In 1978, NASA changed the rules around who could be selected as an astronaut. Civilian engineers, doctors and scientists could be selected to fly on the then brand new space shuttle. Meredith Bagby joins us to talk about this group, whose social backgrounds were as diverse as their professions. For the first time, the group included women and people of colour.
There were triumphs with astronauts like Sally Ride and Greg Bluford, and tragedy when four of this talented group were lost in the Challenger disaster.
This is a compelling insight from Meredith, who had access to five astronauts from this historic class.
Find Meredith Bagby's book The New Guys here
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We'd love to hear from you.
Email us!
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In 1978, NASA changed the rules around who could be selected as an astronaut. Civilian engineers, doctors and scientists could be selected to fly on the then brand new space shuttle. Meredith Bagby joins us to talk about this group, whose social backgrounds were as diverse as their professions. For the first time, the group included women and people of colour.
There were triumphs with astronauts like Sally Ride and Greg Bluford, and tragedy when four of this talented group were lost in the Challenger disaster.
This is a compelling insight from Meredith, who had access to five astronauts from this historic class.
Find Meredith Bagby's book The New Guys here
You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi!
We'd love to hear from you.
Email us!
cosmiccoffeetime@gmail.com
Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on Twitter for some special content
This is cosmic coffee time, the place where we take a look at what's happening somewhere in the universe in about the time it takes to have a coffee. It's cosmology in a cup. I'm Andrew Prestage and join me for another special episode. In 1978, NASA changed the rules around who could be selected as an astronaut, civilian engineers, doctors and scientists could be selected to fly on the brand new space shuttle. Meredith Bagby joins us to talk about this group, whose social backgrounds are as diverse as their professions. There was triumph and there was tragedy. Meredith's new book is The New Guys, the historic class of astronauts that broke barriers and changed the face of space travel. And she joined me from Los Angeles, Meredith Bagby, congratulations on the new guys, and welcome to cosmic coffee time.
Meredith Bagby:Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Andrew Prestage:You've got an impressive body of work here. Prior to this book, nonfiction writer, partner in big swing productions. You've written books on politics and economics reporter and producer for CNN teaching fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics and now, the New Guys a story about a groundbreaking group of astronauts, what was the inspiration for the story?
Meredith Bagby:You know, that's a great question. And it's actually a story that's been with me an awfully long time. When I I'm, I grew up in the 80s. And I am from Florida. And when I was in fifth grade, my science teacher applied for the teacher in space program. And of course, he didn't get it, but Christa McAuliffe did. But we were acutely aware of the shuttle program through him. And you know, when challenger launch in '86 were out on the field, and like a lot of kids were watching that launch live, and we saw it explode. And you know, that story always stayed with me. And then, as I got to be an adult, I just had a conversation actually, with a relative who used to work for NASA, I learned that, that shuttle flight also took the lives of four of this, of this historic class, that the class of 1978, and I hadn't heard that story before. And of course, this class was a class of a lot of firsts. It was the first time that NASA recruited women and people of color. And four of those, four of the classmates were lost on that launch. And I just kind of got obsessed with this story. And the more I learned, the more I wanted to tell it.
Andrew Prestage:And it's a timely story as well. We've got the Artemis program, it's going to land the first woman and the first person of color on the moon in the near future. We had Artemis one just last year. And I'm sure they got people thinking seriously about that next moon landing and maybe the origin story of diversity among NASA astronauts, and you spent time with some of the members of the new guys group when you were writing?
Meredith Bagby:I did. Yeah, a lot of time. We did I think I think we ended up doing over 100 hours of interviews. And I say we because I had some research assistants helped me. And some of them, most of them. Honestly, were on Zoom. We did this during COVID. And but some of it was in person. And it was so fun to get to go to Houston and meet them and visit some of their old haunts. It was the the highlight of writing the book.
Andrew Prestage:And what was happening in America at that time in the 1970s that created this shift in NASA to select a diverse group like this.
Meredith Bagby:Yeah, I mean, that's a great question it, it took place, I mean, women and people of color had tried to become astronauts before, with no success. And the thing that was different in the 70s, honestly was Well, first of all, in 64, the Civil Rights Act passed, and it made it illegal for the government to discriminate against people based on sex, and based on, you know, the color of your skin. And, but it wasn't until the 70s. And when when that law really took hold and began to you begin to see the effects of that law. And NASA came under a lot of scrutiny for not including people of diverse backgrounds in the astronaut program. And they got in trouble with Congress and Congress forced them to open the doors.
Andrew Prestage:Well, I was going to ask you were women and minorities actively excluded from the astronaut corps before this time, or they overlooked for different reasons was the selection criteria set up for them to fail?
