Other segments from the episode on February 4, 2003
Transcript
DATE February 4, 2003 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A⨠TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A⨠NETWORK NPR⨠PROGRAM Fresh Airâ¨â¨Interview: Jerry Linenger discusses his new book "Letters fromâ¨Mir," his five months on board the space station and the Columbiaâ¨disasterâ¨TERRY GROSS, host:â¨â¨This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.â¨â¨In the wake of the Columbia catastrophe, we knew we wanted to talk with formerâ¨astronaut Jerry Linenger because he's very articulate and reflective aboutâ¨life in space, the challenges and the risks. In 1997, Linenger left behindâ¨his pregnant wife and 14-month-old son to spend five months aboard the Russianâ¨Space Station Mir. During this joint US-Russian mission, he traveled theâ¨equivalent distance of 110 round-trips to the moon. The space station was inâ¨a state of deterioration, communication with Russian ground control wasâ¨terrible and something was always going wrong. Linenger survived a couple ofâ¨near catastrophes on board, including a fire that raged out of control for 14â¨minutes.â¨â¨Throughout the mission, he wrote letters to his young son. He recentlyâ¨collected those letters in a book called "Letters from Mir." His previousâ¨book is the memoir "Off the Planet." I recorded this interview with Jerryâ¨Linenger yesterday afternoon.â¨â¨Jerry Linenger, welcome back to FRESH AIR.â¨â¨I want to start by quoting something that you say in your book "Letters fromâ¨Mir." You say, "Launching rockets entails big risks. One cannot argue withâ¨that. To most observers, the people inside are brave souls. But whenâ¨climbing into a rocket, I cannot say that I ever felt particularly courageousâ¨or brave. I just did it, primarily, because that is what I was prepared to doâ¨and that was what I had been trained to do."â¨â¨Did you ever let your imagination wander to what it would be like if somethingâ¨went terribly wrong and you did die in space?â¨â¨Captain JERRY LINENGER (Former Astronaut): I think every astronaut does faceâ¨up to that fact. I don't know of anyone that dwells on that fact, but, yes,â¨we all recognize the risk. Yes, we know, you know, the ultimate sacrificeâ¨might be made. But I think we all believe so much in the purpose of whatâ¨we're doing out there exploring, the honor to represent our countries, toâ¨represent our world, that you say the personal sacrifice is worth it. Soâ¨never anything you had to dwell on, just something that, yes, you knew aboutâ¨and you face it, you deal with it, you try to prepare your family for it. Youâ¨let your family know that you want to be doing this.â¨â¨GROSS: Are astronauts taught to deal with these kinds of thoughts? Are theyâ¨addressed? Are these, like, psychological, emotional issues addressed in yourâ¨training?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: I think they are specifically with a lot of the psychologicalâ¨testing we do, but probably it's the selection process that picks people thatâ¨have been in tough, difficult situations, have reacted well to thoseâ¨situations. And so it is a very pre-screened group, if you will, based onâ¨life experience; deep sea divers, parachutists, people that have flown offâ¨aircraft carriers. We've all dealt with almost suppressing the emotion duringâ¨the operation and that's what I talked about at launch, actually. Emotion'sâ¨there, but during it you're concentrating on the task. You don't feelâ¨particularly brave. You're just doing your job, and your mind doesn't haveâ¨time to bring the fear up.â¨â¨GROSS: Now what about your family? What about the families of astronauts?â¨They're not doing the task and their minds are free to wander. And, you know,â¨they love their family very much and, I'm sure, are worried about theâ¨astronaut that's about to launch off? Are they given any kind ofâ¨psychological preparation for that? And, like, did you talk to your wife aâ¨lot about the dangers before you took off for the space station?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: I think practically, NASA's done well since Challenger toâ¨make sure the family has all the support that they need. They send anotherâ¨astronaut along with the family if the family requests that or if the familyâ¨doesn't say they don't want that. You know, it is a big family--you hear it,â¨but, believe me, the astronaut corps is a big family. We're togetherâ¨socially. You know each other, you know each other's families and youâ¨actually have a representative that you choose, one of the astronauts, thatâ¨should you die, that person is the person that you want to be with yourâ¨family. And so, I think these things are sort of discussed. They're notâ¨dwelt upon and, you know, you just--it's the recognition of it.â¨â¨I just talked to my wife a couple days ago about, you know, did she ever haveâ¨real fears when I went up. And it was interesting. She said the launch wasâ¨the thing. And, in retrospect, it's probably because of Challenger. Now thatâ¨we've had this Columbia tragedy, I think people'll be on pins and needles onâ¨both ends.