NASA's Secret Weapon (Armchair Astronaut, Jul. 2011, Part 2)

What's happening: Tom Jones becomes an astronaut with the astronaut class of 1990, nicknamed the "Hairballs". After much training, he is assigned to two shuttle flights--STS-59 & STS-68--which both occurred in 1994. Both of these spaceflights were "Missions to Planet Earth"--as in, they studied and took many pictures of our home planet.

After flying two shuttle missions in a very short time period, Don Puddy let Tom Jones take a break from shuttle flight training. Instead, Jones would serve as Capcom in Mission Control. What's a Capcom, you ask? Well, the Capcom was the only guy in Mission Control that could talk directly with the astronauts. Always, the Capcom would be an astronaut, and the Capcom would relay the wishes of ground-bound Mission Control to the orbiting crew. Jones learned much in his stint as Capcom, and developed a huge respect for the young, but highly competent and professional flight controllers that supported every flight.

The STS-80 crew, L-R:
Rominger, Jernigan, Musgrave, Jones, and Cockrell

But in early 1996, Tom Jones once again got that magic call, this time from Bob Cabana: Jones would be flying a third time in space. The mission was STS-80, the shuttle was Columbia, and the mission goals included a little bit of everything: satellite removal and retrieval, onboard scientific research, and spacewalks, also called EVAs (or extravehicular activity). In addition, STS-80 would stretch the shuttle's consumables to the limit: this flight was planned to be the longest shuttle flight ever, at seventeen days. The mission would fly over Thanksgiving 1996.

Who would Tom Jones be flying with on STS-80? Well, the commander was Ken Cockrell, one of Jones' fellow Hairballs. While NASA PR called Cockrell by his first name, everyone else just called him "Taco"! Kent "Rommel" Rominger was the pilot, and 61-year-old Story Musgrave would supervise the mission's two planned spacewalks, to be executed by Jones and Tammy Jernigan. Story Musgrave had been an astronaut for thirty years, and showed no signs of slowing down as he looked forward to his sixth shuttle flight! These five people made up the crew of STS-80.

All through 1996, Jones and Jernigan trained and practiced their spacewalks in the Weightless Environment Training Facility, or WETF. Basically, the WETF was a gigantic pool 78 feet long, 33 feet wide, and 25 feet deep. Almost a half-million gallons of water in the WETF made for very realistic EVA training. By early November, Jones, Jernigan, and the rest of the STS-80 crew was ready. Due to various problems with the shuttle stack, the launch was rescheduled for November 19. The STS-80 crew were now slated for a weightless, hopefully happy, Thanksgiving holiday.

2:52pm, November 19, and Columbia roared to life, hurtling five happy astronauts once again into space. A few days later, Jones successfully (and nervously) deployed and retreived the Wake Shield satellite--a satellite conducting experiments in space.

Holiday in space

Thanksgiving Day 1996 was planned to be a high day for Tom Jones; on this day he was scheduled to open the hatch and walk into the void of open space. Or so he thought. Jones and Jernigan--Jones' spacewalking partner--started preparing for the EVA the night before, by breathing pure oxygen for hours on end. This would help them on their spacewalk, the first of two planned EVAs.

Finally, the time came to open the hatch. Jones was ecstatic. He started turning the hatch handle a full rotation clockwise--but then it stopped. What happened? Both Jernigan and Jones tried, but the hatch handle would not budge past 30 degrees clockwise. Mission Control--and the crew--were stumped. Finally, thinking of nothing else to do, the spacewalks were canceled. Jones was devastated. Would he never get to walk in space, after all? Only time would tell.

STS-80 was still a success, however. The science completed aboard was good, and the satellite removal and retrivel was superb. After 17 days, 15 hours, 53 minutes, and 18 seconds, Commander "Taco" Cockrell landed Columbia at Kennedy Space Center. Tom Jones had finally managed to land in the right place!

Jones & Jernigan still had a nagging fear, however, that shuttle personal would board Columbia after it landed and be able to open the hatch just fine! But those worries were for naught. Even the ground personal couldn't open the hatch, and they reassured the crew that there was nothing STS-80 could have done to fix the problem, short of breaking the hatch!

New Job, & A Mission

After STS-80, Jones and Jernigan were assigned to represent the Astronaut Office as the International Space Station (ISS) laboriously took shape. It was a hard, slow process, with Americans, Russians, and many other nations involved.

The STS-98 crew, L-R:
Curbeam, Polansky, Ivins, Cockrell, and Jones

A year and a half after Jones' failed spacewalk, his old commander "Taco" had some great news: "Taco" Cockrell and Tom Jones would be flying in space together...again! Taco would once again be the commander, and rookie Mark Polansky would pilot their shuttle, Atlantis. Mark Lee would join Jones on the EVAs, and Marsha Ivins would round out the crew. The mission was STS-98, and launch day was about three years away.

However, by the time Atlantis would fly STS-98, spacewalk leader Mark Lee would be replaced by Bob "Beamer" Curbeam. Jones was bumped up to the role of "spacewalk leader"...even though he had never completed a spacewalk! Jones' wife Liz humorously remarked, "You're NASA's secret weapon: the best-trained space-walker who's never done a space walk." (see page 253 in Sky Walking.)

Training, teamwork, and more training went by in those three years. Now it was February 7, 2001, and Tom Jones once again found himself strapped aboard the Space Shuttle. Would he really get a chance to spacewalk? He hoped so.

6:11pm. Ready, set, WHAM, and launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis! This time, Atlantis was carrying in her payload bay Destiny, a vital and important U.S. contribution to the ISS. When Atlantis reached the ISS, Jones and Beamer would have a date with Destiny, executing the extremely important task of attaching the module to the station.

Tom Jones, living the dream!

Between February 10 and Valentine's Day, 2001, Jones and Curbeam performed three very successful spacewalks, fully attaching Destiny to the International Space Station. While only Jones and Curbeam actually spacewalked, the happy outcome was a result of co-operation, training, and teamwork between the entire crew. Tom Jones finally realized his dream of spacewalking!

Just like Mike Collins really describes what flying aboard Gemini and Apollo was like, so Tom Jones really describes what flying aboard the Space Shuttle was like. If you ever want to learn what it was really like flying on the shuttle, read Sky Walking: An Astronaut's Memoir!