Meredith Bagby:A little bit of both, but certainly. Both women and people of color had been trying to knock down the doors. Jerrie Cobb famously was a tremendous pilot and part of the mercury 13 program that, you know, try to that showed that women could perform all of the same tasks that men could and of course, denied entrance. She testified before Congress was famously told to kind of wait, wait her turn. And so there were these instances of people trying to get in but failing and not not having the support of Congress. And quite honestly, I think a lot of people felt that it was that we had this perception that astronauts had to be military pilots, and they had to be like the right stuff, these tough guys. And the truth was that women could, and women and people of color could meet the same standards. And the shuttle, also, the existence of the shuttle, for the first time allowed people to travel to space that were not pilots, and that were scientists and had different qualifications.
Andrew Prestage:Yeah, I was also leading into my next question about about there was more than just that social diversity. And it seemed to make sense in the early days of the space program, for astronauts to be test pilots exclusively, when space travel was about getting the spacecraft where it needed to go and getting the crew home alive. I mean, test pilots absolutely fit that requirement. But the space shuttle would be able to carry that crew of seven. And so not all of them needed to be hotshot pilots. Who else were they looking for?
Meredith Bagby:Well, the other space shuttle, as you mentioned, provided a unique opportunity for a diverse people with diverse backgrounds to go to space. And, you know, as such, I think NASA began to see the shuttle as a laboratory in space. And that became the groundwork for the eventual space station that they would build. But they started to look for astronomers and engineers and even medical doctors, people that could do experiments in space, and also would benefit from seeing stars up close and seeing comets up close. And, and so it became, you know, if you went from being, you know, as you said, test pilots to people who could actually do science in space.
Andrew Prestage:And going back to the beginning of the spacecraft program, as well. You mentioned the mercury seven and the mercury 13 to 13 women that went through the same screening progress. And you also mentioned Jerrie Cobb, who, at the time had more jet flight hours than John Glenn. And it seems she was breaking down the door to get into the space program around 1959. It seems she was an obvious choice to fly in space.
Meredith Bagby:You absolutely, I think we, as an as a country, unfortunately, we weren't ready for it. And there was this notion that women should be taking care of the domestic duties of the family, as opposed to out there flying planes or or be coming astronauts. And that was really what ended it for her in Congress. And, you know, it wasn't till a decade later that we finally started to open the doors
Andrew Prestage:1963 the Soviet Union launched Vostok six with Valentina Tereshkova onboard, first woman in space. And at that point, NASA had already lost a round of the space race when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space and the first person to orbit the Earth. And Jerrie being that prime candidate it seems that NASA really missed a golden opportunity for a victory in the space race there.
Meredith Bagby:That's absolutely the case. And you know, it wasn't till Gosh 1984 When or just right 1983 When Sally Ride flew that we sent up our first woman and, you know, the same could be true of the first person of color was also set up by the Russians, Arnaldo Mendez, and, you know, Guy Bluford, who was one of the new guys potentially, you know, could have beat him out. But we, but we didn't get there. We didn't get there first. And it was a humiliating, it was a humiliation, I think, for NASA
Andrew Prestage:1973, the NASA was starting to lag behind in the diversity of its workforce, which you mentioned earlier on. And I liked the point you make here, the three females that NASA had sent to space by then two were spiders, and one was a monkey. That's a decade after Valentina's flight were NASA starting to lose their social licence at that point, I mean, particularly considering the immense amount of public money that we're spending
Meredith Bagby:a were are they losing their? Yeah, I think that they were, I mean, people were looking at the social ills in the United States and saying, you know, is it worth putting a bunch of white guys on the moon or, you know, our should we be spending that money on curing our social ills. And there was a backlash, certainly against the moon landings from that perspective. And there was also a backlash of, you know, wanting NASA to open its doors and to become more diverse and to have a more diverse representation among its astronauts for a very long time before they actually did it.
Andrew Prestage:And when those doors did eventually open up was it was NASA, the kind of place where women and people of color minorities wanted to work.
Meredith Bagby:This is this is the interesting point I think they did. At the very beginning, during their recruitment effort, they had difficulty. I mean, they stayed it's they went a year without really getting many, many applications, from women and people of color. And they had to rethink how they were were recruiting. And the big moment where things started to change was they hired Nichelle Nichols, who, of course, was famous for her role on Star Trek as Lieutenant O'Hara. And here's an African American woman who was, you know, we're very recognizable. And she started doing these PSAs for NASA, and all of a sudden, they got, you know, over 1000 applications. So once they changed their tactics, people were interested, and but they had to do a fair amount of lobbying, and a fair amount of traveling to different universities and institutions to get those people to get those applications on board.
