What A History to Build a Future On

Posted on 8 May 2024 by David Hitt

Bob Crippen egressing the shuttle. Image Source: NASA https://www.nasa.gov/history/sts-1-astronaut-bob-crippen-remembers-the-ride-of-his-life/

If the valves are merciful, a bit of space history will be made this month.

Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft, developed under NASA’s Commercial Crew program, was slated to make its first flight on May 6. A valve issue pushed it back, and it’s now targeting launch no earlier than May 17.

As history-making goes, Starliner is likely doomed to be a bit overshadowed. Its initial raison d’être will be to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, a task SpaceX’s Crew Dragon began performing under the NASA Commercial Crew program in 2020. In an era when much of the space world’s focus is on the Moon, the sixth new US spacecraft to carry astronauts to Earth orbit may not receive the same attention as the first five, or even the seventh – as Orion is poised to carry the Artemis II crew on lap around Earth before a historic lunar jaunt next year.

But history it is.

I love to talk about my great-aunt’s experience working as a NASA contractor. I don’t know exactly when she started and when she left, but I know she was supporting Marshall during the Gemini program, and I know she was there for the return to flight after Challenger – at least a quarter century that saw the first flights of Apollo and shuttle, along with the first landings on the Moon.

Starliner awaiting launch. Image credit: NASA. https://twitter.com/Commercial_Crew/status/1787712732319330484

Someone who started a quarter-century career supporting NASA when she left would have gone their entire time never seeing a new US spacecraft carry astronaut to orbit. They would have seen a lot of other history – space stations and Mars rovers and telescopes and more – but no new American crew vehicles.

My tenure as a Marshall contractor has seen one already, and is about to see two more.

We are living in a Golden Age of space.

I enjoyed reading this week interviews with the three living astronauts who have done what the Starliner crew is about to do – fly in a US spacecraft no one has flown in before. Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley flew the first Dragon four years ago; Bob Crippen was pilot of the first flight of the space shuttle, 43 years ago. In Crippen’s case, it was not just a vehicle nobody had flown in before, it was a vehicle that hadn’t flown before, period. Unlike every other US crew vehicle, there was no uncrewed test flight of shuttle – John Young and Crippen were along for the ride the first time it left Earth.

The first space shuttle launch, STS-1. Image credit: NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/mission/sts-1/

Bob Crippen, for the record, is kind of amazing. I’ve had the opportunity as a former journalist and a history writer to interview some incredible people, but I don’t know that I was as awestruck talking to anyone as I was talking to Crip, about Skylab and SMEAT and having his spaceship shot by a Soviet space laser.

When I was getting ready to publish my space shuttle history, “Bold They Rise,” Crippen was kind enough to write the foreword, and he talked in it about how he had the confidence to get in the cockpit of the shuttle for its first flight. And a lot of that confidence came from touring the country, meeting the people working on his ship, looking them in the eyes, and knowing that they were working to make sure he came home safely at the end of his mission.

It’s been a decade since “Bold They Rise” came out, and I’m now part of a team working on getting another space vehicle ready to carry its first crew. We have something Young and Crippen did not – a successful uncrewed test flight behind us – but it’s still a daunting responsibility. Crippen’s words have stuck with me; I’ve had the opportunity to meet the Artemis II crew when they came to Marshall, and I am looking forward to meeting them again when they come home safely at the end of the mission, and history is made again.

It’s a privilege to watch this history unfold. It’s incredible what this generation gets to see. I look forward to watching Starliner fly, and wish all the best to both the crew and the people responsible for making sure all their valves are safe. Because that’s how history is made.

The Artemis II crew. Image credit: NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/our-artemis-crew/

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The Golden Age of Space

Posted on 15 December 2023 by David Hitt

My great-aunt worked as a contractor supporting NASA Marshall Space Flight Center for over 20 years. I’m not entirely sure exactly when it began and ended, but I know she was there during Gemini, and I know she was there for the return to flight after Challenger. During her tenure, she saw Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and space shuttle.

I began working as a contractor supporting Marshall over a decade later. It struck me that someone who had a tenure equal to hers from the last years of her time there to the early years of mine, rather than the plethora of programs she had seen, would have seen space shuttle their entire time.

