Spring 1981
Joan was standing on top of the launch control center at Kennedy Space Center with her aviator sunglasses on and her bomber jacket unzipped, revealing her blue polo shirt and khakis. It was Sunday, April 12, and while it would grow warmer during the day, it was not yet seven in the morning and there was still a chill in the air.
STS-1, the inaugural mission of the space shuttle program, was about to launch. Almost all of the astronauts had been assigned some role that day, like flying chase or search and rescue. Others had been made available for interviews with TV and radio news anchors. But Joan and the majority of the Group 9 ASCANs were there just to observe.
There were so many people at Cape Canaveral that morning that the surrounding beaches were packed. The launch was being broadcast on multiple channels.
It felt as if the whole world were watching.
Frances would be watching on TV, too. And Joan kept thinking of her as she looked over at the Columbia shuttle: a monumental bright white symbol of progress. The orbiter was positioned with its nose in the air, twin solid rocket boosters, one on either side of the external tank. Any minute now, the main engines would ignite, and everyone would watch liftoff.
If Joan had thought Barbara would listen to her, she would have told her not to let Frances watch.
“Joan, I’m nervous,” Vanessa said.
Joan looked around, to see if any of the many astronauts, ASCANs, NASA officials, or admins on that rooftop with them were listening.
“It’s going to be fine,” Joan said.
Vanessa looked at her. “You’re not nervous?”
“I didn’t say that. I just said it is going to be fine.”
Vanessa lightened up slightly.
“Goodwin,” Griff said as he approached Joan, not seeing Vanessa on the other side of her. “Want to grab breakfast after this?”
Joan’s stomach churned. “Yes, sure.”
Griff nodded and walked away.
“He’s got a thing for you,” Vanessa said.
“Stop it. People don’t understand that men and women can be friends,” Joan said.
“Or maybe you don’t understand when someone is giving you signals that they’re interested.”
Joan looked at Vanessa. “You are nervous about the launch, and it’s making you edgy,” she said. “Shake it out.”
“Shake it out?” Vanessa said, smiling out of the corner of her mouth.
“Yeah,” Joan said. Joan shimmied her shoulders, shook her hands and arms.
“You look ridiculous.”
“Well, the tightness is gone from my shoulders, and I’m feeling better about this launch already, but if you’re too cool for it, be my guest. That is kind of your thing.”
“You think I’m cool?”
Joan squinted at her. “Now you’re pretending you don’t try to act cool?”
“I just didn’t know you thought I was cool.”
Joan rolled her eyes. “Stop fishing for compliments.”
Vanessa smiled just as the crowd quieted and a low buzz overtook Joan’s body.
“T minus five minutes and counting,” the flight controller said.
Joan turned her attention to the Columbia . She pictured John Young and Bob Crippen strapped into their chairs, lying back, parallel to the ground. Were they as scared as she was? Or was it like a hurricane? Those outside of it were caught up in the chaos, but inside—right in the eye of it—there was calm.
All around the country, little boys were dreaming of their futures today. Little boys who, when asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, would proudly declare, “Astronaut!” and would dress up as one for Halloween.
She wondered if, soon, there might be a woman up there. Joan hadn’t needed to see a woman in that ship in order to believe in herself enough to apply. But she had also never dressed up as an astronaut for Halloween. Not once. For some reason, this made her acutely furious.
“T minus three minutes and forty-five seconds and counting.”
Joan looked at Vanessa, whose eyes were focused on the shuttle. She wanted to tell Vanessa that she knew she would fly it one day. That if any of them got up there, it would be her. But she wasn’t sure about anything after this moment.
There were now plumes of white smoke coming out of the engines.
“T minus one minute and ten seconds and counting.”
Joan prayed that Barbara hadn’t turned on the TV.
“T minus twenty-seven seconds.”
Joan took a breath. She and Vanessa exchanged a look.
And then: “Seven…six…five…” Joan had heard the flight controller count down before, but it had never felt like this. “We’ve gone for main engine start. We have main engine start.”
Joan reached out, unaware of herself, filled with terror, to grab Vanessa’s hand. And Vanessa clutched hers tightly in return, as if her hand had been searching for Joan’s just the same.
The rockets lit up. Fire and smoke emanated from the bottom of the shuttle. Joan felt the bone-crushing pressure of Vanessa’s fingers around hers. The billow of smoke was so big that Joan thought for a moment something had gone wrong. But just as quickly as the smoke arrived, the startlingly bright fire underneath the shuttle erupted into a blaze and the whole thing began to move.
“We have liftoff of America’s first space shuttle, and the shuttle has cleared the tower!”
Joan’s eyes followed the blaze up into the air. She could no longer hear the flight controller or the countdown. All she could hear was the burning of that fire as it rose higher into the sky, the shuttle getting smaller with every passing moment.
At one hundred and thirty-two seconds after launch, the two rocket boosters fell away. Joan took a breath. By now the Columbia had likely reached over seventeen thousand miles an hour. Soon it would hit main engine cutoff. The external tank would fall away, too. As Joan waited for that moment, she realized she was still holding on to Vanessa.
She took her hand away.
“Sorry,” she said. “Got a little more scared there than I anticipated.”
Vanessa nodded and said nothing. Joan could not bring herself to look at her. Instead, she looked up again at the sky. She could barely see the shuttle anymore. Success was a white dot getting smaller and smaller.
They’d done it. They’d launched up into orbit.
There was nothing to be afraid of.
She felt so silly.