â¨â¨GROSS: Right. Did you say a particularly ceremonial goodbye before takingâ¨off in the space shuttle for the space station, or did you try to keep thatâ¨kind of emotionally cool so it doesn't get too upsetting?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: A tough time for me. I can remember distinctly, a rainy dayâ¨in Houston. You're leaving crew quarters. You're in isolation from then onâ¨and, you know, kissing my wife goodbye and putting my little son in his carâ¨seat, the car driving away and John reaching out for Daddy and, you know, aâ¨tough moment. So I think, yes, you know, the raw emotions are there. It tookâ¨me five or 10 minutes to recover and get back in and, you know, join the otherâ¨astronauts. So we all have those private moments. You try to leave thingsâ¨said and not unsaid before you go on an adventure like that, and a riskyâ¨adventure.â¨â¨GROSS: There are three astronauts, two Americans and one Russian, that areâ¨aboard this space station now. And they were supposed to end their tour ofâ¨duty in March, return to Earth and come back to Earth on a space shuttle. Butâ¨now it seems improbable that there will be a space shuttle launched thatâ¨quickly to take them back to Earth, so my understanding is that they've beenâ¨told they're going to have to wait. And I'm wondering--you know, youâ¨spent--Was it four months? You spent five months...â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: About four and a half.â¨â¨GROSS: Yeah.â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: Yeah, close to five. It's a long time.â¨â¨GROSS: Yeah, on the Space Station Mir.â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: Yeah.â¨â¨GROSS: What do you think your reaction would have been--this is justâ¨speculation, but you know, if you had been there, more or less ready to comeâ¨home, and hearing about a disaster on the space shuttle...â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: I think I know exactly...â¨â¨GROSS: ...and then waiting, knowing you had to wait more?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: It's not even really--it's sort of speculation, but I'll tellâ¨you. In my mind, it would have been very, very difficult and I knew that. Onâ¨Mir, we had a lot of problems, obviously. We were working day and nightâ¨trying to keep the space station alive, and I'll tell you, I wanted to get theâ¨work done. I did not want to come back, look at principal investigators,â¨scientists from around the world, and tell them I failed and I did not carryâ¨out my mission. So I worked very hard for four months. And to be honest, Iâ¨sort of paced myself. And at night, I would have my self-doubts and I wouldâ¨say, `Jerry, you can make it for another month. You can keep this pace up forâ¨another 10 days. You can keep going for another two minutes.' And if theâ¨shuttle had not shown up when it did, I know, at least in my case, that I wasâ¨spent and it would have been very hard to rise to the occasion and perform inâ¨the manner that I wanted to perform.â¨â¨The people up there now--Ken Bowersox I went to the Naval Academy with. I'veâ¨known him for over 20 years; a quality person. Don Pettit's up there, Nikolaiâ¨Budarin. You know, again, I think you understand that things can be delayedâ¨and you sort of try to prepare yourself for that. But again, after my fiveâ¨months in space, there was no finer day in the world than when that spaceâ¨shuttle was in the rear-view mirror coming to pick me up. So it's not easy,â¨psychologically, to deal with the delay after a long time in space.â¨â¨GROSS: What provisions are being made to enable them to stay in space longerâ¨than they planned?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: The Russians have just launched a resupply rocket going upâ¨there, and I'm sure they may have modified a few things there to make sureâ¨they have all the supplies that they need. My understanding is it's probablyâ¨till the end of June they're going to be OK.â¨â¨The other thing you have, and it's the same thing we had on the Russian Spaceâ¨Station Mir, you have a Soyuz capsule parked there at all times for emergencyâ¨evacuations. And so you still have that means of getting up there via theâ¨Russian Soyuz rocket and you still have a means to return. The Mir, at theâ¨time I was on board, they thought if we did abandon it, it was probablyâ¨unrecoverable. The International Space Station probably is recoverable. Youâ¨can control from the ground, try to keep the systems running. And it's tooâ¨early to speculate on that, but these people are not trapped up there by anyâ¨means.â¨â¨GROSS: And I imagine it makes perfect sense to you to wait and do moreâ¨investigation before launching another shuttle.