading to air pollution and possible global warming.

Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C/X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR)

SIR-C/X-SAR is the most advanced civil radar flown in space. The system was designed and built by NASA, the German Space Agency (DARA) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). Jet Propulsion Lab devel­oped the SIR-C (C and L-band radars) for NASA, and DARA and ASI developed the X-band system; all three helped integrate the system into a single, flexible Earth-sensing tool. Radar waves can penetrate clouds, and under certain conditions, can also see through vegeta­tion, dry snow and extremely dry sand. In many cases, radar is the only way scientists can explore inaccessible regions of Earth’s surface.

SIR-C/X-SAR transmits pulses of radio energy at three different frequencies, creating detailed images of the surface that are tailored to detect soil and rocks (geology) , ocean waves and currents (oceanography), vegetation density and type (ecology), and water in the form of soil moisture, snow, ice, and rivers and lakes (hydrology). SIR-C/X-SAR first flew on STS-59 (SRL-1) in April of 1994. Repeating the environmental  measure­ments in a different season would prove radar’s ability to serve eventually as a permanent monitor of Earth’s environment, tracking both natural and man-made changes on the planet.

Measurement of Air Pollution from Satellites (MAPS)

The Measurement of Air Pollution from Satellites (MAPS) experiment flew for the fourth time aboard STS-68. MAPS operated around the clock, measuring concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO) around the globe. CO plays a key role in the chemical reaction pathways of the troposphere (the lowest, weather-filled layer of the atmosphere). It combines with hydroxyl radical (OH) and forms carbon dioxide (CO2). OH has a prime role in the breakdown and removal of greenhouse gases such as methane (CH4). If increasing CO, released from combustion processes, reduces the amount of hydroxyl radical in the air, then the breakdown of greenhouse gases will also slow down.Thus measuring CO’s global abundance is important in understanding how human-caused and natural combustion sources are affecting the global warming process.

On SRL-2, MAPS again worked flawlessly, and recorded a markedly different pattern of CO abun­dance than seen on SRL-1 in April ’94.The SRL-2 results showed heavy concentrations of CO from bio­mass (vegetation) burning in the tropics, with the greatest amounts over southeast Asia and the tropics of Africa and South America. Industrial sources of CO in the northern hemisphere were still present, but at lower levels than seen in April. As on SRL-1, the crew’s reports of fires, smoke, and the storms that loft CO to high altitude were used to confirm MAPS readings, and correlate MAPS and ground measurements.

Earth Science from Space

Once the STS-68 crew was in orbit, they powered up the SRL-2 payloads and checked out the radar and MAPS systems. The ground science team began uplinking commands to begin radar observa­tions for the 11-day flight. The crew worked in two shifts around the clock to operate Endeavour as a science platform. They maneuvered Endeavour some 470 times to precisely track the radar targets, reducing uncer­tainties in the imagery caused by Earth’s rotation. They recorded the digital radar images on tape, and conducted Earth photography and ”field observations”
at the hundreds of science sites around the globe. The crew provided needed “ground truth” to prove the accuracy of the radar data by taking over 13,000 images of the Earth with 14 different cameras.

SRL-2 examined Earth at over 400 specific sites, chosen for their environmental significance. Nineteen were “supersites;’ high priority focal points for data collection, where each science discipline­ ecology, hydrology, oceanography, geology, and radar calibration-concentrated their experiments. Intensive field work occurred at these sites before, during, and after the mission.

SRL-2 joined SRL-1 in acquiring 100% of the mission’s planned science observations. In addition, the science team redirected the radars during the flight to take advantage of rapidly changing conditions on the ground. The best example of this retargeting was the reaction to the spectacular eruption of Kliuchevskoi volcano, which exploded into life just hours after STS-68’s launch on 30 September. The SIR-C/X-SAR team was able to replan upcoming passes over the Kam­chatka Peninsula to study the entire course of the week-long eruption. Not only was the crew among the first witnesses to the eruption, but they tracked its progress daily, providing the most detailed documenta­tion of a large eruption ever obtained from space.

