The Six by Loren Grush

Author:Loren Grush [Grush, Loren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2023-09-12T00:00:00+00:00

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AT 7 A.M., Sally Ride lay horizontally in a metal seat inside the space shuttle Challenger’s cockpit, strapped in after a whirlwind of morning prep. The day had started early, with a wake-up call at 3:13 a.m. in the crew quarters. Sally donned a striped polo and pants in a surreal daze and tried her best to act like a normal person as she trotted out to eat the traditional prelaunch breakfast with the rest of her crewmates, video cameras capturing every bite she took. “I was struggling very hard… trying to look like nothing unusual was about to happen to us,” Sally recalled. Her meal consumed, she slipped into her sky-blue long-sleeved bodysuit that she’d wear for flight.

When the crew drove out to the pad that morning, they dropped off George at the Launch Control Center. At that point, Commander Bob Crippen turned to his crew. “That’s the last one of those,” he said, referring to all the officials they’d just left behind. “All the sane people are back there. We’re the only people crazy enough to go out here.”

Alone with their thoughts, the crew ascended in an elevator at the launchpad’s base that would take them to the cockpit. A small toilet had been placed at the tower’s top in case anyone had to take a last-minute nervous pee.

Sally might have needed an extra nervous pee if she knew just how many people were about to watch her take flight. On the beaches a few miles from the launchpad, the massive crowds of more than 500,000 people were up and awake, vibrating with anticipation. Among the throngs stood various celebrities who’d trekked out to Cape Canaveral to watch history being written. Gloria Steinem, the famous American feminist and activist, was standing in the nearby crowds with actress and activist Jane Fonda. Later, Jane’s presence at the launch would cause a stir at NASA, after she was quoted heavily in the press about the event. Headquarters would receive an angry call from the White House, which wasn’t a fan of Jane’s politics, and a NASA press officer would resign over the “controversy.”

But Sally was blissfully unaware of the hordes of gawkers jockeying for the best view on the nearby shores. Instead, in those last few hours the Shuttle’s cockpit had become her entire world as NASA’s countdown clock ticked down to zero. She stared ahead, focused on the control panel and screens that filled her view between the pilot and commander seats. About thirty minutes before launch, she looked over at John Fabian lying next to her and noticed that he was checking his pulse. Inspired, she put her fingers to her wrist to do the same. Surprisingly, her heartbeat was steady, between fifty-two and fifty-six beats per minute. She may have been nervous, but it didn’t seem to translate to her cardiovascular system. She continued checking her wrist periodically as T-minus 0 came closer.

T-minus 30 seconds…

NASA’s flight controllers handed over control of Challenger to the vehicle’s computers.

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