An Hour with the STS-132 Crew

Last Thursday became a very memorable day, since I attended our center's event for honoring and welcoming the STS-132 , Atlantis's Final mission, crew. Yes, I was in the audience here. It was not the first time I heard a crew talk about their experience soon after they did a spectacular job, but this crew definitely stood out among my previous memories of such events. They were unbelievably funny and joyful. They cracked up the audience. If it were not for their suits and we did not know any better, one could think we were attending a stand up comedy show, a very good and scientific one!

Forget about not being too formal to refer to themselves as captain this or commander that with their last names, they were even beyond the first name basis.  They all had special funny nicknames for each other, most of which I forgot by now. They had made a nice movie of their adventure, from before they launched, till the launch moment, during the mission and spacewalk, and finally of coming back to the Earth.  They had upbeat rock and roll songs for the launch and landing section and had a dramatic change to a slow romantic piano song when they were floating and dancing in the shuttle in space.  They mentioned there are three things that kids get excited about: rock and roll, space exploration, and dinosaurs.   We incorporated the first two in our movie and we brought a dinosaur with ourselves instead.  They were talking about their oldest crew member Dr. Sellers.  He was originally British with a nice accent, but he is more special to us because he had worked at Goddard as a research scientist before becoming an astronaut.  Poor guy was attacked by his teammates for his accent, for being a doctor, and for his age.  They were having more fun than us.  It was then that I realized I pronounce our center's name the British way like him: "God - aaard",  they made fun of him each time he was going to use the word, as opposed to "God- erd", the American way.  Hmm... now I had two, no three things in common with Dr. Sellers: we were both doctors, worked at Goddard, and pronounced the center's name the same way.  Maybe I should fill out that astronaut application.  After all, I am probably around the same age when he started!  At the end of the presentation an audience asked Dr. Sellers "How did you transition from being a research scientist to being an astronaut?", to which one of his crew members immediately responded "very badly!".

They started by asking how many of us have seen a shuttle launch on TV, almost everyone in the room raised their hands.  "How many have seen one from the Cape in Florida", more than half of the room raised their hand, proudly I should say (ahem, ahem).  Surprised and threatened that maybe they are not that unique any more, he continued "How many have ridden one during a launch?"  Yes, they won. Dominic Antonelli, the pilot, wanted to share his feelings during the launch.  "It is an amazing feeling, very hard to describe", he mentioned.  "The closest explanation I have found for it is it is like being on top of a rocket"!  He was commended by his team members for keeping the toilet on the shuttle very clean all the time!

Then, there was astronaut Garrett Reisman, significantly shorter than the rest (well, I am finding more and more common features with astronauts).  So, other tall handsome astronauts made fun of his height.  Apparently earlier that week the crew had visited President Obama in the Oval Office, where the crew made fun of his height in front of the president, yes in the Oval Office!  Apparently president Obama had told them to "knock it off guys"!  The happy Garrett continued by reminding us that ever since then whenever these guys make fun of my height, they are in direct violation of a presidential order.  It was not just his height he was famous for, but his strength and power.  The video of how he installed a huge Satellite dish on the ISS was amazing; yes, we all know things are weightless in space, but fighting that also requires a lot of power.  He mentioned with the shuttle program ending, and now that we have experience installing dishes, we are sending our resumes to the cable and satellite companies.  You can call us 9 to 5 and we come to your house and install your TV satellite dish!  It was not long before he was almost done with his presentation that he pleaded to the audience "can someone please call the White House?"

Then, there was Mission Specialist Michael Good, who was most proud of being the only one among his crew members who served on the last Hubble Servicing Mission (SM4).  He was having the time of his life being at the home of Hubble where SM4 was supported.  It was like being in a pep rally.  Every time he mentioned Hubble, we clapped. Finally, it was time for him to do the honor of awarding the Silver Snoopy Award.  Two employees were awarded for their extraordinary service.   One of them was so special to Mike Good, because it was awarded to Dr. Lisa Mazzuca for her handling all the Integration and Test tasks for SM4, for which she was Snooped very carefully.  As her name was called, I was thrilled.  We have been working on the same proposal with a mutual colleague, and I could not have thought of a better occasion to meet her for the first time.  I wished right there and then that our proposal gets accepted because I cannot wait to start working with her.

It was one of the best one-hours of my life.  I left pumped with joy, optimism, hope, thinking anything is possible and I could move mountains.  It is amazing how much positive energy you can get in one hour.  May the Shuttle Program get extended, or the Constellation Program be resumed.  We shall continue.