The radar and MAPS data provide information about how many of Earth’s complex “systems” work together to make the planet livable. Some early results include:

• Tree classification and vegetation biomass (amount of plant material) maps of the Raco, MI, supersite.
• A map of river flooding near Manaus, Brazil–the first step toward improving models of both flooding and wetlands under dense rain forest canopies.
• Snow wetness maps (showing free liquid water content of the snow pack) of Oetztal, Austria, and accurate estimates of the amount of water stored in the snowpack there.
• Extensive wave-energy measurements over the Southern Ocean that show the dominant sea states in the stormiest ocean region on the planet.
• Detection of oil spills in the North Sea. SIR-C/X-SAR detected industrial and natural oils in spill amounts as small as 10 liters, demonstrating another advantage of environmental monitoring from space.
• Monitoring of changes in the shape and extent of glaciers in the Patagonian Andes, at the far south­ern tip of South America. These remote glaciers are among the most rapidly advancing in the world, and may serve as sensitive indicators of global climate change.

SRL-2 demonstrated a powerful new use of radar, called interferometry, that produces three-dimen­sional maps of Earth’s surface. Mission Control and the crew combined to perform the most precise orbital maneuvers of the shuttle program, putting Endeavour in an orbit for the first 6 days that nearly matched SRL-1’s flight path in April. At times the two orbits differed by only 10 meters. For days 7-10, the crew lowered the orbit to a height of 200 km, an altitude that put Endeavour on a path matching its previous day’s ground track. This exacting navigation (where the crew trimmed orbital velocity to an accuracy of 1 part in 2 million) produced long swaths of interferometric data. The resulting digital elevation maps can show not only the ground’s elevation, but changes in height of just a few centimeters–actual shifts in Earth’s crust. The tech­nique should prove to be a powerful tool for detecting stress building up on or under Earth’s surface, warning, for example, of imminent volcanic activity.

SRL-2’s space radar also examined several areas of cultural interest, including the mountain gorilla habitat in central Africa, the ancient trade route called the Silk Road in China’s northwestern desert, the lost city of Ubar on the Arabian Peninsula, and buried river channels under the Sahara.

Middeck Payloads

Experiments to benefit Earth took place inside the crew module as well. Commercial Protein Growth (CPCG), flown “downstairs” on Endeavour’s middeck, grew and preserved high quality protein crystals of sufficient size and purity to permit analysis of their structure back on Earth. This structural information will be put to use in the manufacture of alpha-interferon, a cancer-fighting drug. Early in the mission, the crew solved an overheating problem in the experiment by rigging a temporary cooling duct to its fan inlets, assuring the proper conditions for crystal growth.

The crew also operated the Chromosome and Plant Cell Division in Space (CMIX) experiment, inves­tigating the effects of microgravity on plant reproduc­tion. Small, rapidly growing plants called mouse-eared cress grew to maturity in their 11 days in free-fall, giv­ing insight not only into cell reproduction in space, but also into practical methods for growing plants for food and waste recycling on long-duration space missions.

In another middeck locker experiment-Biologi­cal Research in Canisters (BRIC)-hundreds of dor­mant gypsy moth larvae underwent exposure to free­ fall to see if microgravity would affect their metamor­phosis into adults. Identifying gravity’s effect on the process may lead to efficient production of sterile moths to combat this forest pest. The crew also sys­tematically measured cabin radiation levels to assess long-term hazards of living in space, and photo­graphed ships’ wakes from orbit to assess how cloud formation is affected by exhaust emissions.

The crew took on another job, serving as labo­ratory subjects in a series of space medical experi­ments. They examined how coordination of head and eye movements degrades as the brain adapts to microgravity; recorded how free-fall affects the body’s sleep-wake cycle and hormone levels; and measured the heart’s response as Endeavour returned to the full force of gravity during re-entry and landing. These investigations will help prepare for the long stays in microgravity planned aboard the Space Station.

