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COMMENTARY
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DISPATCHES
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ASTRONAUTS' WIVES
A visit with the pet communicator
GillThe Present Ah, space. How I hated it. Being tangled in the umbilical that connected my suit to the shuttle made it difficult to properly space walk. To pass the time, I cursed loudly, shook my white-mitted fist at a shuttle wall that would be surgically white if not for its being riddled with American flags, and entered a slow rotation of about sixty degrees. From there I relaxed, floated. With the moon on one side and Earth on the other, I floated the way a cockroach floats in cream - indifferent to the reactions of disgust around me, but pretty certain myself that I am in a highly unpleasant position in the absolutely wrong place. A cockroach, at least, finds its way into cream through a combination of misguided instinct and basic bad luck (if one, anyway, is willing to ascribe so powerful a force as luck to a lowly, cream-covered roach), but I didn't have the advantage of blaming my position on luck, and certainly not on instinct. It was more a matter of heredity -- I had begun to be thrust into outer space the moment I left the inner space of my mother's womb. Andrew
The Beginning of Fatherhood Andrew Bloom looked down at his son, and he was ecstatic. Virgil, who they would take to calling Gill, had been born healthy and bouncing by all estimates -- eight pounds, twenty-one inches, and male almost purely by his father's force of will. So Andrew, thought, anyhow. Andrew Bloom was a man who had spent his entire life trusting science, altogether banking on it, even after the fire, and the fact that a doctor had identified, from an ultrasound, his son as a girl didn't mean the doctor was wrong in the least. On the contrary, he was certain it had been right. But his insuperable need for a son, his undeniable claim to an astronautic successor; clearly they had defeated the findings of an inaudible beam of sound. Yes, his trust in science was incorruptible. As for the fire, Andrew didn't look at it as a matter of science. If he looked at it as science, then science had failed him. It was, instead, history. And as history, it had practically created him. Andrew had been the fourth, entirely unknown crewmember of the Apollo 1 spacecraft. 'Entirely unknown' refers not only to his public identity, which was non-existent, but also, amazingly, to his presence on the craft. The Apollo program was unaware of him. The rest of the crew, Edward H. White, Roger Chaffee, and Virgil Grissom were unaware of him. NASA, despite its employment of him, was unaware of him. The most meaningful contact he had with any of these people and organizations prior to the fire was a short and puzzling encounter with Virgil Grissom -- Grissom had discovered Andrew in the ship bathroom facilities, unraveling the mystery of the zero-g urinal. The transcript of the ship's recorder reveals Grissom as saying only "What in the bejeesus?" although this meeting was the basis for Andrew later naming his son Virgil. Perhaps it was the utter appropriateness of Grissom's question that moved him so. Andrew, after all, asked himself many times after the disaster what, exactly, in the bejeesus had brought him onto the Apollo 1 that day. The 27th day of January 1967 had three great mysteries, and his presence on the ship was merely the first -- pundits have since speculated that, amidst a flurry of bureaucratic errors and more serious bureaucratic blunders, he was sent to the ship in an unbelievably spectacular bureaucratic lollapalooza. The second mystery, much lamented, was the origin of the spark that caused the death of everyone on board but Andrew. The third, which actually saved his life, was the enigma of the ship lavatory. Gill
Childhood By the time I was eight years old, I had heard the story of the Apollo 1 fire innumerable times. My mother was fond of telling it, my grandmother liked to croak her way through it whenever I visited -- my 3rd grade class had even had a history lesson including it. My father, though, in conjunction with his perpetual insistence that I would one day be an astronaut, regaled me with the entire absurd tale almost nightly. I accepted all this with grace, not because I was captivated by the story -- it had lost its charm years ago -- but because I found, through some convenient Pavlovian effect, I could fall effortlessly to sleep at the same point in the narrative every time my father told it. "The door to the lavatory swung open then, and I saw Gussy Grissom standing on the other side. I must've looked pretty funny, standing there with the groin mask on -- that's what we called the facilities, you'll use them one day, when you're in the space program . . . " The sound of my father's voice