Andrew Prestage:Ron McNair was was one of those people who were inspired by Nichelle. He was a member of the new guys class, African American. And you introduce him as someone who grew up in the segregated south, three generations removed from slavery. From your characterization of this time, it seemed that although the law of the land had changed, a lot of the social attitudes hadn't changed, including the public library.
Meredith Bagby:That's right. He, when he was a young man, he wanted very much to get math books from the library. And, you know, like a lot of things in his neighborhood, the library was a whites only place and he marched in, and he tried to check out books. And the librarian wouldn't let him and threatened him and called his mother and called the police. And Ron stood his ground, which I think is very indicative of who the man he became, and was able to check out the books. And you know, from that day forward, that it the library became open to people of color as well. So that's one of the my favorite stories about Ron. And it just shows, you know, his gumption and that he was not going to be stopped.
Andrew Prestage:It's a great story about Ron. And because he'd come from a background of cotton and tobacco harvesting, to earning a PhD in physics at MIT, and Well, NASA, were recruiting engineers and scientists at the time to become an astronaut astronauts. It was perfect for him.
Meredith Bagby:It was and I think it's funny, I heard the story from his brother, but he said, you know, my, my, my brother was very confident that he was going to get chosen. He's my brother was always very confident. And I suppose if you have the kind of intelligence, you know, sometimes you are but you know, I think from the get go, he saw that ad and knew it was for him.
Andrew Prestage:When NASA was opening up the program to civilians, it seemed there was a real backlash from military pilots around that time, and you describe an Air Force captain who'd flown over 100 missions in Vietnam, lived those cruel realities of war? How did someone like him feel competing against the new guys? Some of them were pilots? Sure, but a lot of them were from academia.
Meredith Bagby:No, you're absolutely right. And, and a lot of the pilots at that time, were, as you say, had fought in Vietnam. And a lot of the scientists and academics coming in had protested Vietnam on their campuses. And so it was a real cultural difference. And I think Mike Mullane, I think is who you're speaking of who wrote Riding Rockets, he writes a very colorful description of what it was like to be in opposition or be competing with these academics and and feeling like they didn't have the right stuff. And they didn't have the Moxie and they had never faced death before and they weren't going to be able to live up to the expectations of NASA. Of course, then the civilians proven wrong and Mike Mullane sort of comically eats crow in his own book, he says, You know, I, I was terrible to some of the women and I, you know, and and you know he laments that but but I think at the time, there were plenty of men at NASA and especially a lot of the test pilots that did not believe that this experiment was going to work.
Andrew Prestage:And female applicants had trouble with some of the physical tests for exercise capacity and physical strength. How did NASA deal with that?
Meredith Bagby:It's so interesting. This is a part of the book that got very controversial. So some people said they had to do these tests, and other people said, they do not remember having to do these tests. And we read enough. I mean, basically, where we came down on it was that they had had these tests at the beginning of the recruitment process. And they realized very quickly that the women could not do some of these tests physical and, and so they threw them out. And they said, gravity is the great equalizer. I mean, these are tests like pull ups, and, and of course, the women who were competing for these slots. It was a different era, and they didn't have, you know, the same opportunities for physical education for women as they did for men. So a lot of these women, I remember Anna Fisher famously told me she was I never worked out in my life. And, you know, a couple of weeks before I started running like for the first time. So there was a, it was just a different time for women a different set of expectations. And I think NASA also adjusted their expectations and said, Look, this is what we're dealing with. Now. We'll get everybody up to speed.
Andrew Prestage:And how did the media react to the prospect of female astronauts?
Meredith Bagby:I think some of the media was supportive. A lot of the media was not supportive, and a lot of them asked really sexist and comic questions, things you could never get away with today, you know, would there be romance in space? Didn't everybody think that these female recruits were good looking, they would comment on the kind of clothes they were wearing, or the makeup they were wearing, the way their hair was worn. And so there was a lot of that kind of thing. I think, you know, like all journalists, I mean, myself included, you're looking for a juicy story or juicy angle and sex in space, it's one of those. So they were you know, you couldn't get away with it today. But they certainly did, then
Andrew Prestage:It does seem weird when you look at it was today's eyes. I mean, when we when you consider the shuttle being a workplace, you wouldn't say that about any other workplace. We're talking with Meredith Bagby, author of the New Guys. In 1979, two years before the first Shuttle flight there was already talk about who would be the first American woman in space. And she would come from this group. How competitive was among well, with the women among this group? Were they supportive of each other? Were they rivals? Was there a bit of each?