I was a little jealous of the Golden Age my aunt had seen.

I haven’t been at Marshall as long as my aunt was yet, but I’m starting to get very close.

Last week, I got to talk with the Artemis II crew that will be the next human beings to circle the Moon. Yesterday, I shook hands with the first American to spend a continuous year in space. I’m grateful that I got to work at Marshall while we were still flying the space shuttle, a magnificent vehicle that in some ways will never be equaled, but I love when crews visit and share their experiences with the different spaceships they’ve flown on, and I look forward to seeing Orion and Starliner added to that list, soon. I’ve watched in person as a rocket with more power than Saturn V left Earth, and as a rocket landed after lofting astronauts toward the space station.

My aunt got to see some amazing stuff during her time at Marshall. But if I were offered the chance to trade experiences with her, I wouldn’t even have to think about it.

The Golden Age of Space is just getting started.

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“One Never Graduates From Ole Miss”

Posted on 6 November 2023 by David Hitt

“Ole Miss is a million memories, a million dreams, a million hopes, a million aims blended into one viable regenerating totality of experience and aspiration.

The University gives a diploma and regretfully terminates tenure, but one never graduates from Ole Miss.”

My alma mater turns 175 today.

Those 175 years have seen a lot of history, and that simple name Ole Miss carries the full weight of that history, good and bad. The beginning of my tenure there was closer in time to James Meredith’s than to today’s freshman, and I’ve seen a lot of change on that postage stamp of Oxford soil, to paraphrase a former Ole Miss postmaster, William Faulkner.

Decades out, rarely a year goes by that I don’t still visit campus more than once, and it’s still home in a way that belies the dwindling portion of my life those four years were.

The words at the top of this post were displayed in the main staircase of the Student Union when I was there, and with each passing year I better appreciate just how true they are.

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Celebrating Skylab

Posted on 2 October 2023 by David Hitt

Somehow, I missed having “wear a gold disco suit to talk to Skylab astronauts in front of hundreds of people” on my bucket list, but the U.S. Space & Rocket Center can make even the dreams you didn’t know you have come true.

Friday night, I had the honor of serving as emcee for USSRC’s ’70s-themed Skylab 50th anniversary celebration, including a conversation with Skylab astronauts Jack Lousma and my friend and co-author Joe Kerwin.

Twenty years ago, I was in the audience for the Skylab 30th-anniversary event at USSRC, and that event drove home that someone should write a book about this incredible story, contributing to the genesis of what became Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story.

It was so very special Friday to have come full circle, once again celebrating a Skylab anniversary at the Rocket Center, but this time on stage with the astronauts.

It’s a huge tribute to the USSRC team what an amazing night it was. They’ve become experts at elevating events into celebrations, and everyone had a great time.

I’m blessed to have had this amazing adventure, and blessed to live in a city where amazing dreams take flight.

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Telling the Stories of My Town

Posted on 14 July 2023 by David Hitt

After eight years and countless posts, I’ve written my last article as a regular blogger for the Huntsville-Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau #iHeartHsv Blog.

I’m so grateful to have had this opportunity. This little city I was born in is an incredibly special place, and it’s been an honor for me to get to tell people about just how special it is. 

My last piece, a quiz about “Which Huntsville restaurant are you?” is here.

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Stewarding the Outward Odyssey

Posted on 23 June 2023 by David Hitt

Things I signed in a 24-hour period this week:

• Dozens of books for teachers

• A moon rocket.

On Wednesday, I got to sign my name on the SLS Orion Stage Adapter for Artemis II, scheduled to launch next year.

On Thursday, I gave my weekly summer Skylab talk to teachers at Space Camp, and signed copies of Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story for all the teachers.

Both were an incredible privilege, and together a good reminder of a point I make to the teachers each week – all of these things are part of an ongoing adventure.

Skylab was 50 years ago this year. It’s history – history we can learn from, history that can inspire.

Artemis II is scheduled to launch next year. It will see astronauts fly around the Moon for the first time in over half a century. It’s a step toward the next footprints on the lunar surface.

But even those next footprints are just another step – Mars and other worlds await. And carrying that torch forward will be a new generation of scientists and engineers and astronauts and more. My charge to the Space Camp teachers – go home and educate and inspire that future workforce that will accomplish things the Skylab generation and the Artemis generation never dreamed. Do good work.

