NASA
The phone call from “Mountain” to Mission Control in Houston happened at a very bad time. It was the morning of Thanksgiving in 1991. In space, the crew members on board the space shuttle Atlantis Were asleep. Now all of a sudden lead flight director Milt Heflin was in crisis.
The Flight Dynamics Officer of Mission Control informed Heflin that he had called the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, which monitors orbital traffic, to warn that the inactive Turkish satellite had a potential connection to the space shuttle in just 15 minutes. Moreover, as the spacecraft passed through the southern part of Africa, this potential wreckage strike was due to be in the middle of communications with the crew.
Before the blackout period began, there was no way for Heflin’s engineers to calculate any maneuvers, wake up the crew, and communicate with them. Heflin was alive – why weren’t the Air Force warned more about a possible collision? Specifically, they provided about 24-hour notice. By God, if it hits the satellite Atlantis, They could very well lose the astronaut who was sleeping. The STS-44 crew may never wake up.
An experienced flight director who began working at the space agency during the Apollo program two decades ago to carry out maritime recovery operations after the lunar landing, Heflin was not greatly offered. But now, it became tense. “When I think about it all the time, I don’t remember when I’m nervous or upset about something.”
What Heflin did not know at the time was that, during a fairly regular shuttle mission to deploy several Air Force payloads, she was snooked by her two flight controllers during an otherwise tedious overnight shift. There was no messy satellite – the “Turkey” sign on Thanksgiving went over his head. But the story did not end there.
Experimental jokes
Initially, NASA was not today’s space agency. Initially, especially during the Mercury program, NASA decision-makers moved quickly, often flying over the seats of their pants. There was even more scope for practical jokes, even in the sanctuary of Mission Control.
In his book The birth of NASA, Manfred “Dutch” von Erenfried wrote about a weakly practical joke, in 1962, just weeks before John Glenn’s first orbital flight, at the top of the Atlas rocket. Chris Kraft, NASA’s legendary first flight director, led his team into long days and nights of training, simulation and discussion of the rules of the mission for this crucial flight.
At the time, the mission was planned and conducted outside the Mercury Control Center at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and there were several scrubs leading to Glenn’s flight. One night, to break the tadium, the key lieutenant of the craft, Jeanne Cranze, decided to prank her boss the next day when two activities were to take place simultaneously. The craft will lead a mission simulation while the crane will lead a launch pad test from an Atlas rocket. While doing the mission simulation, Cranz knew that the craft console would watch pad activities on television.
While working with Control Center video support coordinator John Hatcher, Cranz had an old video of the Atlas launch that turned into a craft feed. In addition, Cranz and Hatcher realized that the rocket would appear to lift off immediately after the craft dropped the “firing command” switch as part of its simulation.
Here are the following characteristics of Ehrenfried that did not occur in Florida:
As the simulation progressed, Kraft would ask Cranes how the pad test was going and Cranz gave him a quick check of the status directly below the face and head. As the simulation landed on the liftoff, the moment Kraff threw the switch, Hatcher began an old Atlas liftoff video on Kraft’s console TV. Kraft’s eyes widened as he looked at the TV and his forehead twitched. He turns to the cranes and says, “Did you see that?” Cranz plays dumb and says, “Look what?” Without a pause, Kraft says, “The damn thing picked up!” Hatcher and Cranze tried to keep a straight face but they both couldn’t hold back the laughter. Craft says, “Who did this?” He then realized he was “was” and smiled half-heartedly. Cranz and Hatcher pulled Superman’s cap and survived!
