A little over three decades ago, January 28, 1986 began one of the worst times of my life. I watched as seven friends and the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded into a ball of fire moments after take-off. Soon, all the Astronauts were assigned to assist in the search, recovery, and rebuilding of the United States space program. I was sent to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to help with the identification of the fragments of the accident. In...

Hoot’s second Shuttle flight, his first as Commander, was scheduled for 1985, but many delays in the Shuttle program pushed it later and later into the year.  His crew was a great bunch—with several good friends from the Astronaut Corps.  Three members of the crew—Hoot, George “Pinkie” Nelson, and Steve Hawley—had flown before, but it was a first for Charlie Bolden, and Franklin Chang Diaz, as well as Payload Specialists (who would only be...

So…who are your heroes?  People you know personally, people you esteem from afar, people whose lives you admire? I have had the honor of meeting many of my real-life heroes.  One was a fellow astronaut from a different era, Neil Armstrong.  You may remember him, the first human being to set foot on the moon.  His quote that day, July 20, 1969, is famous:  “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”  He came to the Johnson Space...

Imagine, if someone turned off gravity and everything floated.  How would you keep things in place? Welcome to the world of VELCRO and duct tape.  Was VELCRO a spin-off from the space program? No, but we sure learned how to make good use of it.  Like many great inventions, it came about serendipitously.  In 1941, Swiss electrical engineer George de Mistral went for a walk in the woods and was bothered by the burrs that stuck to his trouser legs...

    Soldiers have worn patches, called insignias, on their uniforms from as far back as World War I.  I got to learn all about the importance of patches at NASA.  Following the lead of military men of yore, there were hundreds of patches commemorating human space flight.  Many of the things that appear on patches have special meaning.   When I came to NASA at the beginning of the Space Shuttle era, I learned that each crew had to...

The year after the Challenger accident in 1986 was a difficult, busy, and sad one for NASA’s Astronaut Corps. What could we do for fun?  Why not a Sock Hop?  For those who don’t remember the 1950s, high school dances were often held in the school gymnasium. Dancers had to remove their shoes, so they wouldn’t scratch the hardwood floor.  Everyone in the astronaut office was told to plan skits and wear the poodle skirts and bobby socks that were...