Meredith Bagby:I think there was a bit of each there was this notion that well, there was the the fact that nobody knew what they were going through except each other. And that because of that, there was bonding between the group of women for sure. And in a lot of ways, there's they faced challenges, nobody could understand. And they had only each other to talk to about it and kind of work through it. So there were definitely friendships that were made deep friendships that last to this day. But I think there was also a rivalry, they all they all understood going in that there was going to be history made, and that one of them would do it. And one of them would forever be a trivial pursuit question. And they say, or, you know, there would always be in the history books, and that person would win accolades and book deals and things of that like, and so yes, there was a great competition around it. And, you know, as a result, I know Kathy Sullivan had mentioned for her there a true friendship wasn't possible with the other women. And I thought that was a great loss in some ways, because they were all fabulous in their own way. And, anyway, but But yes, a rivalry existed. And the interesting thing about the way that program ran in those days is really only one person made the decision. And that was the head of Flight Crew Operations, which was George Abbey. And at the end of the day, the decision was his and everybody wanted to make sure that they got on his good side, and that he could see how how talented they were.
Andrew Prestage:And they were being trained on all the various tasks that they need to do in space. And some tasks were seen as more flight critical than others. And there seem to be this sense that the more flight critical the task was, the more likely they would be selected.
Meredith Bagby:Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And You know, was interesting for the women because none of them were pilots. They they, as opposed to sort of the the men of color, the men of color. Two of the of the men were trained, highly trained pilots, test pilots. And so it's potentially they could have gone on a shuttle as, as a pilot, but for the women, they were always going to go as Mission Specialists. And so it was easy. It's easy and hearty, in some ways, you could look at the first couple of flights and say, what were the what were the first flights that were scheduled? What kind of skills were needed for those flights and who's getting trained on those skills, and the big one was the remote, the remote arm that they called the Canada Arm that was made in Canada, and it was this like, you know, very heavy, kind of like construction looking arm that would come out of the payload bay, and it would be able to deploy satellites and do all of these miraculous things anyway. So the people who got assigned to that it was rumored we're going to be among the first to fly.
Andrew Prestage:And Sally Ride who was the first American woman in space, no spoilers there. You mentioned that. She's possibly one of the top handful of recognizable astronauts from the shuttle era. And she was obviously an incredible intellect. She was an outstanding athlete. And she had been trained on the robotic arm. She was absolutely good enough to be selected.
Meredith Bagby:Yeah, she was the triple threat. And, you know, I think you make a great point, which was not only she was brilliant, but she had been a tennis pro. And I think a lot of people think that that those technical skills learned a tennis which is repeating the same action over and over again, and getting really specific with hand eye coordination, you know, really gave her a leg up. And she was in fact, chosen to train on the the robotic arm first. And that was an indication that she was in the lead. The other woman who was also trained very shortly thereafter was Judy Resnick, who was a concert level pianist, and also had, you know, great hand eye coordination. And she and Sally and if you look at old clips, they talk about working together up in Canada, and I think they became close over that training.
Andrew Prestage:And when Sally was selected, the media were up to their old tricks again before the launch asking if she planned to become a mother after the flight. But shuttle commander Bob Crippen, he was a great supporter of Sally in those moments.
Meredith Bagby:He really was and he was a commander on that flight. And, you know, he I think when the press got too much, he told them that you know, Sally was qualified to be there like the rest of them. And he tried to keep things civil. A lot of times when they got on civil in terms of the questions that were being lobbied,
Andrew Prestage:You wrote that the new guys class had the first LGBTQIA+ astronaut, that was Sally. She was in a relationship with Molly Tyson when she applied to be an astronaut in the 70s. And she was in a relationship with Tam O'Shaughnessy from 1985 until Sally died in 2012. But in 1982, she did marry fellow astronaut Steve Hawley. I wouldn't question anybody's reason for marrying anyone else. But were there outside influences that sought to persuade Sally to marry him.
Meredith Bagby:It's a that's a really good question. I think when we talk about outside influences, I think the biggest one, honestly, is the media and people's treatment of honestly, gay people both at work and also in the media. I remember one of you know, one of her biographer, as an example talks about, you know, what, what happened when Billie Jean King came out, and that she lost all of her endorsements. And she had to start over and it was really great you know, challenge for Billie Jean King and Sally. Of course, this happened right before Sally's flight, and assignment. And, you know, it's hard not to believe that made a difference in how she viewed her own sexuality and whether or not she thought she would ever have the opportunity to come out. And I think Tam also talks about later in life, saying she didn't even want to come out in the you know, towards the end of her life because she felt it would hurt NASA. So I think the stayed with her for quite, you know, the majority of her life.