would usually have faded before the first mention of the disaster, and I would enter sleep through a screen of vague and precocious thoughts that my namesake, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, would never have brooked being called Gussy (which sounded to me like the name of a farm animal) and also that my father was probably the only person who ever called the facilities the "groin-mask." One particular night, however, at eight-years-old, I stopped him. Mostly I accepted the future my father had dictated me -- to be an astronaut -- but I felt a certain reluctance over it. The excitement it held for other boys my age had been bled out of me, as would likely happen to any boy if he were told that, come what may, free will excluded, he would be an astronaut. With that in mind, I interrupted him as he was again labeling a literally space-age piece of lavatory equipment the "groin-mask," and asked, "Dad, what is space?" He looked at me for a moment, dumbfounded. "Space? Well, space is a vacuum. There's not any air, kind of like how your Dad survived the fire." Then he just grinned and allowed himself to segue back into the story, which did indeed involve a vacuum, and I allowed myself, as I often did, to fall sleep. Andrew
January 27, 1967 Andrew Bloom, though he had long wished to be one, was not an astronaut at all. By the end of the day, however, he would be given the title of one, as well as a myriad of other titles, including hero, role model for today's youth, and goddamned lucky bastard. His actual position at NASA (which he did work for, although it had taken no notice of him and would not until after the fire, when the entire country would take notice) was as a flight clocker -- he made certain the pilots recorded all their flight hours. It was a job which, in theory, ensured the competency and readiness of pilots, but one which, in practice, was indistinguishable from that of a meter maid. Andrew Bloom was NASA's meter maid. Until, that is, he picked up his orders on January 27th. Normally, the form that was in his box each morning detailed the pilots whom he would clock that day. This time, in realization of his most unlikely dream, the form instructed him, Andrew Ignatius Bloom, to report to the Apollo 1 for a preliminary launch simulation that would prepare him and the other crew for the next morning's actual launch. The orders also called, inexplicably, for the requisitioning of several cockroaches, which were to be placed immediately in saucers of cream. The bureaucratic lollapalooza had arrived. He let his flight clocker's clipboard slip disinterestedly from his fingers. It clattered on the polished office floor like a small piece of armor. Mix-up though it was, that singular moment of change, a life's new prosperity, was upon him, and Andrew strode out through the office doors, believing for the first time in his life that desire alone could sometimes be enough. There were skeptics in 1967 who looked at luck as a superstition. They scoffed at the idea that everyday chance could somehow be bent or appeased by the subtle emanations of fortune from a so-called "lucky" person. Almost all of these people would have been reformed by Andrew Bloom's boarding of the Apollo space vehicle. The remainder, save one, would have been reformed by his subsequent survival of the fire. The last, whose luck, despite his refusal to believe in it, had always been black and awful, died by misadventure a few months later somewhere in the mid-west. Andrew was able to enter the launch area, ride the elevator up to the cabin, and enter the cabin almost exclusively through his luck. Guards bent to tie their shoes as he crossed their posts; engineers were absorbed in their logistic thoughts as he passed their control rooms; the rest of the crew was delayed by the press. And where all this fortuity failed him, he just wielded his morning's orders with convincing authority, and the way was cleared. Gill
The Present My headset buzzed once, and I heard the voice of the shuttle commander, James Keyes. "Nice space walk, jerk-off. We're pulling you back in." The door behind the shuttle's main fuselage began to slide open, and I felt a tug from the other end of the umbilical. It was the second day in a row that Keyes had drafted me into off-shuttle duty, and I guessed that, like yesterday, the tug was all the help I'd get. An amazingly slow drift toward the ship would leave me in space for several more minutes. It was the type of treatment usually reserved for the nonastronaut payload specialists, and though I was the pilot, there would be no love lost between me and the crew. Keyes and the rest resented my presence on the shuttle. It was well known that I was mediocre as a pilot and grossly under-qualified, having clocked less than 300 of the required 1000 hours. The general consensus was that my father's clout within the space program had pushed a promotion through despite all my shortcomings, and this was accurate. However, there was a secondary feeling that by my being a mediocre pilot, I was somehow marring the name of Andrew Bloom, who they looked upon as the paragon of all astronauts. In this they could not have been more sadly mistaken. I sighed and continued my glacial movement through the black palette of space around me. "Space is a vacuum," he had told me. "There's not any air, kind of like how your dad survived the fire." Thirty years ago my father had shown, in becoming an astronaut, his desire alone could be enough. Now my crew had shown, in becoming a hero, his mere survival could be enough. Andrew