Endeavour’s landing at Edwards AFB capped a superb mission to Planet Earth. SIR-C/X-SAR imaged 83 million square kilometers of the Earth’s surface, about 9% of the globe. The radar experiments filled 199 magnetic tape cassettes, which held over 60 ter­abits (60 trillion bits) of imagery data–the equivalent of 25,000 encyclopedia volumes. MAPS created a series of global carbon monoxide maps, tracing the path of pollutants through Earth’s dynamic atmos­phere. Endeavour’s crew brought back the largest complement of Earth photography of the Shuttle pro­gram to date, a record of Earth’s environmental changes that will aid greatly the interpretation of the radar and MAPS results. STS-68 completed the proof­ test of spaceborne radar as a tool for permanent, long-term monitoring of our planet’s health.

 

Mission Facts

Orbiter: Endeavour

Mission Dates: September 30-0ctober 11, 1994

Commander: Michael A. Baker (CPT, USN)

Pilot: Terrence Wilcutt (Lt. Col., USMC)

Payload Commander: Thomas D. Jones (Ph.D.)

Mission Specialist: Steven L. Smith

Mission Specialist: Daniel W. Bursch (Cdr., USN)

Mission Specialist: Peter “Jeff” J. K. Wisoff (Ph..D.)

Mission Duration: 11 days, 5 hours, 47 minutes

Kilometers Traveled: 8,710,360 km

Orbit Inclination: 57 degrees

Orbits of Earth: 183

Orbital Altitude: 222 km

Payload Weight Up: 12,511 kg

Orbiter Landing Weight: 101,169 kg

Landed: Edwards Air Force Base, California

Payloads and Experiments:

Cargo Bay Payloads:

SRL-2 – Space Radar Laboratory-2

GAS – Get Away Special canisters

Middeck Payloads:

CPCG – Commercial Protein Crystal Growth

BRIC – Biological Research in Canisters

CREAM – Cosmic Radiation Effects and Activation Monitor

CHROMEX – Chromosomes and Plant Cell Division in Space Experiment

MAST – Military Applications of Ship Tracks

Commander: Michael A. Baker (Capt., USN)
Michael Baker was born in Memphis, Tennessee, but considers Lemoore, California, to be his hometown. He received a bachelor of science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas. After completing flight training, he flew the A-7E aircraft aboard the USS Midway. He conducted A-7 aircraft-related tests on the various aircraft carriers in the Navy’s fleet. Baker served as an instructor at the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School before assignment as the U.S. Navy Exchange Instructor at the Empire Test Pilots’ School in Boscombe Down, England. He has logged over 4,200 hours flying time in some 50 different types of aircraft, and has completed over 300 carrier landings. He was named an astronaut in 1985, and was pilot of the STS-43 and STS-52 missions.

Pilot: Terrence W. Wilcutt (Lt. Col., USMC)
Terrence Wilcutt was born in Russellville, Kentucky. He graduated with a bach­elor of arts degree in mathematics from Western Kentucky University. Upon graduation, Wilcutt taught high school math for two years and then entered the U.S. Marine Corps. He earned his wings in 1978 and served on various assignments in Hawaii and overseas in aircraft such as the F-4 Phantom, FA- 18 Hornet, and the A-7 Corsair II. Wilcutt attended the Naval Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun) and the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. He has over 3,000 flight hours in more than 30 different kinds of aircraft. Wilcutt was selected as an astronaut in 1990 and has served in a variety of responsibilities including Space Shuttle main engine and external tank issues and launch support. This was his first space flight.

Payload Commander: Thomas D. Jones (Ph.D.)
Thomas David Jones was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He earned a bachelor of science degree in basic sciences from the U. S. Air Force Academy and a Ph.D. in planetary sciences from the University of Arizona. As an Air Force offi­cer, he served as a B-52 strategic bomber pilot and aircraft commander, accu­mulating over 2,000 hours of flight experience.After leaving the Air Force, Jones worked toward his doctorate, using remote sensing to investigate the composition of asteroids and meteorites, and researching the utility of asteroid resources in space exploration. He was a program management engineer for the CIA’s Office of Development and Engineering and later a senior scientist at Science Applications International Corporation, analyzing future missions to Mars, asteroids, and the outer solar system. He was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 1990. Jones flew in space on the STS-59 mission; this was his second flight on Endeavour.

