Dateline: Utah
// LISA ANN THOMSON
FLYING HIGH Four-time shuttle astronaut Charlie Precourt sets his sights on Mars. The sun has no rays in outer space.
space launch systems. And he has a new target: Mars. If you happen to be floating above earth’s atmosphere, Meet him once and you’ll know why you didn’t know an you’ll notice that the sun in the 93,000-million-mile astronaut works in Salt Lake County. Quiet and diminutive, distance looks surprisingly like the moon does from your as many pilots are, Precourt hardly wears his Space Shuttle backyard. It’s just a white hot orb set against the pitch patches on his sleeve. I first met him at a dinner for Senator black fabric of the universe. Orrin Hatch. We shared a table and exchanged But the earth, now that’s something to see from above. pleasantries. He mentioned his job as general manager for When the sun’s invisible rays hit the earth’s atmosphere Orbital ATK. He joked about ATK engineers who say, “No they scatter and ignite the planet. “It looks like it’s glowing really, I AM a rocket scientist!” But Precourt acknowledges from inside,” says Charles J. Precourt, vice president and he is not a rocket scientist himself—“I don’t make rockets. I general manager of Utah-based Orbital ATK’s Propulsion just fly them.” His favorite memory from space? Watching a meteor Systems division. “It looks like it’s alive.” Precourt should know. He’s seen this view four times plunge into Earth’s atmosphere and catch fire, dragging a from the cockpit of the Space Shuttle. When the subject of blazing tail. We earthbound might have seen it as a Utah and astronauts comes up, former Senator Jake Garn shooting star in the night sky from a campsite in the typically comes to mind. But in a brightly lit office off a Uintas. But Precourt was in the shuttle, above it, watching it dusty road in Magna former astronaut Charlie Precourt is streak through the atmosphere below. rounding out a career that started at the Air Force You could say it was just another day for an astronaut. Academy and has included Except that days and nights are playing chicken with Russian not quite so distinct in space. In a MiGs on the West German border given 24-hour period, the average and shaking hands with shuttle flight zipped around the cosmonauts on the Mir Space earth about 16 times. From that Station. He also served as NASA’s orbit, Precourt passed the chief astronaut and as a program terminator—the line where Earth’s manager for the International day becomes night—dozens of Space Station. Today he manages times. “And when you first go from –CHUCK PRECOURT the country’s largest builder of daylight to dark, you can’t see the
THE EARTH LOOKS LIKE IT’S GLOWING FROM INSIDE, IT LOOKS LIKE IT’S ALIVE.
S A LT L A K E M A G A Z I N E . C O M SEPT/OCT 2016
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