I’m honored to have chronicled past chapters of our outward odyssey. I’m honored to be involved in the current chapter. But I’m most honored to be a steward of the adventure for those who keep it going.

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Standing Between Giants

Posted on 25 May 2023 by David Hitt

Fifty years ago today, my Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story co-author Joe Kerwin and his crewmates departed Earth for Skylab on a Saturn IB rocket launching from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39B.

This anniversary is a special one because it’s a big round number, of course, but it’s also special to me because since the 49th, I’ve seen “my own” rocket launch from that very same launch pad. I’m jealous that Joe got to ride his rocket, but it’s surreal to me that I got to be any sort of part of a launch from the same pad.

I have the privilege of talking to Space Camp teachers every summer, and I think that I stress to them is that Skylab and Apollo and Shuttle and Artemis aren’t stand-alone discrete stories; that they are all part of an ongoing journey, and that they will go back to their classrooms and shape the astronauts, scientists, engineers and others who will author the next chapters of that story.

We stand today on the shoulders of giants who got us to where we are, we now are at the dawn of a new golden age of exploration, but that next generation will get to see and do things we have not yet even dreamed.

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Fifty Years of Skylab

Posted on 14 May 2023 by David Hitt

Fifty years ago today, my life changed, though I wouldn’t know it for 30 years, and wouldn’t even be born for two.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Skylab. There are lots of articles today about how Skylab changed spaceflight. And it’s true – I’ve given many many talks over the years about how Skylab was the reboot, to use today’s parlance, of American spaceflight, a new start after Apollo that shifted the focus from racing *through space* to the Moon, to living and working *in space* for the first time, to homesteading space, laying the foundation for everything that’s come since.

But that’s big and academic-sounding and the sort of importance about which history books are written. More visceral and more powerful are the stories not about how it changed spaceflight, but how it changed people.

That was the biggest joy of writing Homesteading Space, was talking to those people, from astronauts to engineers to educators and more, and hearing their voices as they talked about how this giant can of metal in the sky had changed their lives, how it had touched them.

It’s surreal to me that I get to be one of those people, to tell stories of friends that it’s still weird that I even got to know, of adventures I’m incredibly blessed to have had, and of the stories I get to steward for the rest of my life.

And I love the idea that, when my son is a few years older than I am, someone might ask him about his name, and he can talk about his dad’s friend, and about a rocket that launched an entire century earlier, and paved the way for space stories I today can’t even imagine.

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That One Night of Skylab and Comedy

Posted on 8 May 2023 by David Hitt

I’ve given a lot of Skylab talks over the years, and I’ve been in a lot of comedy shows, but they’d never been the same thing, until Saturday night.

It was an incredible thrill to be invited by Rocket City Improv to be the guest storyteller at their Stories on Stage show at Shenanigans Comedy Theatre this month, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Skylab. I told stories from Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story, and they performed hilarious scenes “inspired” by the stories – feuds with the windmill section astronauts, the best zero-g special effects you’ve seen on stage, and research into what WOULD happen if you launch cobras to bite and kill astronauts in space, which really hasn’t been studied.

The beauty and sorrow of improv is that it’s ephemeral – if you weren’t there Saturday night, you’ve missed out forever on an incredible show, but if you haven’t been to one of the Stories on Stage performances featuring a new storyteller each month, you really should.

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Artemis II: We Are Going

Posted on 3 April 2023 by David Hitt

NASA today announced the Artemis II that soon will become the first human beings to fly around the Moon since 1972 – Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen.

When I was awarded NASA’s Silver Snoopy several years ago, Glover was the astronaut that presented it to me. More recently, I had the opportunity to emcee Koch’s induction into the Space Camp Hall of Fame. (I didn’t get see her in person that night, she was in space at the time.)

I say that as a reminder of this – this is real. This is happening. These are real people, about to do something incredible, for all of humankind. Even if you’ve never met any of these four astronauts, if you’re reading this, you’re just two degrees of separation from real people who are about to carry our species once more into deep space. How crazy is that?

This is the Golden Age of space. 

We. Are. Going.

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