SPACE.com: When you first set out to do this project, what was the goal?
Tony Reichhardt:
We knew shuttle astronauts had stories that few people outside the space business have ever heard. So we wanted them to tell those stories in an informal way, in their own voice. Typically, the public hears from astronauts in staged TV press conferences that end up being pretty unsatisfying, because they aren’t very natural. We wanted to get them talking on a deeper and more personal level, as if the reader were sitting across a table, asking "What’s it really like?"
What were you most surprised to learn, either about the astronauts or about the shuttle itself, when you began reading these stories for the first time?
Even before we started the interviews, it struck us how many people have been up on the shuttle in 20 years. More than 250! And quite a few were one-time flyers, people who dipped into the space program, then went back to academia or on to other careers. Reading these stories, you find much more variety of experience than you did with the Apollo and Mercury astronauts. Those were short-lived, focused efforts, involving a relatively small group of white, male, test pilots. But there’s not really a single kind of shuttle astronaut, or a universal "shuttle experience." It depends on when they flew, what kind of mission it was, who flew with them, how long they were up, etc.
There must be thousands of photos from the more than 100 shuttle missions, how difficult was it to winnow down the best and most illustrative? Did you let the astronauts' stories dictate the selection process?
We emphasized pictures that were more casual than posed, and that hadn’t been widely seen. NASA actually does a good job of picking the most dramatic pictures from each flight. But they skim a very small percentage off the top. Lots of photos, particularly of people, are never seen. For example, every mission has the "crew shot" – just like tourists anywhere, the astronauts line up, with everyone smiling and looking straight at the camera. It’s a bit static, and all those crew photos start to look the same. We favored photos that make you feel as though you’ve stumbled across a scene. One of my favorites is of Franklin Chang-Diaz looking out the mid-deck window after the shuttle has landed. He’s got this pensive gaze, and it’s a moment nobody but an astronaut would usually see.
How were you able to convince the astronauts to tell their personal stories and how did you go about conducting the interviews?
We didn’t really have to convince them at all. They immediately understood what we were after, and they talked directly and honestly, without any PR or salesmanship. To make it as easy as possible on them, we had offered them the choice of writing or being interviewed. About a third of the 77 wrote their submissions. The others talked, with most of the interviews done by either Florida space writer Beth Dickey or me. We generally had them recount a particular story or strong memory, then let the conversation go where it would. Then we transcribed the interviews, and I spent months pulling out maybe 500 stories. Only about a third of these fit in a 320-page book, so some very good ones had to be left out.
Many of the astronauts reflect on the "cheating death" aspects of their experience. Does that make you any more or less nervous when watching a shuttle launch than before editing this project?
I do think about it more. Some of the most compelling stories to me were about saying goodbye to their families before a flight. They really do have to prepare themselves for the possibility of not coming back. If you ask, "Are astronauts afraid?" the answer is yes, many of them are. They're not stupid. But fear is a nuanced thing, and the real question is what they do with their fear. It's a heavily rehearsed activity, so they have years of training to fall back on. Their adrenaline is up, but they have duties to perform, which I'm sure helps focus their attention. Plus, a lot of them the fighter pilots particularly have been in life-threatening situations before.
History in general, and NASA in particular, has played up the idea that astronauts are heroes, or at least larger than life characters -- like a modern day Daniel Boone or Paul Bunyan. Does this book enhance that notion why?
Interesting question. I would say no. I find these astronauts to be, for the most part, smart, brave, and talented—all the things you’d ask of a "hero." They all have resumes far better than the average person’s. And they do a fantastic, professional job under great pressure. But larger than life? I think the stories in this book show them to be whole people rather than action figures or movie versions of "The Astronaut." And that only makes what they do more admirable. It makes us finally start to appreciate space as a human environment rather than some realm of the gods. That, to my mind, is one of the shuttle’s main accomplishments.
Despite the upgrades and maintenance, the shuttle fleet is getting a little long in the tooth, did any of the astronauts express their concerns about this fact?
Not to any great extent. We intentionally didn’t talk much about policy or programmatic issues, which are much talked about elsewhere. We wanted to hear about the personal experience.
NASA's publicity machine is notorious for keeping candor to a minimum, did you find that retired astronauts were a little more loose-lipped than their active counterparts?
No, surprisingly. The active astronauts seemed every bit as willing to "tell it like it is" as the people who left NASA years ago. We didn’t see any difference at all between the two groups.
In reading through what must have been volumes of interviews, what stood out among the shuttles' crews as being the most beautiful aspect to space?
One thing that comes to mind are the descriptions of the aurora seen from above. Kathy Sullivan said it reminded her of "a richly brocaded theater curtain. It had deep folds, and it looked like a little breeze was blowing, because the folds were constantly changing shape." Dan Barry looked out , and "below us for a thousand miles was a thick, shimmering, undulating green snake."
The International Space Station is late and over budget, why should we spend money on space exploration over research into deadly diseases?
We shouldn’t. If you have only one dollar, and want to give it to either cancer research or space exploration, pick cancer research. But it’s not an "either or" choice. In truth, the United States is an extremely wealthy nation, and it generates more than enough money to do both. If our society really wanted to, we could provide a decent standard of housing, education, and medical care for everyone, and still have plenty left over for space exploration. The fact that we don’t has to do with politics and cultural factors, not the cost of the space station. Shutting down NASA tomorrow wouldn’t cure a single disease or solve a single social problem. If it did, I’d be for it.