Andrew Prestage:I think I remember a time when I thought that Sally was the first woman in space but Valentina had flown 20 years earlier, and when Sally launched in 1983, she wasn't even the second woman in space after Svetlana Savitskya's flight, but I'm not sure that dampened enthusiasm for Sally's first flight? What did it mean to the people of America?
Meredith Bagby:It's true. When you ask most Americans who the first woman in space is they always say, I mean, for the most part, they say, Sally Ride. And of course, you're right. That's not true. It was it was the Russians who got there first. That said, I think we felt, I think that people of America felt a great sense of pride. And, you know, I can't remember how many people came out for launch was like 3 million. I know something to that effect. I know, it was the third most watched launch that NASA has ever had. And, you know, there was this groundswell of support. And there were, you know, T shirts and songs and drinks and food named after and so they call it Sallymania. And of course, you know, she is among the most recognizable astronauts of all time, so I even have a Barbie doll. I don't have it here. But I have a Barbie doll for Barbie.
Andrew Prestage:And Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards he says that the two hours on stage with the Stones is the only time he can get any peace and quiet. You describe something similar for Sally after her flight with giving a speech being the only time she was alone, that relentless attention didn't sit well with her?
Meredith Bagby:No, I think she was. It's interesting. She's a bit of a paradox, in the sense that she was somebody who was very focused on achievement. And she didn't shy away from being in the public sphere. I mean, both on the tennis court with her research, and also as an astronaut, I mean, she sought these things out. And when they asked her if she wanted to go first, she wholeheartedly said yes. And she knew, at least in theory, what that was going to mean, I think the reality of what it meant was maybe something else, which she wasn't quite prepared for. And I think it hit her pretty hard. And I know from talking to some of her mentors, like Carolyn Huntoon, who was one of the few women in NASA hierarchy, in that, you know, from Carolyn's point of view, it really wore on her and, you know, she she did have to take, start taking breaks and start taking, doing some self care and going to therapy and putting some boundaries around. Around all of the media asks what she did later, later on her career.
Andrew Prestage:Following from the first American woman in space was Guy Bluford, who you also mentioned, he became the first African American in space in 1983, you wrote about this time, in the 80s, when Black Culture started, started to become more mainstream in America. But at the same time, there was that huge disparity between black and white America in unemployment, poverty, and no change in sight. With all of that going on How significant was Guy's flight?
Meredith Bagby:I think it was hugely significant for us as a country. And it was a long time coming. And I think that the African American community also felt a groundswell of pride in seeing him go up. And I think, you know, you can't help but note, though, that he did not receive the same kind of media attention that Sally did. And you can only believe that that is in part due to you know, the racism that are we suffer as a country. And But that said, I think, you know, it was a huge step forward guy had he likes to say he had a fabulous time on his media journey after that, and he became, you know, an icon for his community and for NASA in general afterward.
Andrew Prestage:The space shuttle, the new guys were flying, that had been developed during the 1970s. But the shuttle was a troubled machine right from the start, possibly because of the sheer complexity of it. There were endless problems with the heat resistant tiles. And during the press tour after Guy Bluford's flight, the engineers started pulling apart the reusable solid rocket boosters. And it seemed that guy and the rest of the crew had a lucky escape.
Meredith Bagby:They did, the problem at that at that particular mission was then the nozzle was on the nozzle of the booster the solid rocket boosters were a tricky design and a lot of people say troubled design for a lot of reasons but anyway, this was one of those instances and they came within a couple of seconds of having that ring burned through and dying and you know the these kinds of issues plagued the SRBs a solid rocket boosters up until Challenger
Andrew Prestage:Surely a problem of that scale. That'd be enough to ground the shuttle fleet and get NASA to find a new supplier for the boosters
Meredith Bagby:Huh, no, no, it would not. Unfortunately. I mean, I think there was a great look, the government had spent a lot of money on this program and to stop it after the first few flights and redesign the solid rocket boosters. I mean, once they started realizing these were a problem. And of course, we write about it a lot in the book, they also started the company that made them, which is Morton Thiokol, also started coming up with solutions internally, and they put together a task force and this task force came to the conclusion, you know, that it would take a couple of years and quite a lot of money to fix it. But it was very possible. And in fact, that's what they did do after Challenger. But at the time, they're the forces, you know, at work, felt that they didn't want to take that time, and they didn't want to spend that money. And the risk wasn't as great as all that. And so they kept flying. And there were a lot of political pressures, I think that created that decision.
Andrew Prestage:Around 1983/84, the shuttle had only been in service for two or three years. But there were more problems starting to show a flight to launch two satellites was unsuccessful when both of those satellites failed to reach the correct orbit. There was a critical launch abort for new guy, Judy Resnick's first flight where she was scheduled to be the first Jewish person in space. All of that with the near disaster on Guy's flight and that inherent risk of launching a crew of seven people to space, were people starting to lose confidence in the shuttle.
Meredith Bagby:It's such a good question. I would say that it depends, I think, in terms of the public certainly wasn't the public was not aware, in any real way of the dangers that a lot of the shuttle astronauts were facing. And in fact, the shuttle felt that the I mean, the public felt that the shuttle was quite safe. And they were not well publicized. A lot of these challenges were not I mean, they are in the media here and there. But But I think most people were just not aware of them. And in terms of the astronauts themselves, I think a lot of the astronauts were not aware, they were never told as an example, about the near misses of a lot of the problems with the solid rocket boosters. The O rings, in particular, the problems with the O rings were not well explained, or were not simply not told to the astronauts, so they had no way of knowing, I think some of the very highly technical astronauts that had been engineers and really understood how the shuttle worked. They kind of were on to it a little bit more than the others. But again, I think widely, it was not known the dangers that they faced.
Andrew Prestage:That was something that really struck me that the astronauts hadn't been told about the O ring problems. I mean, and you also wrote that, that the astronauts understood that spaceflight was perilous, but to not tell them about a known risk like that, that seems unconscionable. And it got me thinking, was that silence around the O ring problem, Was that by accident, or was that by design it like for fear that if the astronauts knew that they would refuse to fly?
Meredith Bagby:I mean, when we, when I spoke to people in the administration, and the astronauts, they said, Look there, the O ring was one of maybe hundreds of technical problems that might come up in these meetings. And you could always come up with a reason not to fly. If spaceflight is hard. We know spaceflight is hard. And if you stop the program, for every technical problem, you'll never get to space. So that was one argument. The other argument that I think Sally Ride voiced in the subsequent Rogers Commission, which I thought was very smart was like, Look, this was, this wasn't just any old problem. This was they called it a criticality one problem, which is if it failed, there would be a catastrophic failure. And that's what made this to me. That's what makes the O ring problem, a different kind of a problem than any old technical problem.
Andrew Prestage:And despite the shuttle's troubles, there were more firsts. Judy Resnik did become the first Jewish person in space. And one standout moment for me in the story is when Anna Fisher was offered a crew assignment.
Meredith Bagby:Yes, yeah. She is, was a particularly interesting moment because when she was offered the crew assignment, her husband was there with her. And of course, he was an astronaut, too. They both were astronauts, and she was in the class 1978 He was in the class of 1980. And she was pregnant. She was very pregnant. And so George, you know, Anna tries to unravel why he did it that way because normally like, you wouldn't get a crew assignment with your spouse in the room, you would just get a crew assignment. And George was trying to show us sort of things. You know, George was trying to figure out how to go about this because to her to him, he was sending her into space, but he was doing so. And she was pregnant and she was about to have this baby and was he okay with it too? Was the family okay with her? Going and of course Anna piped up and she didn't wait for Bill to say anything. And she said no, I'm going this is this is what I signed up for, send me in. And, and of course then she started training in the middle of her pregnancy and had had her baby her first baby on on her way to also go into space.
Andrew Prestage:The New Guys is the new book by Meredith Bagby. Meredith, Ellison Onizuka, another new guy, he became the first Asian American in space, another great leap forward. But after his flight, it seemed there was even more trouble with the solid rocket boosters. There was blow by of that of the primary O rings. And that's not meant to happen. It could have been catastrophic. That next problem with the with the solid rocket boosters, surely that time that was enough to ground the fleet and find a new supplier. For the boosters.
Meredith Bagby:It was also not enough. And this one was particularly I think this flight was, to me, this flight and also Fred Gregory's subsequent Flight were probably the most concerning at the time. So Ellison's flight was at the at that time, the coldest launch yet, it for Florida, I think they launched it was previously colder, but it kind of warmed up to around 50. But that was that was the coldest they had ever launched. And when they brought back so solid rocket boosters are retrievable and reusable. And they had built these ships to go out and pull them back in after they separated from the orbiter and landed in the Atlantic Ocean. And when they brought the O ring, or when they brought the solid rocket boosters back, the man on staff who worked for Morton Thiokol looked at them and he saw all this, cut this black black soot in the O ring cavity and realize that there had been this blow by and he was extremely concerned. And of course, he brought it to superiors and the task force had already been created at that point, but he kept elevating it and making a lot of noise and telling people listen, we got to pay attention to this. And nobody really paid attention to him. And he was the Cassandra. They call him the Cassandra, of, of at Morton Thiokol. But he really sounded the horn, but he just wasn't able to get the company to address the issue and take it seriously. And they flew again. Right after that.
