Nevertheless, I missed some guys from Edwards. Hank Hartsfield was one. A real whiz in academics and an equally gifted flyer, Hank could have been one of NASA’s brightest stars during the Apollo era. But instead, for three years, he was stuck in the air force’s MOL program, which never did fly. Eventually, he was transferred to NASA, but by then Hank had lost any chance of a moon mission. Timing, as they say, is everything. Hank had to wait until the shuttle was flying, at which time he proved to be a huge asset to the space agency. But his disappointment with MOL made me doubly thankful I didn’t take that route.
For those who did come to Houston from Edwards, our families stayed behind while we looked for permanent homes. I wanted to build a new house and contacted a developer in Nassau Bay, a pretty area across the street from the space center. At first, he drove me around and we looked at potential building sites right on the waterfront. But then he pointed to a tree with a mark on it eight feet up. That, he said, was the high-water mark from a recent hurricane. No thanks, I said, and asked to see sites two blocks from the shoreline, on higher ground. Even then, the builder had to sink concrete pillars deep into the soft clay to hold up the house.
I labored over house plans and shared my ideas with Pam. She wasn’t keen; she worried about money. How could we afford something as extravagant as a custom-built home? I knew something that she didn’t yet know, however: a perk going back to the original Mercury astronauts. Long before I came into the program, they had signed a contract with the Time-Life magazine company and Field Enterprises media group for the exclusive rights to personal stories and pictures. The reasoning was that this arrangement would keep the rest of the press from hounding astronauts and their families on their doorsteps. The original seven did very well out of that deal; the extra money from the stories allowed them to enjoy activities that they could not otherwise afford, such as boat and auto racing.
I was later told that there had been some debate within NASA and the White House about the ethics of such a deal. After all, the space program was taxpayer sponsored, and some argued that astronauts shouldn’t be paid extra for sharing their lives with the press. When Kennedy became president, he even considered canceling the contract renewal. After some candid discussions, however, the contract survived.
The discussion ended long before I joined. I was still officially in the air force, on assignment to NASA, and only received my basic military pay, which was much less than the salaries of civilian astronauts who had exactly the same job. So, in my mind, the Time-Life contract was a good deal. As I also came to realize, we were often away from home for weeks, working long hours. Whether we liked it or not, we were astronauts twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and never really off duty from our job. We more than earned that extra payment. My portion of the money was much less than what was offered in earlier years, since many more astronauts now had to share the deal. However, it was still a considerable amount.
The Time-Life deal was my first realization that the earlier astronauts had developed some interesting business arrangements. As a test pilot, I had routinely risked my life for my country. My colleagues who did not come to NASA were beginning to head to Vietnam and combat. But readers were not interested in routine heroism. They were interested in the promised moon landing and the men who might fly there. I could hardly object to the interest, however unfair. I had a beautiful house because of it.
I did hear later that NASA had also been extremely concerned about some of the other business deals the first astronauts wanted to take. There was discussion about the original seven being offered free cars and free homes in the Houston area, which some of them had wanted to accept. But the rulemakers said no. The agency also kept a close and disapproving eye on anyone offering the astronauts low-interest loans for houses.
Despite Pam’s worries about the cost of our new home, the developer went ahead and built a three-bedroom Western-style ranch house for us, with a separate garage. With white bricks and an arched front entrance, it looked very Mexican. Until the developer finished the house, we had to live in rented accommodations. It was nice when my family could finally move in. Surrounded by huge oak trees, our home was close—but not too close—to the water. In fact, after we finally sold that house, at least three other shuttle-era astronaut families lived in it.
It turned out that two other recently selected astronauts, Joe Engle and Owen Garriott, were also building homes on the same quiet cul-de-sac. I was glad to have them as neighbors. Owen ended up right next door, with Joe next to him. As the entire street was only about five hundred feet long, most of it was taken up by our three homes, facing each other in a semicircle.
My daughter Alison quickly made friends with Owen’s five-year-old son, Richard. They grew up together, and I would see him running around the neighborhood with her every day. It was, therefore, a proud but surreal moment when, more than forty years later, I watched Richard on TV, floating around inside the International Space Station. That little kid became a space traveler, too.
Finally, I was giving my family a permanent home and some security. We’d no longer move every year to a new city. But some things never changed. My job was just as dangerous and occupied all of my time. Would a new home, secure job, and extra money be enough to ease the tensions in my marriage? I didn’t know what else to do but hope, as I plunged into my new career.
The space center itself, just a short drive from home, was a collection of spartan but functional buildings. My first view of it was nothing like my first look at West Point; this place was not designed to impress anyone. In addition to office suites, mission control, and testing facilities, NASA had constructed an office building for the astronauts, the trainers, and equipment managers; a cafeteria across the parking lot; a simulator building to the side; and a medical building at the back. It was nothing fancy. On my first day I showed up at the security office, received my ID badge, and attended a briefing in the astronaut office auditorium. They issued the new astronauts schedules, told us what NASA generally expected of us, assigned us to offices, and instructed us to show up the next morning. The orientation was brief and to the point. Nobody seemed to care too much. We were just there.
I was assigned to a sparse-looking office with a linoleum floor, a window, and two desks, which I’d be sharing with another new astronaut. But we were rarely there. We were always in meetings, working on programs, or making trips to some facility or another. Work, it seemed, was done everywhere else but in the office.
The first person sharing that small office with me had a sense of humor matched by few others at NASA. I had not known Paul “PJ” Weitz before we were selected, so at first I was a little wary of sharing an office with a stranger. I needn’t have worried. He kept me laughing the whole time and became one of my closest friends in those early years at NASA. I still look forward to spending time with PJ whenever I can.
Pilots’ meetings are much the same all over the world. Our weekly gatherings felt like familiar territory, as if I were back at Edwards. Directed by Deke Slayton, a former Edwards test pilot himself, they were designed to update us on the status of the current programs. The astronauts who had been on the job for a while talked about what they had done, updated everybody on issues related to the various projects they worked on, and shared problems or concerns. Deke also handed out assignments: who would do what and where for the next week. He told us anything that we needed to be aware of when flying jets, such as new rules, regulations, and restrictions.