â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: Absolutely. And, you know, sort of the good news is that allâ¨the data is pointing in sort of one direction and everything sort of makesâ¨sense without examining the wreckage yet, and that's a good thing. The soonerâ¨you can determine exactly what went wrong, the sooner you can start makingâ¨corrections. So, you know, the good news is that all indicators are pointingâ¨in the same direction and you can make logical sense of what happened.â¨â¨GROSS: My guest is retired astronaut Jerry Linenger. We'll talk more after aâ¨break. This is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Captain Jerry Linenger. He'sâ¨an astronaut who spent about five months aboard the Soviet space station, theâ¨Mir. He's traveled on the space shuttle. His latest book is called "Lettersâ¨from Mir: An Astronaut's Letters to His Son."â¨â¨During the nearly five months you were aboard the space station, you wroteâ¨letters to your 14-month-old son. You knew that your son was too young toâ¨read them at the time, but I guess you wanted them there as a document of howâ¨you were feeling, of what you were experiencing and as a legacy if that wasâ¨necessary, as well. You were writing these letters from the isolation ofâ¨space. Can you describe how the isolation of space compares with, you know,â¨feeling isolated on Earth?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: It's exponentially greater. I had been, as I say, a navalâ¨officer, in the middle of the ocean on a lot of ships. I actually did someâ¨research of living in isolation in Antarctica. I prepared myself to the bestâ¨of my ability for that five-month mission. But I'll tell you, the isolationâ¨was just profound. You are cut off; in that case not the nice communicationâ¨systems that the shuttle or the new space station have, but the Russian spaceâ¨station, poor communications. And it's yourself and, in my case, two otherâ¨Russians who only speak in Russian. When we do talk to the Earth every 90â¨minutes for a garbled two or three minutes, you're only talking in Russian.â¨â¨And it reminds me of Pascal's Pensees, where he talks about going in a room,â¨closing the door and are you comfortable with who you are. And you have toâ¨face yourself every day; a lot of reflection on what you're made out of. Andâ¨there is self-doubt and, you know, pretty confident people--I think I'm aâ¨confident person, I think all astronauts are. But I'll tell you, a lot ofâ¨self-doubt in the evenings when you sit back and say, `Am I going to perform?â¨I'm out here by myself, is what it feels like, and I've got to hold up.'â¨â¨GROSS: What about your communications with NASA? What kind of communicationsâ¨did you have with them from the space station?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: I had essentially zero. It was a Russian space station. Weâ¨were learning how the Russians operated. It was in the infancy of thatâ¨cooperative spirit at that time, and so my only conversations were to theâ¨people in Mission Control-Moscow and, again, only in Russian. There was aâ¨small contigency--two or three Americans there--that could sometimes listen inâ¨and sometimes I'd have enough communication time to talk in English to them.â¨But it was probably down to once a week and very poor communications, so youâ¨are just cut off. And I'll tell you, when I came back, I would just sort ofâ¨gawk at people and say, `Wow, look at all these earthlings, how beautiful theyâ¨are. The diversity of human beings, what a great give we have here on theâ¨planet.' You know, if you sat next to me on an airplane, Terry, I'd be theâ¨guy jabbing you in the ribs saying, `Wake up. You know, talk to me. Tell meâ¨about Philadelphia. Tell me about your show.' I wouldn't let you sleep. Iâ¨would just be overjoyed to be sitting next to another human being.â¨â¨GROSS: The astronauts who are still on the space station and are stuck thereâ¨because we can't launch another shuttle in the near future to bring them down,â¨they're going to be getting more supplies from an unmanned space vehicle. Iâ¨think it's the Progress, is that right?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: That's correct, the Russian Progress capsule.â¨â¨GROSS: And that's the same unmanned vehicle that delivered supplies to youâ¨when you were on the space station and also would take your garbage away. Youâ¨call it the garbage truck in your letters to your son.â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: Yeah, it is. 'Cause it burns up coming in the atmosphere,â¨and so you just put all the discards in there once you've gotten the goodâ¨stuff off of it and then it burns up with all your waste material, for oneâ¨thing, and all the excess stuff you have on board.â¨â¨GROSS: Now that isn't a simple procedure either, hooking up with thisâ¨unmanned vehicle. This vehicle nearly rammed the space station one of theâ¨times when you were hooking up, which would have been the end for you and theâ¨space station. What's that process like?