NASA’s New Mission Through the Eyes of a Space Veteran

By MARK PATINKIN

He grew up in Harmony, flew helicopters in Vietnam, spent years as a test pilot and was a Shuttle astronaut in the 1980s.

Woody Spring orbited the earth for almost a week in November of 1985. Two months later, the Challenger blew up.

I got to thinking about Spring because NASA just announced a new vision. If Congress approves, they want to go back to the moon and Mars. I thought I’d track him down and catch up.

Spring has two brothers and a sister still in Rhode Island who pointed me his way. He lives in Virginia and works for one the world’s biggest defense contractors, BAE. As Spring puts it, they build a lot of airplanes and ships.

He’s associate director of its “Innovative Intelligence Division,” which means he’s lately been helping the U.S. military plan for next-generation warfare.

He explained that winning with force is no longer enough. The military has to also win politically, psychologically, even at rebuilding a country’s infrastructure and economy.

That’s where a lot of the battle is being fought now in Iraq, Spring said. His current project is to help give the military this wider focus so it can win future conflicts, or even better, avoid them.

He was an astronaut for eight years, until 1988. I asked if he missed it.

“Sure do.”

He just turned 61 and he’s one of only hundreds of people who have gone to space. He’s known for being good at describing the experience. That’s one of the reasons I called. I’d met him once, briefly, and have long wanted to ask him what it was like to be inside when the shuttle lifted off.

His was a nighttime launch.

“You go out to the pad,” Spring said, “and you think, ‘Wow, this is a live vehicle.’ It’s hissing and belching. It’s got liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, minus 320 and minus 340. It’s squealing and making noises. That vehicle is alive.”

The countdown started. He was strapped in. He said it’s like being in a chair tipped over backward on the floor.

The main engine ignited at five seconds.

“It’s like lions growling in the room behind you,” Spring said. “There’s a lot of rumble, man. It’s wonderful. It’s going to happen.”

Then it got down to one second.

“It’s like, ‘bam,’ ” recalled Spring. “Like someone hit the back of your head with a sledgehammer.”

The engines, he said, have enough thrust to lift over 7 million pounds. The ship began to rise.

“It almost sounds like it’s a pick-up truck full of sheet metal going over railroad tracks,” said Spring. “A lot of pieces being shook pretty hard.”

It was a rough ride for a minute or two, and then it felt like he was in a smooth, soaring elevator.

After eight minutes, the main engines cut off, the external tank was jettisoned, and he was able to stand and go to the window. Briefly, he looked down at the earth, which the shuttle had begun to orbit at 17,500 miles per hour, fast enough to circle it in 90 minutes.

Spring reports that seasoned flyers don’t feel too good up there the first few days.

“Your stomach and inner ear,” he says, “are telling the brain, ‘I’m confused, what’s going on?’ “

Spring’s mission was to launch three communications satellites, for Mexico, Australia and RCA.

He also did two six-hour space walks. He spent them building metal systems that mimicked the work for a future space station so NASA could plan the real thing. He put together one system that was 45 feet long.

I asked what he missed during his week up there.

“You missed hugging the wife and kids,” he said. “You missed being able to walk around with fresh green grass between the toes. You missed a nice greasy hamburger. You missed a shower.”

A dozen shuttle missions were flown during Spring’s year, and everyone thought they’d continue like that.

“The Challenger was a rude awakening,” he said.

I asked if going to space changed him.

“I’m not a tree-hugger environmentalist,” he said. “At the same time I realize this is a fragile planet. It’s gorgeous from space. You see mostly the oceans. The weather. You don’t see any borders or boundaries.”

What does he think about the new NASA plan to go to the moon and Mars?

He expects it won’t be easy to get the $100 billion NASA needs, especially after Iraq and the hurricanes.

“But I still think we should do it,” he said.

THE NEW moon-Mars program would mean the end of the Shuttle.

Spring would have no regrets.

“It’s about time,” he said. “Long past due. The Shuttle’s a 1960s vintage design. It was a workhorse for a while, but we’re finding out it’s a lot more fragile than we thought.”

Spring feels various mistakes did lead to the Shuttle disasters, but takes a broad view.

“Should we never have explored the world – how many ship crews did we lose doing that?” he said. “Any time you lose human life it’s tragic. On the other hand certain endeavors are inherently dangerous. Zero tolerance for any failures means you’ll do nothing. That’s not an acceptable.”

I asked if he thinks we’ve lost our way in our approach to space, as some critics claim.

I got the impression he prefers a bolder vision.

“When NASA went to building a space station,” he said, “that’s near-earth orbit, which is not exploring the solar system.”

He feels the station was necessary, but he wants it to be a jump- off point to further places.

“I’d love to go to the moon and Mars,” said Spring. “I think that’s our destiny at some point.”

I asked if that means NASA’s true mission is exploring the solar system.

“Or mankind’s mission,” said Spring.

As a history buff, he’s aware that a key reason explorers set out in search of the new world of America is that Europe was becoming crowded.

“Whether it’s a hundred years from now or 500 years from now,” he said, “I think there will be colonies on the moon and Mars.”

It’s not that whole populations will move there, but it’s part of charting new worlds. Our species, said Spring, is about exploration.

“I remember talking to the astronauts who went to the moon,” said Spring, “and asking if they ever gaze up and think, ‘I was there.’ Almost to a man they said ‘No.’ “

Why not?

“Because it was more about the trip,” said Spring. “It’s about exploring new things. Doing something new.”

It’s what he tries to do in his own career.

“That’s one reason I’m with the ‘Innovative’ Intelligence Unit,” he said, “instead of the ‘Same-Old-Way’ Intelligence Unit. I like doing something new.”

One final question: Does he expect a person will walk on Mars in his lifetime?

“I’m 61,” said Woody Spring. “Maybe we’re talking 30 years. There’s a good chance.”

And he’d like to see it very much.

Mark Patinkin can be reached at mpatinkin@projo.com.

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* Woody Spring in a photo from his astronaut days.

COURTESY NATIONAL AERONAUTICS

AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION