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THE FAMILIES Lure of space travel overshadows dangers
By Sarah Schweitzer and John McElhenny, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, 2/3/2003
A few years later, in 1996, Clark said yes to a seat on space shuttle Columbia. The danger was evident, but Clark, a flight surgeon, embraced the mission in the name of science, making the difficult calculation that all would go well and she'd return with unbeatable sci-fi tales to share with her son Iain. ''Not many of us get to pursue our dreams like she did,'' said Robert Salton, her father, a retired carpenter in Albuquerque. ''She was very lucky.'' The job of astronaut is rife with peril -- a point made painfully clear once again Saturday with the explosion of Columbia as it attempted to reenter earth's atmosphere, killing Clark, 41, and her six colleagues.
Astronaut is no longer the glamor job it was in the early days of space exploration. There are no ticker-tape parades, and few television spots awaiting astronauts when they return. For most, it's a matter of waiting out a desk job until the call comes offering a spot on the next shuttle mission -- trips so routine that networks and newspapers rarely devote much coverage to them. And yet, family members of Saturday's victims and former astronauts say the lure to space travel remains irresistible for some. ''There are lots of things we do that are dangerous,'' said Jeffrey A. Hoffman, an MIT professor who flew five shuttle missions, including one to repair the Hubble space telescope. ''Space travel is totally unforgiving of human errors or mechanical failures, but it has a larger significance as part of a larger journey to explore beyond our planet. You ask your family to go along with all that.'' The risk calculation is brought into view at times like these, when friends and loved ones are left to mourn. The seven astronauts aboard Columbia left behind at least nine children. The 80 astronauts now approved for space travel are parents to more than 100 children. Specialists say astronauts are keenly aware of the danger but hold tight to the knowledge that most missions go off without a hitch. They know that people die doing their jobs every day, whether it's driving a truck or working on a construction site. ''These people assume they'll all be coming home,'' said Bettyann Kevles, who has interviewed 30 astronauts for a book about women in space. ''They all think things are going to be all right, but they know that they're sitting on thousands of pounds of dynamite.'' People attracted to space travel often share personality traits, specialists say. Patricia Santy, a former NASA psychiatrist who studied people who choose to go into space, said their leisure pursuits, listed in biographical sketches on NASA's website, tell the story as well as any psychological profile: mountain climbing, sky diving, parasailing, parachuting, wind surfing. Santy, who was crew surgeon for the shuttle, said every time she accompanied astronauts on a jet test flight, she realized she might never again set foot on earth. But the astronauts do not allow themselves that fear, she said. ''They tend not to be overwhelmingly introspective people, so they tend not to talk about their feelings a lot,'' Santy said. ''If you think about your feelings too much, it can get in the way of what you're doing, especially if it's dangerous.'' Gerald Carr, a retired astronaut living outside Huntsville, Ark., had a wife and six children when he flew an Apollo mission to the Skylab space station in 1973-74. Had he not tucked away his feelings, he said, the trip could never have happened. ''I think most of us who do this can compartmentalize our thinking and emotions,'' said Carr, who spent 84 days in space. ''Basically, what you do is put your thoughts behind you and focus.'' Like many Americans, MIT sophomore Omar Bashir, 19, said he had been riveted to the television since Saturday's disaster. Bashir, who is studying aeronautics, says he thinks about becoming an astronaut himself one day. Now, he said, he's more committed than before to venturing into space. ''This doesn't scare me at all,'' Bashir said. ''You can learn things on the earth, but to actually go into space and experience what the great majority of the world hasn't seen, that's worth the information in 1,000 books.''
This story ran on page A6 of the Boston Globe on 2/3/2003.
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© Copyright 2003 New York Times Company |
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hen she gave birth eight years ago, Laurel Blair Salton Clark forfeited sky diving. The risk was too high, the thrill gone, now that she called a little boy her own.