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: I'm not sure if it would have been the end because actually,â¨it did ram the space station about two weeks after I left and my two Russianâ¨crewmates were still aboard along with my replacement, Mike Foale. And youâ¨remember that drama, rapid decompression and they, by the skin of their teeth,â¨were able to isolate that module by closing some hatches and keep the spaceâ¨station alive. You know, nothing is trivial in space, nothing.â¨â¨GROSS: What are some of the things you had to get precisely right in order toâ¨dock with the Progress?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: Everything has to be aligned exactly correctly and you've gotâ¨to come in at just the right speed. You're too soft then the two vehiclesâ¨sort of just repel each other. Without making it too complicated, you'reâ¨inside this spacecraft trying to fly an incoming spacecraft to dock with theâ¨space station, and you do that by looking at a monitor which reflects a cameraâ¨inside the Progress. So you're essentially inside the space station trying toâ¨fly in a remote-controlled spacecraft. And those views were not so crisp. Itâ¨gets to the point where you don't even know where that spacecraft is coming inâ¨and you're running from window to window trying to bark out orders andâ¨directions to the silly who's got the thruster firings in the grip of hisâ¨hands--which direction to fire thrusters to get this thing to come in or, inâ¨our case, to miss us. You know, a tough time; a tough time.â¨â¨Very difficult in space judging distances and good luck saying, you know, `Youâ¨need to turn right, you know. What does that mean, turn right? If I'm upsideâ¨down, that might be left.â¨â¨GROSS: Right.â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: I mean, it is very difficult without other objects. Youâ¨ought to try that one. It's a good mind game. Give yourself no other pointsâ¨of reference, just a spacecraft out there, you know, up, down, left, right.â¨Different world; it is a different world. You have to think differentlyâ¨there.â¨â¨And imagine this. You know, both vehicles are going 18,000 miles an hour.â¨You're weighing 100 tons. The Space Station Mir was weighing 120 tons. Youâ¨know, my God, how do we do it? That's, I guess, the take home that I have ofâ¨everything in our space program is, you know: `My God, how do we do it?' Itâ¨is incredible what we do. And we build upon our experience in the past and,â¨yes, we build upon, you know, the Apollo I fire and the Challenger disasterâ¨and, hopefully, we build upon what happened with Columbia.â¨â¨GROSS: The biggest emergency that you faced, the most life-threatening one,â¨was a fire that broke out on the space station that you had to put out. Weâ¨talked about this fire during your last visit to FRESH AIR, but I just want toâ¨talk about it a little bit again. Can you explain, like, how big the fire wasâ¨and what you needed to do to put it out in space?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: Yeah. This fire was in an oxygen-generating system. It wasâ¨actually the backup system to the failed primary system. It sort of looksâ¨like a small garbage can; metallic, filled with a slurry of oxygen-richâ¨chemical. It percolates a little oxygen into the air, which, of course,â¨replenishes the oxygen that you need up there as your metabolism burns itâ¨down.â¨â¨So we had started one of those devices up. Instead of percolating a littleâ¨oxygen, the device, which should have absolutely no flame--it's sort of anâ¨exothermic reaction to release oxygen--instead turns into a big fire and it'sâ¨a blowtorch. It's a three- or four-foot length flame coming out about a footâ¨and a half in diameter, blowtorchlike in intensity, sparks flying off the endâ¨of it. It looks like someone lit a box of 100 sparklers. Molten metal flyingâ¨across and literally coating the far bulkhead with pancake-sized splatters.â¨So we've got a red-hot, metal-melting fire, smoke billowing out, within 30â¨seconds can't see the five fingers in front of your face. Master alarmsâ¨blaring all over the place, smoke warning lights, fire warning lights, lowâ¨voltage lights; everything going wrong very quickly. Nowhere to go; can'tâ¨call the fire department.â¨â¨Actually in that case, we didn't have enough capability to get both crews off,â¨so you're sort of faced with three people leave and the other three stayâ¨behind. At that time, it was an overlap of the crews and you couldn't get toâ¨the one Soyuz vehicle because the fire was in the way. So, you know, you'reâ¨committed to it. I guess that's, you know, the same thing with the bravery.â¨Are you brave in that situation? Not especially. You're just trying toâ¨survive. You're there, you have limited options; you're committed is what youâ¨are. And at that point I yelled out, `We're going to get this fire out, I'mâ¨going to see my family again, I'm going to get back to Earth.'â¨â¨And, you know, we snapped to, grabbed fire extinguishers, put on respirators.