Bold They Rise: The Space Shuttle Early Years, 1972-1986 (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight) by Hitt David & Smith Heather R

Author:Hitt, David & Smith, Heather R. [Hitt, David]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: History
ISBN: 9780803255562
Publisher: UNP - Nebraska
Published: 2014-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

Astronaut Rick Hauck recalled that Ride was very professional, very industrious, was always thinking about the objectives for the flight, and was also a good teammate with a good sense of humor. Reporters at press conferences would focus most of their inquiries on the first flight of a U.S. woman, and that was just fine with Hauck. “I remember one press conference just before we flew,” he said. “Someone from Time magazine or something said, ‘Sally, do you think you’ll cry when you’re on orbit?’ And of course, she kind of gave him this ‘You got to be kiddin’ me’ kind of look and said, ‘Why doesn’t anyone ever ask Rick those questions?’”

Norm Thagard was a late addition to the crew, chosen in order to address a particular issue that had been plaguing NASA crews since Apollo 9, and particularly since the Skylab missions in 1973. “NASA was concerned about this ‘space adaptation syndrome,’ or upchucking in space, and we wanted to learn more about it,” Crippen said. “We had some physicians in this thirty-five group, and we figured, ‘Well, we’ve only got four of us on board. There’s room for more. Why don’t we pick a doc, and let that individual go through and see if they can figure out this problem a little bit more?’”

Thagard was selected for the mission, and he and other physician-astronauts put together a series of experiments to determine the cause of space adaptation syndrome. “He was wanting some of us to participate in the experiments,” said Crippen. “When some of [us] weren’t really occupied with things, then we planned on going down there and seeing whether Norm could make us sick or not, which he worked very hard at.”

Hauck recalled being subjected to one of Thagard’s tests while in space.

As soon as we got on orbit, I got down into the middle deck, and Norm had these visual things that I had to watch, and they’re spinning, and, boy, I felt miserable. I mean, they accomplished their purpose. At one point I said, “Hey, guys, I’ve had it. I’m going to go into the airlock,” which was just a nice place to go hide. And I said, “I’m going to close my eyes, and please don’t bother me until I come out.” I didn’t know whether I was going to throw up. I just felt miserable. And I guess it was about four hours later I started to come out of that and that resolved itself.

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