Mission Specialist: Steven L. Smith
Steven Smith was born in Phoenix, Arizona, but considers San Jose, California, to be his hometown. Smith received a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering, master of science degree in electrical engineering, and a master’s degree in business administration, all from Stanford University.He worked for IBM in the Large Scale Integration (semiconductor) Technology Group as a technical group lead. Smith joined NASA in 1989 in the Payload Operation Branch, Mission Operations Directorate. As a payload officer, his duties included payload integration and mission support. He was selected as an astronaut in 1992 and has provided Space Shuttle support in the areas of main engines, solid rocket boosters, and the external tank. This was his first space flight.

Mission Specialist: Peter J. K. “Jeff”Wisoff (Ph.D.)
Peter J. K. Wisoff was born in Norfolk,Virginia. He received a bachelor of science degree in physics from the University of Virginia and a master of science degree and doctorate in applied physics from Stanford University. Upon gradu­ation, he joined the faculty of .Rice University in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research focused on the development of new vacuum ultraviolet and high intensity laser sources. He also worked with researchers from regional Texas medical centers on the use of lasers in rebuilding damaged nerves. Wisoff has contributed numerous papers at tech­nical conferences and in journals in the areas of lasers and laser applications. He was named an astronaut in 1990 and was a mission specialist aboard STS-57 as well as STS-68.

Mission Specialist: Daniel W. Bursch (Cdr., USN)
Daniel Bursch was born in Bristol, Pennsylvania, but considers Vestal, New York, his hometown. He earned a bachelor of science degree in physics from the U.S. Naval Academy, and a master of science degree in engineering science from the Naval Postgraduate School. After training as an A-6E Intruder bombardier/navigator, he served aboard the USS John F. Kennedy and USS America. After working as a project test flight officer for the A-6 Intruder, he served as a flight instructor at the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. Bursch worked as Strike Operations Officer for Commander, Cruiser-Destroyer Group 1, making deployments to the Indian Ocean aboard the USS Long Beach and USS Midway. He has over 2,100 flight hours in more than 35 different aircraft. Bursch was selected as an astronaut in 1990 and flew as a mission specialist aboard STS-51 and STS-68.

Exploration of Earth from space is the focus of the design of the insignia, the second flight of the Space Radar Laboratory (SRL-2). SRL-2 is part of NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE) project. The world’s land masses and oceans dominate the center field, with the Space Shuttle Endeavour circling the globe. The SRL-2 letters span the width and breadth of planet Earth, symbolizing worldwide coverage of the two prime experiments of STS-68–The Shuttle Imaging Radar-C and X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) instruments, and the Measurement of Air Pollution from Satellites (MAPS) sensor. The red, blue and black colors of the insignia represent the three operating wavelengths of SIR-C/X-SAR, and the gold band surrounding the globe symbolizes the atmospheric envelope examined by MAPS. The flags of international partners Germany and Italy are shown opposite Endeavour. The relationship of the Orbiter to Earth highlights the usefulness of human space flight in understanding Earth’s environment, and monitoring its changing surface and atmosphere. In the words of the crewmembers, “the soaring Orbiter also typifies the excellence of the NASA team in exploring our own world, using the tools which the Space Program developed to explore the other planets in the solar system.” The STS-68 patch was designed by artist Sean Collins. (NASA STS068-s-001)

**End**

Read about the STS-68 mission and its highlights in my memoir, “Sky Walking,” available at this website, www.AstronautTomJones.com.  To book a speech about these and my other spaceflight experiences, please contact the WorldWide Speakers Group, here.

The Great American Total Solar Eclipse turned out to be well worth the journey, and my family enjoyed this spectacular demonstration of the solar system in operation from Oregon’s central desert near the small town of Madras, just east of the Deschutes River gorge. We were blessed with clear skies (a bare trace of forest fire smoke) for this awe-inspiring event. I’ll post a series of photos of our eclipse experience here.

We were guests of our friend, Rhonda Coleman, an “umbraphile,” or seeker of total eclipses. Her RV group graciously invited us to share with us their eclipse observing location. Sunrise occurred at 0731, with the Sun peeking over the basalt lava rim of the surrounding plateau.

