The doctors also gave us about three days of psychiatric testing, which in my opinion didn’t tell them anything either. They asked us some of the most inane questions, which you would only answer differently if you were clinically insane. We’d stare at inkblots and describe what we saw. We were shown all kinds of goofy pictures, even a blank piece of paper, and asked to describe them. At the outgoing briefing I asked the psychiatrist what possible use it all was, and if it actually helped weed anyone out. He told me they could only drop someone if he were insane. If he were just a little odd, they couldn’t stop him, only make a recommendation. It was craziness, and worthless information.
I didn’t prepare for the psychological testing at all or try to figure out what they might ask me. I decided that if I were sane, then great, and if not they would find out. I never worried about it. I was more concerned about them finding any disqualifying condition related to my blood-pressure problem or mysterious “rheumatic heart” diagnosis from my childhood. The doctors found nothing wrong with me at all, which was a dual relief, as a bad result could also have affected my air force career.
I was never told exactly how many of us were in the running, but I believe the medical testing cut the candidates down to about fifty. In February, we were asked to go to the Rice Hotel in Houston, Texas, for a series of written and oral exams. There we wrote essays about trajectories and flights, pretty basic questions compared to the work we did at Edwards. The second day, we met the interview panel for some head-on discussions. One of the pilots on the board was Mike Collins, who had been at Edwards before he was selected as a NASA astronaut in 1963. Seeing Mike there, someone who I really admired, made me want the astronaut job even more.
During the testing, we heard some terrible news: Charlie Bassett, the astronaut I had helped to train not long before, had died in an airplane crash, along with fellow astronaut Elliot See. I was stunned and could only repeat to myself, “Oh shit, what happened?” I was left with a sense of both amazement and shock that Charlie was gone. He was one of the best, had become an astronaut just like I hoped to do, and now he was dead. He’d been in the back seat of a T-38 jet while Elliot See, an astronaut I didn’t know, flew the airplane. I had heard that Elliot was more of a stick-and-rudder kind of pilot: instruments were not so much his thing. In atrocious weather conditions, needing to land, he’d tried to circle under some clouds to visually line up with the runway and hit a building. NASA had now lost three astronauts to air crashes, including Ted Freeman, another guy I barely knew, also from Edwards, who had died in a T-38 jet accident in 1964.
It didn’t change my mind about NASA, nor did it slow anything down that day. No one came in the room to make an announcement. Most of the guys there were test pilots and through experience had come to accept this kind of thing as just something that happened. The feeling was “Yeah, another good guy’s gone.” It was very much a test pilot way of doing business. They didn’t stop the interviews, and the day went on.
When I came out of the interviews, I had no idea how I had done, or whether I had impressed anyone. Throughout the process, I had no sense of who was in, who was out, and how I was doing. I don’t recall talking to any other pilots about how they gauged their chances of selection. I was so focused on getting in myself that I didn’t feel like comparing notes. It was time to head back to Edwards, and wait for a phone call telling me if I was an astronaut or not. Even back in California, although I was friends with guys who had just been through the tests, we didn’t discuss it much. Perhaps because I had come to know them as an instructor rather than a member of the class, they saw me in a slightly different light. Our friendships weren’t deep enough for us to share those thoughts and hopes.
Having endured the exhaustive tests and interviews, I would have been really disappointed if I hadn’t been selected. But then again, I had to consider that NASA had started out looking at hundreds of pilots, and we had already been pared down to around fifty. I also had no idea how many astronauts they wanted to pick. I said to myself that if I didn’t get selected, then hey, that’s the breaks, man. I may have been just as good as the rest, but someone else might be ahead of me on one little category or another. At that point in the selection process, most of us were far ahead of the basic selection requirements, with much more than the minimum flying time or academic credentials, so it was going to be a tough choice for NASA.
The phone call from Deke Slayton, NASA’s director of Flight Crew Operations, came in early April of 1966. Deke didn’t waste time on pleasantries. He told me straight out, if I were still interested, that he’d like me to come and work for him in Houston, starting the next month. I knew, at that moment, that my wife would never forgive me if I accepted. Nevertheless, I said yes. I was now at the top of the heap when it came to pilots. The most exclusive club of alclass="underline" I was an astronaut.
CHAPTER 4
ASTRONAUT
Houston. When you think of NASA or astronauts, you probably think of Houston. But in reality the space center is well outside of town. To get there from downtown Houston, I would take the freeway southeast toward Galveston, then turn off and drive east. On that thirty-mile drive from Houston to NASA, I saw nothing but countryside, with fields full of oil wells. One of the roads that crossed my path went north to Clear Lake City, where it dead-ended. Along the way were a few businesses and restaurants, but no homes. Straight ahead were the space center, three hotels, a grocery store, and a couple of fast food places. That was all. If you make that journey today, it’s wall-to-wall congestion all the way, with strip malls and cheap restaurants. But in 1966, NASA was in the middle of nowhere. I became an astronaut only a few short years after the center opened, so the area had not had time to develop. It was the center of the universe for NASA, but pretty much nowhere for everyone else except us and some isolated ranchers and shrimpers. While we’d often go into downtown Houston, we spent much more time in the little towns close to the bayous and lakes around the space center, such as Dickinson, Kemah, and El Lago.
Those of us coming from Edwards rented rooms in a motel out by the freeway, until we got our feet on the ground. Although we were all friends and all making the same giant career leap, I can’t recall any conversations about our selection before we made the move from the desert. There were no big slaps on the back or late-night discussions. We just headed out individually to Texas. One of the guys found the motel and, after a few phone calls, the rest of us followed.
I guess I have always been this way: always a loner. Looking back now, I realize that running the farm from such an early age made me self-reliant and confident in my own abilities. This independence affected my dealings with my contemporaries, and I never grew socially close to them. I made friends with many of my fellow pilots, but we never became a band of brothers. This go-it-alone approach was a habit that had worked for me so far because it allowed me to go off in my own direction whenever I needed.
I like people. I am friendly to many, but I get close to few. And I never tried to be in a clique. In group endeavors—and NASA was always a group effort—I believed that my actions would speak for me much more than my network of friends. I watched my actions closely when at work and carried this attitude with me to Houston.