The Apollo 1 Fire Andrew's first decision as a crewmember of the Apollo 1 was to visit the bathroom. Nervousness had agitated what remained of the two cups of coffee he'd had that morning, and he stepped quickly toward the short panel-like door labeled "Lavatory." Inside he found (in addition to his place in recorded history) an oddly tall toilet designed to mold to an astronaut's body and an extendible tube and basin that most resembled (and this was an image that stuck with him) a gas mask for the groin. Since standing water would be of no use in a gravity-free environment, both apparatuses used suction to dispose of astronaut waste. The correct and efficient use of these devices was dealt with over the course of a three-hour training session which Andrew had never participated in, but he felt that urgency should overcome prudence in this case, and so began to unbutton his pants. By the time Grissom, Chaffee, and White had boarded, Andrew was standing in the small chamber, pants around his ankles, with the points of his shirtfront hanging down over the shell of the disposal basin. He felt reasonably sure that it was improperly attached, that it probably was designed for use while in a suit, but he nonetheless had his hand poised over the activation switch. He flipped the switch, and was reassured by its soft and instantaneous click, because how much could go wrong, after all? How much, indeed? It was then that Virgil Grissom and Andrew Bloom had their peculiar meeting, one on each side of the panel-like lavatory door. A biographer for Grissom, in 1971, would describe the opening of the door as the late astronaut's "most famous earthbound action." One can only imagine, the biographer wrote, how shocked Grissom must have been at the sight of something so out of place -- there, aboard the craft he was to take through the planet's atmosphere, was a sharp-nosed young man in a dress shirt, winter-pale legs showing below a zero-g urinal that had been put on upside down. Everything occurred very quickly from that point. Andrew peered out, Grissom peered in, a question was asked, "What in the bejeesus?" and the door was closed. At almost precisely that moment, a spark appeared around some exposed wiring in the cabin. Mission papers and even space suits ignited rapidly within the oxygen rich atmosphere. The newly developed curiosity called Velcro was ablaze in seconds. The cabin was engulfed. Heavy smoke began to draft under and around the door to the lavatory. Andrew, however, was fortune's darling. The fire caused a short circuit in the wiring for the waste disposal system. The small motor that provided moderate suction to carry bodily fluids away and off the ship was mercilessly steeped with electric current and it became a thing monstrous. Its air intake doubled, then trebled, and then doubled again. Though the correct use of the basin involved a practical seal between it and the user's body, Andrew was not even close to using it correctly. Had he been, he would have suffered a remarkable, yet painful, pelvic hickey, and would almost surely have asphyxiated due to the smoke. Instead, the basin acted as a vacuum that drew all the smoke out of the small compartment. Since it also drew much of the air, Andrew fainted. He slumped back against the molded toilet seat and, a few minutes later, was the only one carried living from the disaster. Gill
Adolescence As a teenager, though I skipped meteorology class from time to time, I attempted only one concentrated rebellion against the future that had been set for me. Like most adolescent revolt, it was characterized by a lack of communication. And it was short-lived. "Dad, I really need to talk to you about something." Seated, he looked at me from around a newspaper. There was a brown pipe in his mouth, giving off semi-sweet fumes. "Talk to me? Are you sure you're going to be able to hear me when I talk back? I can't even see your ears with all that hair. Son, it's not going to be easy to get a helmet on if you've got hair longer than your little girlfriend." "She's not my girlfriend. I told her I was taking cosmology at the magnet school, and she thought I meant cosmetology." From