Andrew Prestage:The pressure was building on the whole program in 1984. There were five flights. And that was going to be ramping up to 24 missions a year. NASA seemed they were pushing past the safety concerns. And I'd like to paraphrase a little section. If I may, you wrote that almost every shuttle landing damaged the landing gear, parts were removed from a shuttle at touchdown to be fitted to another for launch, risk acceptance waivers were being signed everywhere, there was an overworked and exhausted workforce, the schedule was being prioritized over safety, tile damage was still a concern, technicians had no time to address any outstanding issues, the main engines were a ticking time bomb, and the solid rocket booster O rings were damaged on 13 of 23 flights. And you've got a quote here from Paul Dye of flight director. "We felt comfortable because nothing terrible had happened. But what we didn't realize was that the terrible thing just hadn't happened yet. We lulled ourselves into thinking that because we had gotten away with it in the past, we could get away with it again." Meredith that's chilling. And it seems literally doomed. How does it culture get to be like that?
Meredith Bagby:It's such a good such a good question. And unfortunately, this is sometimes what happens with the intersection of science and politics. And the politicians who control the budget at NASA wanted something that just was unreasonable. And it was very hard for people at NASA to set expectations and set realistic expectations with those politicians. And you know, politicians have these grandiose ideas of things. We're going to, you know, build build this on Mars and we're going to build that on the moon and we're going to have a fleet this and that, but they don't want to pay for it and it's hard to go back to your constituents and ask them to pay for it. And as a result, the budget kept getting strained for the shuttle right from the beginning. I mean, right from the beginning. I think the budget the Nixon budget that that and the Carter budgets that helped that were the form the basis of the shuttles origin story were too small. And they continued to be too small throughout the program. And, but NASA wanted to survive. And NASA wanted to keep the keep this the shuttle alive because that was that was their mission at that point. And they, there were a lot of fictions that got circulated such as we can become a UPS truck to the stars, we can sell space on the space on the shuttle, we can put up commercial satellites and earn our money back. We can do this also for the military. And we can do this for foreign countries, and we can be everything to everybody. And the pressure just got too much. But they didn't want to lose the program. And you know, as Challenger was happening, they were trying to win, you know, and keep the support of Ronald Reagan, who at the time, you know, was running for office and wanted to appease the teachers union. And for that reason, you know, some suspect put Christa McAuliffe on board in the first place. They wanted to appease the military that wanted their spy satellites up at the time was the only the shuttle at some point became the only way the military could get anything into space, which is kind of bonkers, that we did that. But we did in the middle of the Cold War. And when the shuttle wasn't flying fast enough, the military got very angry and very nervous. They needed those spy satellites up to monitor the Russians and to to, you know, to see what the weapons built up. So anyway, the shuttle had to be everything to everybody. And this is what happened.
Andrew Prestage:And of course, we can't talk about the new guys, astronaut class of 1978. Without talking about the Challenger disaster, the explosion of shuttle Challenger shortly after launch, and the loss of the shuttle and all seven of its incredibly diverse and talented crew. On January 28 1986, there was a long, long chain of events that led to the Challenger disaster. It was a disaster made worse by the presence of a civilian school teacher, Christa McAuliffe. How did the accident affect other members of the new guys group, you spent hours talking to some of the other members?
Meredith Bagby:It was a catastrophic event, obviously, for the country. And in particular for the class. They had spent the last decade being each other's friends and rivals and lovers, and they were incredibly bonded. And it was, you know, it's hard to imagine, I mean, Kathy Sullivan talks about, you know, the, the movie I was in suddenly stopped, you know, and everything around me froze. And, you know, you hear a lot of, you know, words like that they're just they felt everything felt frozen and stopped in time. And it was unbelievable that this thing happened to them. And then, of course, they didn't fly for two years after that. And they had to go through a major refit. Well, the it was the Rogers Commission, which investigated obviously, the Challenger was a big moment of having to reckon with all of all of the, I would say mismanagement and the stresses that NASA faced. And then, of course, they had to rethink their management style. They had to rethink the design of the shuttle. They had to rethink everything. And, you know, some people left and a lot of people, but a lot of people stayed and but it was a two, a very long two year process. Both have rebuilt mourning and then rebuilding
Andrew Prestage:And the technicalities of the disaster. They've been well documented over the years, but your account adds something significant. The part that struck me most was the recovery. In the month following the accident, that crew working deep underwater off the coast of Cape Canaveral, you really humanize this. And it's heartbreaking, I felt more sad for those astronauts and their families and their colleagues than I ever had before. And it's a part of the story that's an uncomfortable read at times. And I get the feeling that there's more uncomfortable detail that you didn't write. And you delivered it in such a sensitive way very respectful how you crafted that section.
