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informed me he was going on sabbatical. I didn’t see him for almost the whole PhD! I’d had a couple of big personal upsets between my undergraduate degree finishing and my PhD beginning, and I was happy to throw myself into my work. A few Queens’ thespians looked out for me, including Stephen Fry (1978), and the Finance Director of the Cavendish Labs, Mr John Deacon, seemed to have his eye on me. When I asked for equipment or travel, he would make it materialise; I was well supported and managed to write up on time.
Jumping off point After my PhD, I immediately moved to America to work for McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Corporation (now part of Boeing), next to the Johnson Space Centre. My first job was working on the space shuttle navigation software – not very stimulating, but it paid well. I was told by the Head of Astronaut selection at the time, Mr George Abbey, that it would be wise to stay around the Houston area if I wanted to become an astronaut. At the time, President Ronald Reagan had instituted a hiring freeze, but when it lifted, they said they would hire me into the NASA civil service – which they did, in 1983. I wasn’t brought on as an astronaut initially, instead working with the cargo and experiments going on the space shuttle. I was responsible for payload, speaking with the organisations flying cargo or conducting experiments on the space shuttles, to help get their experiments off the ground. During those early years, I was on the ground in Mission Control, as Payload Officer, during most missions.
26 year career in NASA
375 days in orbit
6 trips into space
4 spacewalks totalling 22hrs 44 mins
20th anniversary since Mir crash
23 minutes of reserve oxygen before they would lose consciousness aboard Mir
To Mars by 45 In 1987 I applied for a third time to be an astronaut, having been rejected twice beforehand. I was successfully selected at the age of 30. I felt very old at the time – I’d hoped to be on the moon by the time I was 30 and on Mars by the time I was 45 – though I was actually the youngest in my selection group. The astronaut entrance process was gruelling, but I had prepared tirelessly in the lead up and I was ready and excited. I enjoyed all the exercises: physical, mental, and medical. The interview was the most terrifying aspect, although, really, they knew me well by this point.
First Flights My first flight was in 1992, STS45 ATLAS 1. The mission involved flying two shifts of scientists to study global warming caused
1 month – length of time the Mir station was inoperable after accident
by carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases, atmospheric impurities in the ozone, and measuring solar brightness variations. The coolest part of the experiment was creating artificial aurora – Northern lights – over Australia (Aurora Australis), firing an electron beam out of the shuttle. You can’t replicate that first space flight feeling. STS56: I was quickly sent back up (1993) to do essentially the same thing, with a smaller crew. These first two missions were roughly 10 days each. STS63: My third flight was in 1995. On this mission, I was determined to partake in a spacewalk; however, to do this, you can’t really be the ‘scientist’, so I lobbied my bosses to think of me as a flight engineer. Generally, those roles went to army/airforce, but I persevered and on my third flight I flew as the flight engineer. We were required to install an astronomy telescope in space for roughly five days. Once in place, myself and one other astronaut flew out to retrieve the hefty telescope (weighed 1.5 tonnes). In addition, we were also testing a spacesuit heating system that they were perfecting for the Hubble Space mission in future. The test resulted in some frostbite!
To Moscow and beyond As the mission concluded, the Cold War was ending and Clinton and Yeltsin had agreed to build the International Space Station (ISS): the agreement allowed Russians to fly in the American Space Shuttle and vice versa. Little did I know, this would result in me moving with my young family to Russia for two years. Jenna was four, Ian was one; he was so little he would disappear in the snow! I had to learn Russian, which I found the biggest challenge. The STS84 crew delivered me to Mir, where I was tasked with mostly performing scientific experiments. My Russian colleagues welcomed me aboard, though, they were not very forthcoming with information; my nickname in Russia was either ‘Langley’ or ‘Cambridge’.
Collision in space
$120 million – the amount to train an astronaut
30 years old – when accepted into space programme
Unbeknownst to NASA, an experiment was to be conducted while I was on board Mir: to fly a cargo ship, Progress, by remote control to the Russian station. My predecessor, Jerry Linenger, had warned me that the crew had been attempting to dock the cargo ship without the use of radar. What we didn’t know at the time was the purpose for this was financial, as the Russians no longer wanted to buy radar from the Ukraine. The nightmare scenario came to life when, without radar, the speed