TOM JONES

ASTRONAUT SPEAKER

“Sky Walking” Photo Insert: Color Images

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Here are the color images published in my 2016 edition of Sky Walking: An Astronaut’s Memoir (Smithsonian Books). The latest, 2024 edition is in print now with black and white images only. The photo insert and captions follow:

The author and Tammy Jernigan in front of the jammed airlock hatch on STS-80 (NASA STS080-317-018)
The author and his wife, Liz, with the shuttle Endeavour at Launch Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, August 1994. (author collection)
Astronaut preparation involves frequent flights on the STA, or Shuttle Training Aircraft, (lower aircraft), and the smaller T-38 Talon, seen here over White Sands, New Mexico (NASA S82-32204)
The crew of STS-59, Space Radar Lab 1, which orbited Earth 183 times in April 1994, taking detailed radar images of Earth’s ecosphere, oceans, and geology. From left: Godwin, Chilton, Jones, Apt, Gutierrez, and Clifford. (NASA 9401250)
Astronauts on the STS-59 Red Shift–Kevin Chilton (left), Linda Godwin, and Sid Gutierrez–relax off-duty in Endeavour’s middeck as they try to corral the printout of the day’s updated flight plan from Mission Control. (NASA STS059-05-007)
The author’s wife, Liz, with children Annie and Bryce on the Launch Control Center roof at the Kennedy Space Center just after liftoff of STS-59, Endeavour, April 9, 1994. (author collection, photo by Mary Ellen Weber)
The STS-68 Endeavour crew in orbit on Space Radar Lab 2, October 1994. From left: Bursch, Wilcutt, Baker, Smith, Wisoff, and Jones. Flags of SRL partners–the U.S., Germany, and Italy–line the sleep compartments. (NASA STS068-002-016)
Space Radar Lab 2 operating in Endeavour’s payload bay. The SIR-C (marked JPL) and X-SAR (narrow hinged panel at right) radar panels stretch 40 feet to the rear of the payload bay. The MAPS instrument (marked LaRC) points earthward in right foreground. (NASA STS068-272-075)
The STS -68 crew documented the Kamchatkan volcano Kliuchevskoi’s eruption plume, which rose ten miles into the atmosphere as the jet stream carried dust and ash far out over the Pacific. (NASA STS068-214-043)
The author prepares for a 1996 underwater training session in the WETF, which simulated through neutral buoyancy the working conditions of a spacewalk. (NASA S96-10273)
The STS-80 crew at pad 39B during their countdown rehearsal (from the left): Musgrave, Jones, Cockrell, Jernigan, and Rominger. (NASA KSC-96EC-1213)
Columbia, on STS-80, lifts off Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center on November 19, 1996. As Columbia’s twenty-first mission begins, water floods the pad and flashes into steam under the main engine exhaust (NASA KSC-96pc1290)
Columbia’s robot arm holds the Wake Shield Facility satellite above the payload bay and Earth’s sunlit horizon, just prior to birthing. (NASA STS080-762-049)
Columbia, lit by xenon searchlights and trailing wingtip vortices in the humid morning air, glides in for a landing on Runway 33 at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on December 7, 1996, after the longest shuttle mission in history. (NASA KSC-96pc1336)
The International Space Station after Atlantis undocking, February 16, 2001. From top to bottom: Soyuz, Service Module (Zvezda), FGB (Zarya), PMA-1, Node 1 (Unity), the Lab (Destiny), and PMA-2. (NASA S98E5320)
The STS-98 crew heads for the launch pad and Atlantis, February 7, 2001. From the left: Curbeam, Jones, Ivins, Polansky, and Cockrell. (NASA KSC-01PP-0272)
Shadows from Atlantis’s launch plume fall toward the face of the full Moon, February 7, 2001. Atlantis, thirty miles up, is the white dot at the plume’s tip. (NASA STS098(S)018)
Atlantis approaches for docking with the ISS, February 9, 2001. The Destiny Lab module rides in the aft payload bay. Atlantis’s airlock and docking port are just aft of the cabin’s twin overhead windows. (NASA ISS01E6128)
The Destiny Lab emerges from the payload bay as Marsha Ivins executes the “Big Flip,” moving the Lab toward the forward berthing hatch of the International Space Station, February 10, 2001. (NASA STS098-331-017)
The author connects electrical lines from ISS to the Destiny Lab, February 19, 2001. Ammonia coolant lines extend to the Lab at left. (NASA STS098-331-0017, by Bob Curbeam)
ISS solar arrays stretch across black space behind the author during his second spacewalk on STS-98, February 12, 2001. (NASA STS098-348-012, by Marsha Ivins)
The STS-98 crewmembers return to their families at Ellington Field, Houston, February 21, 2001. From left: crew members Curbeam, Jones, Cockrell, Polansky, and Johnson Space Center Director George Abbey. (NASA JSC2001e04805) Marsha Ivins is out of the frame. Tom Jones’ family (Annie, Bryce, and Liz) are at far left, left of the jet stairs.

George Abbey passed away in 2024, and my children are full-grown and embarked on their own stellar careers. Our STS-98 crew held its most recent reunion in early 2024. Several of our crew’s stories are included in my new book, Space Shuttle Stories (Smithsonian Books, 2023).

www.AstronautTomJones.com

Comments

  1. I was fortunate enough to buy the first edition book. A large coffee table size book and an excellent read. Thank you Tom for compiling it.

    Reply

    • Hi Matthew:
      Thanks for the kind words. Glad you liked the images. “Sky Walking” is my memoir; the larger book is “Space Shuttle Stories.” I assume that’s the one you purchased, using interviews from my shuttle colleagues.
      All the best,
      TJ

      Reply

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