â¨It was the only thing to keep us alive. Actually, my first respirator failedâ¨and you really need oxygen when you're in the middle of the soup of the smoke;â¨yanked that off, started feeling for the second one. Starting to get tunnelâ¨vision, feeling like I had swum 50 meters underwater, needing air badly. Aâ¨lot of thoughts, by the way, went through my head during that minute or soâ¨that I'm grasping and feeling my way along the bulkhead, and I can distinctlyâ¨remember saying goodbye to my wife, saying goodbye to my boy, telling them Iâ¨loved them.â¨â¨GROSS: Was one of the thoughts that was going through your head, `I'm sorry Iâ¨became an astronaut'?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: No. I just said, `I'm sorry that I have to leave the worldâ¨so soon.'â¨â¨GROSS: But you weren't sorry that you'd become an astronaut?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: No regrets. I was doing what I wanted to do.â¨â¨GROSS: Have you been thinking about that fire a lot in the last few daysâ¨since the Columbia disaster?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: I guess--you know, I'm really thinking about the families.â¨â¨GROSS: Yeah.â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: You know, I just imagine that--you know, I imagine it, theyâ¨had it come to fruition. And, you know, all I can say is those are some greatâ¨people. I feel for the families. You know, it's a great loss to us all.â¨â¨GROSS: Have you been in touch with the families at all? Do you know them?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: I know them. You know, they weren't the people I trainedâ¨with from the get-go, but the people that were there when I was there and it'sâ¨a small group of astronauts. So, yeah, you know, I know them. I worked withâ¨them. A lot of small kids. I think there's 13 kids involved and one slightlyâ¨older son. You know, a big loss, but I think they all know, you know, whatâ¨their dad, their mom was doing, what it's all about, what personal sacrificeâ¨means. And I know--I think they have a lot of pride that their parents were,â¨you know, willing to do that.â¨â¨GROSS: Retired astronaut Jerry Linenger will be back in the second half ofâ¨the show. His new book, "Letters from Mir," collects the letters he wrote toâ¨his son while on board the Space Station Mir.â¨â¨I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Announcements)â¨â¨GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.â¨â¨Let's get back to the interview I recorded yesterday with retired astronautâ¨Jerry Linenger. In 1997, he spent five months on board the Russian Spaceâ¨Station Mir in a joint US-Russian mission.â¨â¨I think a lot of Americans, until the Columbia, had more or less lost track ofâ¨the space program. Let's talk a little bit about what your mission was. Iâ¨mean, the space shuttle and the space mission run a lot of experiments. It'sâ¨not just the adventure of being up there, but there are a lot of tests thatâ¨the astronauts are helping to conduct. What kind of tests were you running?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: You know, it is excitement in a different sense. It's theâ¨excitement of science and, you know, trying to push knowledge forward. Theâ¨big ones were probably the laser beaming at the Earth, the dark side of theâ¨Earth. Just as an example, you don't see the weather. You don't see theâ¨cloud cover. And when we try to make weather predictions on the planet, we doâ¨it using half the knowledge that's out there. Only the lighted side theâ¨satellite photos show you the cloud movements. We tried beaming a laser onâ¨the dark side and map the clouds on the dark side of the Earth. Scientistsâ¨get the whole picture, put those data points together, see if they can reallyâ¨understand the Earth as a planet and the whole weather system, for example.â¨More mundane things; you know, I did fire experiments inside a chamber and seeâ¨how flame propagates, basic properties of fire. For example, it's a sphereâ¨in space. It's not flame shaped because there's no oxygen coming in from theâ¨bottom because warm air is not rising. It just uses the oxygen in theâ¨boundary layer.â¨â¨I did a lot of medical experiments, a lot of self-examination on myself. Andâ¨then I did some things that--you say, `What are your goals up there?' One ofâ¨my goals was to be a world-class geographer. I wanted to know the Earth likeâ¨no one else ever knew the Earth. And I was doing a lot of experiments, Earthâ¨observation, to help geologists; for example, looking at fault lines,â¨photographing those, oceanographers looking at plankton blooms, lots of thoseâ¨sorts of things. And when you're looking out the window, I told myself, `I'mâ¨going to learn this Earth.' And that one has stuck with me. I see a map onâ¨the wall and, although I don't have a photographic memory, I do for that. Iâ¨see a map and I get a nice, clear flashback to what it looked like from space,â¨and I hope that stays with me the rest of my life; you know, what anâ¨incredible planet down below.