behind the paper: "Well, good, I'm glad you're meeting girls from the public schools. Those little pinch-faced dykes that go out for accelerated science are all going to grow up to be Sally Ride. We've got enough astronauts in the family." "You're right. I don't want to be an astronaut." The newspaper tore on one side where he clenched his fists, his knuckles as white as the gaps between print. I glimpsed a mystically appropriate headline as the paper was thrust aside -- Apollo 17 Pilot Ronald Evans Dies. My father's teeth were clamped down on the pipe stem. It looked suddenly small and fragile, as if it were a toy, out of which he had been blowing not smoke but tiny soap bubbles. Moving only his lips, jaw still punishing the pipe, he growled, "You what?" "Like you said, Dad, we've got enough astronauts in the family -- zero." The stem snapped. Flecks of burnt tobacco spilled onto the floor. I couldn't believe how evenly he replied, "Be careful not to grow too big for your pants, Gill. I'll have your ass on a shuttle before you're twenty-five, even if you are a little fucking ingrate." He paused and shook his head. "Shit on zero. I've always been an astronaut." As if cued by her husband's profanity, my mother appeared in the doorway. "Gill, why don't you come in the kitchen and help me finish dinner?" I just made a meaningless casting-away motion with one hand and walked out of the room. Behind me, she stooped to brush the fallen tobacco into her palm. My father bellowed from his chair. "Always, Gill -- always an astronaut! I AM LEGEND!" The subject was not again broached. Andrew
After the Rescue Andrew recovered swiftly after being rescued from the Apollo 1. The press fell upon his story instantly, and his became a face and name known in every household. In a decade of American martyrs, the 60's, Andrew Bloom was the seen as a martyr who lived. He was enormously popular. Ten years later he would be said to have prefigured Elvis Presley's death on a toilet. For now, though, he met President Johnson while still in the clothes he had worn onto the ship. It was Johnson, in fact, who was first to call him a goddamned lucky bastard. Andrew smiled and agreed. The mix-up of orders was somehow kept under wraps, leaving the nation to believe he was a tried and true American spaceman. A doctor, however, was called in to very neatly diagnosis post-traumatic stress disorder, and by this the government was able to keep him away from any subsequent space flights. Then, half as a matter of apology, half public appeasement, he was appointed to the Council for Safety at NASA. He could advise the council, he could watch every launch in person for the rest of his life, but the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had no wish to let him exercise his sudden title of astronaut. Through all this, Andrew's infatuation with space only grew. He accepted that he would never leave Earth, but he strove to find the next best thing. Using his notoriety, he befriended as many astronauts as possible. Late into summer nights, John Glenn and Pete Conrad were made merry by the rounds of Budweisers that Andrew bought for them. This quickly paled. John Glenn and Pete Conrad made him feel no closer to space. Andrew pondered. If the stars were inaccessible, there were other places where only astronauts had been. He decided that he would seduce astronauts' wives. Mary Aldrin and Rebecca Armstrong would not return his calls. Kathy Shepard agreed to have dinner with him, but rode home to her husband Alan in a taxi after he stroked her knee beneath the table. He even made an attempt to contact Yuri Gagarin's widow, Vlenka, but a would-be cosmonaut seemed to have gotten to her first. Andrew came to realize that the wives of astronauts began as women who, by definition, had elaborate beehive hairstyles, carried pot-roasts into living rooms at waist level, and were unflinchingly faithful. So he married one. Their child would reach space for him. Gill
The Present I looked back and forth at my area of the galaxy as I re-boarded the shuttle. Stars, Moon, and Earth. It meant little to me. I could expect another walk tomorrow. What was the glamour in it all? You slept in tiny compartments, fought boredom by reading Penthouse and running in place. You floated in a slow chase to catch escaping food at dinner time, escaping freeze-dried food. And maybe you'd love a beer, so what the hell, have yourself a Tang. The garden of earthly delights, I can safely say, is on Earth. And the good thing was, Earth awaited me. Because I knew it was true -- that all infatuation was doomed to end, whether by failure of pursuit, or disillusionment. My father had always found another means of pursuing space, until finally, it was left to me to be disillusioned. But Dad had been right about one thing. Space was a vacuum. It sucked.
By Brandon F. Wilkerson
041701