Using a solar filter, I watched the sun rise above, as the solar disc cleared the canyon rim. Eclipse start was just 90 minutes or so away.

High cirrus clouds and some wisps of forest fire smoke moved off to the east during the morning, and we had clear skies throughout the eclipse. Our setting was in a scattered pine grove in desert terrain carved out of hundreds of feet of ancient basalt lava flows, incised by the Deschutes River. Cool morning air, low humidity, and the solar spectacle warming us comfortably.

Many of the observers were experts with their personal telescopes, and I believe Brian Bellis used his scope and the funnel to cleverly project the Sun’s image, above.

Our hiking group from Virginia was the core of our group headed to Oregon for the eclipse, so this message was a natural when I drilled out our thin section of wood for our pinhole projector. Note the mini-eclipses projected from each 1/8″ hole.

Excitement built among the 300-or-so observers at Lake Simtustus as the moon drove steadily across the Sun’s face. Still, at this point we could see no noticeable drop in brightness outdoors, above.

For the above shot, I was still shooting zoomed in through a solar filter over the optics of the Canon digital (SX280 HS), using its “auto” setting to meter for proper exposure. (T. Jones).

When I took the above shot, two minutes before totality, the ambient light was dropping rapidly, bathing the desert landscape in a weak, watery, orange-yellow illumination. Everyone noticed this, murmuring about the unfamiliar, weird light levels of the scene. By this point I was getting my settings ready for totality, but there was almost too much going on with the waning Sun to focus on camera set-up.

The waning light is obvious in the above photo, both on the ground and in those hundreds of thin solar crescents. Our daughter Annie noticed the ground crescents and grabbed our white poster board to best see these mini-eclipses.

Wow! Didn’t see the prominences until looking at the photos, but some in our group with binoculars spotted these immense arcs of incandescent gas above the Sun’s limb. The fine structure of the inner corona also impressed.

As my exposure time increased, we started to capture more of the corona stretching above those amazing prominences (above). Temperature along the lake front dropped noticeably. One friend, Dan Adamo in Salem, OR, recorded a drop of over 6 degrees F during totality.

Longer exposure time gets more of the structure of the corona. I was whirling through the shutter speed dial, and using a 2-second delay on the shutter timer to damp vibration on the tripod. And the clock was ticking on me observing the eclipse with my own eyeballs. (I did take long glimpses between these shots).

The photo above appears much like the scene we saw of the moon and Sun during the last minute of totality. How incredibly lovely.

Totality was almost over. The crowd’s murmur rose noticeably as we all anticipated the Sun’s reappearance; emotions ran from exultant to sadness that this vision was about to end. But we were all eager to see what the Sun would show us at eclipse conclusion.

The Sun is just about to emerge from behind the Moon, outshining the chromosphere here (above). Good-bye to the corona, perhaps until 2024.

Whoops and cheers swelled as the Sun emerged from eclipse, exhibiting this blazing diamond ring above the Oregon desert. On go the solar glasses again!

The Sun drenches the viewing area, and out come the eclipse glasses and the cold drinks.

With the totality tension gone, all of us could catch up on the eclipse experiences we missed on the way in to blackout. Above are the miniatures of the waning eclipse cast by our pinhole projector onto the poster board.

 

Most of us enjoyed a cold swallow of our iced Coronas at this point, talking excitedly with friends and family about what we’d witnessed.

What a success this was for all involved. Note all the telescopes brought by the Blackout Ralliers in background.

Sunspots make their reappearance as the Moon exits the Sun’s neighborhood. We followed the eclipse’s finish with a picnic lunch, and plotted plans to avoid the traffic heading south out of Madras. I enjoyed giving a talk under the big tent, and met with eclipse-goers at a book signing under the shade of our big juniper at the viewing area, autographing Ask the Astronaut and Sky Walking.

 

We’ll close this eclipse album out with a view of the Moon’s shadow, seen from the International Space Station. For the U.S., so long to totality until 2024. See you in the umbra!

www.AstronautTomJones.com