Meredith Bagby:Thank you. I think I rewrote that section probably 60 times it was the last the last red pen I that went in and it was very difficult to know how much to share with the public and how much not to share with the public and but I did feel that I spoke to one of my sources on that Jim Bagian, who was an astronaut class in 1980. And he was there for the recovery an eyewitness and had not really spoken on the record before about it. And I felt like what I owed, that the telling of that story was this understanding that they had not died on, they had not been incinerated, and that they actually survived the fall to the ocean and that NASA had neglected to put safety measures in place for potential rescue after an event like that. That was a monetary decision that was made very early on in the development process of the shuttle. But it also underlines this idea and this notion that they simply didn't have the budget that they needed to create a very, very safe craft. And I felt like we needed to tell that part of the story for that reason.
Andrew Prestage:And was it difficult interviewing people about their recovery? Was it difficult for Was it difficult for you? And was it difficult for them to revisit that time?
Meredith Bagby:I think for some people, it was very difficult. But it was also something that they wanted to share and wanted to get off of their chest. It's something obviously that stayed with them their whole lives. And so it felt in some way, cathartic, I think, for some people to talk about it. Of course,
Andrew Prestage:The boosters were redesigned, and the shuttle did return to fly just over two years later, and things were looking better for NASA through the year 2000. But 2003 was another tragic year for NASA with the loss of Columbia and another crew of seven talented astronauts. It was culture that led to the Challenger disaster 17 years earlier. And the investigation suggested that culture again, was the problem with Colombia. How on earth could this happen a second time.
Meredith Bagby:You know, there was there were quite a few years between those two events. And I think once again, NASA got very comfortable with their success record. And they the tile damage, of course, we saw tile damaged STS one, the very first flight of the shuttle saw tile damage. And many subsequent flights had seen title damage debris falling off during launch and damaging the shuttle. And it happened quite a few times along the way, again, with no catastrophic event happening. And I think that the administration at that time, they saw that debris fly off during launch, and some were very, very worried about it. But the people at the top felt like this was something that was happening all the time. And it was I think one writer told it when researcher called it the normalization of deviance. And this idea that well, if it hasn't, if it's it hasn't been a problem, it won't be a problem. And of course, that wasn't the case. And there were many people who along the way scientists and engineers who are watching the launch, they realized that there was a potential for catastrophe here. And NASA chose once again, not to try to triage the problem in space. And you know, and not to warn those astronauts about reentry, not in any real way. And so once again, a very similar set of events unfolded,
Andrew Prestage:The shuttle returned again, but by this stage was just too dangerous to operate.
Meredith Bagby:After, after to that so after 2003, you know, there was there were more investigations and more committees, and I you know, Sally Ride, obviously, who had made who, who had gained her fame on the shuttle was in some ways the person who is the architect of the end to you know, she pointed out that, from the beginning, the shuttle was a complicated was a complicated design, it was the most complex things machine humans have ever created. And with that complexity came a lot of danger and a lot of things that could go wrong. And potentially there were better designs to pursue at that point. And yes, that was the end. That was the end the beginning of the end, I should say.
Andrew Prestage:And just one final question for you Meredith. That must have been amazing to talk to members of the new guys group Fred Anna Guy, Steve, Shannon, Pinky Nelson, Rhea, Brewster and Kathy and others at NASA. They've all got incredible stories to tell. But what stands out for you as a personal highlight or personal memory for you while you were writing?
Meredith Bagby:Oh my gosh. There are so many there are so many. It's hard to say. I mean, probably I will say the first person I talked to is Anna Fisher and I got to meet her in person and I got to we got to go to she came out here once to Los Angeles and I went to Houston a couple of times and just meeting her in person and sitting and like eating salad and drinking iced tea. You know was my was probably - the and that I think those first meetings with her and she was so generous in terms of connecting me to the other class, or other classmates was really kind of such a highlight. And I'll mention one more, which was get to go to Frenchy's which was their hang out, with George Abbey and drank like an endless cup of coffee for several hours. And that was awesome, too.
Andrew Prestage:Fantastic. Meredith Bagby, It's been a real treat to talk with you. The book is The New Guys, the Historic Class of Astronauts that Broke Barriers and Changed the Face of Space Travel, and it's a cracking read. We wish you all the best with it Meredith. We'll have some links in the show notes to make sure everybody can find it. And thanks for joining us on Cosmic Coffee Time.
Meredith Bagby:Thank you so much. That was so much fun.
Andrew Prestage:Meredith's book, the New Guys is published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins. There's a link in the show notes or go to harpercollins.com and search The New Guys. Thanks for joining me. I'm Andrew Prestage. And I'll see you again soon for another Cosmic Coffee Time.