Over the sill of the downward facing portside wing, San Francisco Bay passed under scattered clouds at 06 hours 10½ minutes, Mission Elapsed Time. Just east of the city, Shuttle’s orbital path began to arc southeastward en route to the Gulf of Mexico.
“Hatch swinging open,” Enright called as he saw the door open slowly on the television screen. From the rear, double-pane, 14-by-ll-inch window, Enright could not see the floor of the open bay closer than 29 feet behind the rear bulkhead. Nor could he see either of the bay doors well below the bay walls. Parker would be in the rear half of the 60-foot-long payload bay before Enright could see him out his aft window.
The command pilot hung heads-down inside the airlock canister. Parker turned the outer hatch crank through a 440-degree arc which required thirty pounds of muscle pressure to break the seals. With 1/10 pound of air pressure inside the airlock, the 40-inch-wide hatch popped when the Colonel yanked it inward into the airlock. Parker faced upward as he floated on his back out of the floor-level hatch. He took great care not to snag his precious PLSS backpack on the bottom sill of the hatch. The thick backpack reached from his suit’s waistring to his helmet.
“Like the miracle of birth, Jack,” Parker called as his boots followed his bulky EMU suit outside. Enright watched on the television monitor as the AC slowly floated to his feet and locked his boots into the restraints on the bay floor 13 feet below the lower sill of Enright’s bulkhead window.
“In the foot restraints, Jack. I’ve closed the airlock hatch. Hope I remembered the key!.. God, what a sensation, Jacob. This is really flying!”
“… ‘Where never lark, or even eagle flew.’ ” Enright sighed the words from the pilots’ benediction: John Gillespie Magee’s air poem, “High Flight.” Magee had written the poem for his mother while the young American pilot flew with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the first months of World War Two. In his purple sky, he was killed in action.
“Amen, Brother Jacob… You got me on PM downlink, Flight?”
“Loud and clear, Will,” Colorado replied. “Your telemetry looks fine. Super FM modulation down here.”
Ninety seconds east of San Francisco, Endeavor flew over Las Vegas.
“Real dry down there,” the AC observed over Nevada.
“Not much of a white Christmas,” the earphones crackled inside Parker’s two helmets.
“Still seven days to go,” the AC called. “Maybe you’ll get some,” the tall flier added as he stood in the lethal vacuum of his black sky.
“Radio check, Will. UHF through White Sands at 06 plus 14.”
“Loud and clear, Flight. I’m in my golden slippers out here.” The flier referred to his foot restraints covered with gold foil to reflect sunlight. “Backin’ up into the MMU… Easy does it.”
“A tad to your left, Will.”
“Thanks, Jack.”
With Enright spotting for him by the television monitor, the AC leaned backward into the wide nook of the Manned Maneuvering Unit from Martin Marietta. The MMU was mounted on the bay’s inside brackets close to the sealed airlock.
The MMU was carried aloft in the bay secured to the bulkhead which separates the bay from Shuttle’s cabin. The MMU hung sideways on braces protruding from the bulkhead such that the front of the MMU faced the port side of the bay by the centerline. With Endeavor flying on her left side, Parker looked straight down 149 statute miles to the Earth.
Parker carefully eased his wide PLSS backpack integrated into the upper torso of his suit into the MMU.
The AC wedged his body backward into the MMU. Latches on the secured MMU engaged his PLSS backpack.
“Contact… Latch and hard-latch.”
“Copy, Skipper.”
Endeavor traveled beneath the sun over Shamrock, Texas, 95 miles east of Amarillo at 06 hours 17 minutes.
Parker reached down to his massively padded hips, where he grabbed each of the MMU’s arms. He pulled each armrest upward where they latched rigidly out in front of his sides. Each metallic arm draped in thermal insulation locked under the pilot’s arms. He rested his forearms atop each MMU arm as upon the arms of a chair.
“Arms up and locked, Jack.”
“I’m watching it, Will.”
The AC was now part of the 4-foot-high, 300-pound manned maneuvering unit locked to his backside over the PLSS backpack.
The spaceman perspired lightly inside his two helmets. He checked the MMU systems as Endeavor flew on her left side over Dallas at 06 hours 18 minutes, MET.
“Colorado listening by MLX.”
“Okay, Kennedy… I have MMU arms in place. Let’s see: Left nitrogen tank at 2-9-9-0 pounds pressure. Right N2 at 2,850 psi.” The nitrogen tanks, each pressurized with 1630 cubic inches of cold gas, fuel the MMU’s 24 thrusters. Each tiny jet shoots only 1½ pounds of cold thrust. “Battery in the green. Looks ready to fly, Jack.” The pilot had checked the MMU’s two silver-zinc batteries each holding a 16.8 volt charge.
The all-white MMU hugged Parker. Short wings jutted from the MMU at his back on either side of his face. A similar wing projected just ahead of each of the pilot’s bent knees.
“Comin’ forward, Jack.”
Parker flexed his legs to pull his body well forward. A wracking pain wrenched his right leg. Leaning forward, he moved closer to the portside sill of the open bay. Over the bay wall, he looked straight down 149 statute miles to a brilliantly clear New Orleans at 06 hours 20 minutes.
“Stupendous view, Jack!”
“From here too, Will.” Enright could see the ground out his aft, sunshaded window in front of his face. But he could not see his partner except by television relayed from the flexed remote arm.
Endeavor, Soyuz, and LACE made for open water en route to a momentary landfall over southern Florida one minute and 300 miles away.
The AC pulled a release ring which silently freed the MMU from its retention brackets. It took even more leg strain for the tall airman to bend his body forward. Although the 300-pound MMU and the 225-pound EMU suit had no weight, their combined mass was ponderous. Parker’s throbbing right leg provided the metabolic energy for torqueing forward the backpack and suit combination, which weighed three times more than the pilot inside.
The Colonel pressed his body forward until his small chestpack between the MMU armrests touched the grapple fixture latched to brackets in front of him. When the wedge-shaped fixture contacted his chest, Parker had to apply constant leg pressure to lean against the device long enough to close its latches by hand. He was panting from work and pain as he locked his body to the flying grapple fixture. The AC let the secured fixture hold his body bent forward while he rested. With sweat burning his eyes, he turned up the chestpack coolant controls. The flow of cool water increased through the 300 feet of tubing within his liquid coolant garment against his moist skin.
Enright could hear Parker’s heavy breathing when the AC’s breath triggered his voice-activated helmet microphones.
“Take five, Skipper.”
“Sure, Jack,” the AC panted. One minute southeast of New Orleans, Endeavor crossed western Florida over St. Petersburg.
The pilot outside rested against the grapple fixture as the glass-covered starship crossed the Florida peninsula from St. Pete to Miami in forty-five seconds. Below, the Merritt Island antennae at Cape Canaveral listened to Parker’s telemetered pulse rate just this side of tachycardia.
“Take your time, Will,” Colorado called through the Kennedy Space Center antenna.
“He is, Flight,” Enright advised so his captain could catch his breath.
“Just like Gemini, Flight,” Parker radioed over his backpack transmitter. “Everything in Zero-G outside takes a little longer.” Parker hoped the strained calm in his voice would pacify ground medics. With his wet eyes closed, he thought of Gemini Nine. Then, unexpected stress during a space-walk by Astronaut Eugene Cernan in June 1966 overtaxed the space suit’s coolant loops. His helmet faceplate fogged so badly that he had to come inside his cramped, two-man ship early.