â¨â¨GROSS: And what were your personal observations about the best and the worstâ¨effects of weightlessness on the body?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: It's incredible. First of all, I got to say, the human bodyâ¨is incredible. The adaptability, you know, boggles the mind. After oneâ¨month, Terry, I'm telling you, I am up there on the ceiling, you know, suckingâ¨down some dehydrated borscht.â¨â¨GROSS: Yuck.â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: You know, flying around, and I start laughing and say,â¨`Jerry, you don't even know you're in space anymore.' As comfortable upsideâ¨down as I am sitting here, as comfortable flying as I am walking. You know,â¨what an organism that can adapt to something like that, where everythingâ¨floats and within a month, you're there. It's like you're a spaceman.â¨â¨GROSS: And in that sense, you're exposed to a completely different physicalâ¨sense of reality in space, and I'm wondering, you know, if experiencing such aâ¨different geographical reality and physical reality changed your inner self,â¨your inner beliefs, even, like, your sense of faith or lack of faith.â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: I am changed forever. My life's in three phases now and Iâ¨think it'll forever be that way. It was 40-some years on the planet, fiveâ¨months off the planet, profoundly different world, different perspective ofâ¨the world, the grand view and that introspection I talked about. And now I'mâ¨in that third phase of my life, and I am definitely a different person becauseâ¨of that middle phase. So profound changes.â¨â¨GROSS: Well, what about your sense of faith? How'd that changed, too, whenâ¨you came back?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: Sense of faith--one example. My father is deceased, but I'dâ¨be running on the treadmill--my dad told me, `You could be anything youâ¨wanted to be in life. You're in America, you work hard, you study hard, youâ¨can be an astronaut someday.' I'd be running on the treadmill sometimes andâ¨out of the corner of my eye, I could sense my dad's presence there up in theâ¨heavens. He's there with Uncle Bill and they're laughing and joking likeâ¨they'd always did. And he'd say, `Jerry, I'm proud of you. Glad you madeâ¨it,' then sort of fade away.â¨â¨GROSS: So this was in the space station you'd have this feeling?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: Yeah, running on the treadmill. And, again, I'd sort of haveâ¨my eyes closed, but I--you know, a very strong sense of my dad being thereâ¨with me. You look out at the Earth, the universe and, you know, it'sâ¨just--there was a creator in my mind and so it reaffirmed my faith.â¨â¨GROSS: Now you've said, and I've heard other astronauts say, too, that whenâ¨you look down on Earth from space and you see this kind of beautiful planetâ¨and you're far from it, that conflicts, wars, become even more upsetting andâ¨even more unimaginable. Yet at the same time, I think there were plenty ofâ¨conflicts between the people who were in the space station and plenty ofâ¨conflicts between the people in the space station and the people in Russianâ¨control. Yes?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: Yes. Within the space station, no. I think we were underâ¨common danger. It was sort of us against them and you're right. That'sâ¨a--you know, I hadn't thought of that, but, yeah, the people in Missionâ¨Control-Moscow we started viewing as taking with a grain of salt when theyâ¨tell us something because they're not up here. They seem--it got to the pointâ¨where it seemed they wanted us up there at all costs. And we startedâ¨questioning what they told us and didn't just take order after order afterâ¨order.â¨â¨The other part of that was they don't realize--or they should have after allâ¨their long-duration experience--but didn't seem to realize that you're a humanâ¨being, you're not a robot. And you cannot tell the person at 9:02 you'reâ¨going to go to the bathroom, at 9:04 you're going to run this experiment, atâ¨9:06 you're going to do this. So we sort of--and I was probably the leadingâ¨edge, I'll add, the rebel, if you will--strongly suggested to them that theyâ¨send us a daily schedule with what needs to be accomplished, and we areâ¨professionals and we will accomplish that. So you're right, there's conflictâ¨even, you know, Earth to spacecraft.â¨â¨You know, people ask what am I doing now and all that, but I'll tell you, theâ¨one thing I would sure like to figure out is how we can figure out how toâ¨resolve some conflicts. And, you know, I'm a naval officer. I understand ourâ¨need in the military and the great service they do for our country and Iâ¨believe in them, believe me. But I think everybody in the military, when youâ¨step back and look at it, they say, `Man, I wish we could figure out a way toâ¨solve these things without us having to do our job.'â¨â¨GROSS: Are these experiences that you're talking about affecting how you seeâ¨the possibility of war with Iraq?