Just watching the shuttle ride its fat caterpillar of exhaust sent thrills through the crowd like the jazziest Disneyland ride. Titusville, Fla., police officer Fernandina Marshall, keeping an eye on the spectators, said, “I guess it’s because the lady’s going up that I’m watching it myself. The last three times I ignored it.” “It’s an important first,” said Steinem, “because it means that millions and millions of little girls are going to sit in front of the television and know they can become astronauts after this.”
Although Challenger is making its second flight, the 6-day, 96-orbit mission boasted a long list of other firsts: the first round trip (the shuttle will also land at Kennedy Space Center), the first repeat trip by a shuttle astronaut (commander Robert Crippen, 45, piloted the maiden shuttle flight in 1981) and the first five-person crew. Dr. Norman Thagard, 39, was added to the crew last December to conduct medical tests on astronauts Crippen, Ride, pilot Frederick Hauck, 42, and mission specialist John Fabian, 44. With any luck Thagard will keep the list of spacesick shuttlers from growing above the current 7 out of 16.
The crew lost no time ejecting one of the two sophisticated communications satellites that were getting a lift into orbit. Canada’s Anik C satellite, which will handle 32 color-TV channels, got the push on the seventh orbit (Ride had just finished playing catch with a fellow astronaut, tossing a camera back and forth). After Crippen maneuvered Challenger to shade Anik from the sun, Ride and Fabian set the satellite spinning at 50 rpm to stabilize it after ejection. An on-board computer sent the “fire” command, blowing clamps and releasing springs to push the 7,000-pound Anik away from Challenger. Forty-five minutes later, Anik’s motor boosted it toward geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles above the equator. Indonesia’s Palapa B satellite, which will carry voice, video and telephone signals to Southeast Asia, was launched on the second day.
Crucial as the twin launches were, for sheer numbers they don’t come close to the 40 experiments the crew will be conducting. From the start of the shuttle program in 1972, NASA has touted the commercial possibilities of space; more and more experiments are geared toward realizing that goal. West Germany’s Shuttle Pallet Satellite (SPAS), which the crew will deploy and retrieve with the remote manipulator arm, carries experiments that range from making metal alloys to testing solar cells pointed right at the sun. NASA’s scientific module, OSTA-2, with six German and American experiments to be powered up on the third day, contains the blue chips of materials processing. Experiments will grow semiconductor crystals, mix metals that won’t form alloys in gravity and produce glass without holding the fluid in a container (it will be almost magically suspended in a sound wave).
Carpenter Ants: The bargain hunters of space got their chance on mission-day 2, when the crew powered up the first of seven Getaway Specials. NASA sells these spaces aboard the shuttle for up to $10,000 to anyone whose proposal passes muster with its scientists. For this flight, high schools in Camden, N.J., worked up a project sending 150 carpenter ants into orbit inside Challenger’s cargo bay to see how zero gravity affects their social structure. RCA paid the $10,000 ticket for the project. Other Getaway Specials include an experiment by the California Institute of Technology in which radish seedlings were subjected to simulated gravity to find the right strength for the best growth, and one from Purdue University investigating how sunflower seeds germinate in zero gravity.
The highlight of the mission is to come on day 5, when the crew will operate Challenger like a hawk circling its prey. Fabian will use the 50-foot remote manipulator arm to wrestle the 3,960-pound SPAS from the cargo bay and then drop it overboard. Crippen will fire Challenger’s jets to move the craft away from the free-floating satellite and manuever it so that cameras aboard SPAS capture Challenger’s good side. SPAS will shoot the first-ever inspace color photographs of the shuttle, looking down on it with the earth as a backdrop. Then Crippen and pilot Frederick (Rick) Hauck, 42, will fly Challenger toward and away from SPAS a couple of times while Ride and Fabian take turns snaring and releasing it. That exercise should be a good trial run for retrieving satellites in trouble. (As early as the 13th mission, in 1984, NASA wants a shuttle crew to snare a malfunctioning satellite, park it in the cargo bay, fix it and send it on its orbital way once more.) After 9 1/2 hours of this game of tag, SPAS will be captured by Ride for the last time and stowed in the bay for the trip home.
Turnaround Time: No shuttle has ever touched down at the Kennedy Space Center, but by changing the landing site from the California desert NASA avoids having to fly the orbiter (piggyback on a 747) back to Florida for its next launch. Technicians have already cut the turnaround time to 60 working days, and by making the flight a true round trip they hope to shave as many as four days off that. Mission 8, which will ferry up an Indian satellite, is scheduled for August, and mission 9 is planned for September. After that, NASA gets an unexpected break. Last week the Defense Department decided to postpone the payload for which it had bought out the 10th flight. Reportedly, the Pentagon is having problems with “Teal Ruby,” an infrared radiation sensor designed to track aircraft and cruise missiles. Since no substitute payloads are ready, says NASA’s Dave Garrett, “it looks like the 10th flight will be wiped out.”
Unlike the early days of the space program, when every mention of the shuttle was prefaced by “problem-plagued,” the birds nowadays sit ready and waiting to receive passengers – if only NASA’s reservations clerks can keep’em coming. And now that Sally Ride has taken the first small step opening up space for women, NASA should have twice as many clamoring to get aboard.
