Thoughts From a Newcomer to the Field of Astronautics
It’s hard to find a good way to express how this week makes me feel.
On January 27th, in 1967, the Apollo 1 command module burned on the pad during a test, killing three astronauts. On January 28th, in 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger broke up during launch, killing seven astronauts. On February 1st, in 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia broke up during reentry, killing seven astronauts.
The destruction of the Columbia is one of my earliest memories, and I didn’t understand or process it for a very long time.
It feels almost dramatic to make any sort of special deal out of these tragedies. There have been many terrible events in the same time period that resulted in greater loss of life, after all. Nevertheless, while each comes with its own measure of pain, these disasters will naturally feel more weighty to those who are closer to them, in any way. I’m a Virginia Tech student; this seems obvious. On the other hand, though, I had no relationship with these astronauts or those who built these spacecraft. I don’t remember two of these accidents, and I’m sure the third had a much greater effect on the psyches of those older than I than it did on me. Why do I feel drawn by these, to read the incident reports and stories about the lives of the victims? To cut through the misinformation that’s grown in the intervening years, to understand exactly what went wrong and how, whether, we could’ve done better — saved them?
Perhaps it’s because they were people just like me.
The ones who died thought like me, dreamed like me. I want to be an astronaut. It feels childish to admit it publicly. Who am I to aspire to the actions of arguably the most admired, respected individuals across the planet? And yet, here I am. Perhaps I’ll get there one day. In the meantime, as I try to pursue that goal I’ve become one of the ones tasked with serving these men and women. I help build the equipment that gets them up there. It’s my job, just as it’s the job of all of us in this industry, to make sure we never lose another crew. It was the work of people like me then too, that failed and sent them to their deaths.
I haven’t been here very long; just a few internships. There are many engineers more accomplished than I am who must’ve worked through, processed, come to peace with this responsibility. For me, though, it’s new. It’s difficult to put into words the compulsion I feel, the knowledge that if I mess up, that if my work is not the absolute best I can do, people might die. People the whole world is looking up to.
Many industries write their rules in blood. For this one, that blood belonged to heroes.
It’s an honor to be trusted by astronauts, and these seventeen men and women are heavy reminders of what my job entails, the lessons that must guide my work:
Do not accept poor craftsmanship. Do not allow deviance to become normalized. Do not allow entitlement, complacency. Be tough, be competent.
So, as we move into a new age of spaceflight, remember this, please: we’re going to do our best. We’re going to take good care of your spouse, your child, your parent, your sibling but —
They may not make it nonetheless.
That, to me, new to the field and the challenges that go along with it, is the paradox that underlies this community. The knowledge that what we’re building, what we’re losing sleep & social lives over in part for the sake of the inhabitants of Earth, is a beautiful and important thing; but if we slip humanity loses some of the ones who inspire it most.
I’m overjoyed to see that the world is beginning to turn its eyes upward again. That my friends and family are excited about what the next years could hold. That sometimes they’ll sit and watch a rocket launch with me. At the same time, I’m afraid. All it could take is one fouled-up mission — burnt-out wire insulation, a button without a safety mechanism, mixed-up units of measurement in the code — for all of it to come crashing down. If we’re going to accomplish what we’ve set out to do, that’s a distinct possibility. These are complex machines, and try as we might they don’t always work. My bookshelf has reminders of what my own mistakes could’ve done. Twisted aluminum with a sheared bolt embedded in it; a stripped off, curled, ripped up sticker. The terrible possibility these speak to is uncomfortable for me, and much more so for the general public.
Stating that disaster is almost inevitable, despite our best efforts, feels like I’m breaking a cultural taboo. I’ve yet to hear a team member remind, even obliquely, gently, that this needs to be right or we risk losing one of our friends. And they are our friends — the astronauts will come by and talk to you.
They want you to call them by their first names, you know.
This knowledge of what the discipline entails seems implicit in those I’ve worked with. They don’t mention it not because they feel it’s unimportant, but because everyone knows it, and no one wants to talk about it. Unlike them, for me it’s not a fact of life yet. It’s new, and heavy. Perhaps all the other engineers and technicians, whether they work on the turbopumps or the antennas or the seats in the capsule, come to this understanding via an unconscious process, but I doubt it. I remember what it was like to walk the factory floor in those first days, to see the spacecraft in the glass cleanroom, to see the fuel tanks towering over me, to walk underneath the portraits of the astronauts on the walls. The reality pressed in hard. I’d be surprised if they all didn’t process this feeling in a conscious way, but none of them seem to have written about it.
That’s what I’m doing. This is a window into what it’s like to be responsible, even in a very limited way, for just one of the the wonders you’ve been seeing these days. A small, narrow one, but a window nonetheless.
So please, give us grace. Stay with us. Know that we took care, that we sacrificed, that we knew the cost. I’m not going to allow anyone to climb on top of a rocket I wouldn’t ride myself. When the unthinkable, the inevitable happens, whether it’s next year or next century, don’t give up on us — it’s the last thing they would’ve wanted. Please don’t let the tide of public opinion squelch the dream that I hold, that my friends — and perhaps you and your children — hold. This is worth it, and those of us who are faced with losing what we’re putting on the line have each weighed the risk and accepted it.
For those who are excited, those who eagerly anticipate the wonders the next decade will bring, those who may send their loved ones further than anyone has ever gone before, and for those like me who want to be the ones to strap themselves on the tops of these crazy wonderful machines, know this:
We’re going to do our best to make sure we don’t lose a single hero ever again. We’re going to move forward under the assumption that is within our power to make these missions unassailably perfect. That we can, and will, deliver our friends back home safe and sound every. Single. Time. That we will not succumb to rocket fever, to political pressure, to laziness, to complacency.
That failure is not an option.
