Have you ever had the feeling that you were being watched?  I grew up that way. When you live in a small town where your family has lived for generations, everyone knows your pedigree and knows who you are.  Do something wrong and your momma, grandmamma, and great-grandmamma are sure to find out.  It tends to keep you out of trouble. I was shy and quiet when I entered high school.  Then, I was selected to be a cheerleader, and I was expected to...

Among my most interesting jobs at NASA was one of my first important ones.  The first Space Shuttle launch was scheduled for the spring of 1981.  My class of “Thirty Five New Guys” who had joined the Astronaut Corps in 1978 hoped we’d get to play a role in that exciting upcoming event. Director of Flight Crew Operations George Abbey called me to his office in 1980 with a request: “Rhea, do you think you could work on the search and rescue...

Launch countdown was proceeding well. We tightened our seatbelts and stared upward. We had been waiting for this moment. The engines lit, the boosters ignited, and we were on our way up, up, up! Seconds later, an alarm. We had a failure of one of our three fuel cells. The pilot (PLT) looked at the computer screen and called out to us and Mission Control that it was fuel cell 2. The ground controllers, the flight commander (CDR), and our flight...

How did our nation get to the moon in less than ten years from the time we first sent a man into space? Thousands of people had a hand in that bold adventure. Today I meet them, their children, and their grandchildren who can’t wait to tell me their part in that story with pride. It was not until I got to NASA that I learned to appreciate the true value of teamwork. We had close-knit teams that made sure our spaceflights went well. It took me a...

There I was, hanging under a parachute over Florida’s Biscayne Bay having just been flung off the back of a flat top boat like a parasailer.  Soon I would be floating down to the bay only to be dragged along on my belly through the water until I could manage to disconnect from the chute.  I was about a month into my training and already I had to prove myself at a water survival course.  There followed many other tasks—both mental and...