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: Probably not. During that time I was up there, it was theâ¨Bosnia thing happening. And my grandmother, who's 97 years old, came over onâ¨a boat from Slovenia, which is just in that Yugoslavia breakup area there, aâ¨small country, a little Austria. And so I was interested in taking someâ¨pictures of my homeland and be able to show my grandmother. I got to admitâ¨that was my own personal--you know, a few photos here and there for myself.â¨And it was sad. You know, you go over there, the Adriatic Sea is beautiful.â¨The mountains there and, you know, Italy looking like a boot, I mean--and youâ¨look and you say, `You know, what are they fighting over this little speck ofâ¨land for and all that pain and all that suffering?'â¨â¨My views on Iraq--you know, it's probably irrelevant, but I heard a quote thatâ¨said, "War is always terrible, but other things are even more terrible." Andâ¨there can be things more evil than war and, unfortunately, the only way thatâ¨we humans have figured out the deal with that is to fight it out and setâ¨things right. So it's disturbing to me. I think it's disturbing to everyâ¨astronaut, but we live in the real world down here and, you know, we ought toâ¨spend a lot of brain power--probably the effort that we put into our spaceâ¨station, we ought to spend that brain power and that effort toward figuringâ¨out a way to solve these conflicts.â¨â¨GROSS: My guest is retired astronaut Jerry Linenger. We'll talk more after aâ¨break. This is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨GROSS: Captain Jerry Linenger is my guest. He's an astronaut who spent aboutâ¨five months aboard the Russian Space Station Mir. And his latest book isâ¨called "Letters from Mir." It's letters he wrote to his 14-month-old sonâ¨while he was in the space station.â¨â¨Well, there's several investigations being launched now into the Columbiaâ¨disaster. There are a lot of criticisms about the level of funding that NASAâ¨is getting. Some people are saying, you know, we should limit the amount ofâ¨funding to the space program. Others are saying the problem is NASA hasn'tâ¨gotten enough funding, so they're cutting corners and that's affecting safety.â¨Some people are saying that criticism within NASA is discouraged or evenâ¨squelched. Where are you weighing in on this? Do you have criticisms of NASAâ¨or the funding of NASA?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: The latter part I don't agree with, at least when I was atâ¨NASA. Again, I think everyone had that common goal of getting out there,â¨exploring space and doing it safely. So that concern I did not have.â¨â¨GROSS: What, of criticism being squelched?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: Yes. Sometimes, you know, people have differentâ¨perspectives, and I think within NASA, like anywhere, yeah, you're working onâ¨your system. You want that system improved in some way. But someone else isâ¨looking at the bigger picture, and there are limitations and there's budgetâ¨limitations and that's always going to be with us in everything we do. And,â¨you know, to some extent, yes, if you've got a great budget, we can go toâ¨Mars. But there is realities, there's constraints and I don't think NASA wasâ¨squeezed so hard that they couldn't do things right.â¨â¨GROSS: You've been in tight spots yourself in space. Could you speculate atâ¨all what it might have been like for the astronauts as they were returning toâ¨Earth when the space shuttle came apart?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: Yeah, I'd be glad to do that. The regular re-entry at thatâ¨point--I can remember re-entering once and we yelled out, `Tally-ho, Westâ¨Coast,' meaning we spotted the West Coast of the United States. And that'sâ¨right about where the shuttle started having problems. In our case, that wasâ¨a glorious moment, and so they were probably feeling elated, you know. `Can'tâ¨wait to see our families. We see the United States again. We're coming backâ¨home.'â¨â¨You're going very fast down to about Mach 18, 18 times the speed of sound.â¨You're now low enough that you're starting to sort of feel the speed. You'reâ¨down there in the atmosphere, a big fireball. Turbulence, bouncing around,â¨sounds like a locomotive gonna run you down. It's a very, very dynamic phaseâ¨of flight. You sort of strap back in your seat. You're sitting back. You'reâ¨concentrating on the tasks. You're looking at the computer displays. You'reâ¨looking at making sure everything's looking good. I heard the last call down.â¨It looks like they got a tire pressure warning. You could hear Rick Husbandâ¨just being very methodical, calling that warning down to the ground. Theâ¨ground acknowledging that, yes, they are reading the same thing. So they'reâ¨concentrating on their tasks. It's right in the middle of a very dynamicâ¨phase of flight.â¨â¨And the shuttle had just done what's called a roll reversal, so you're sort ofâ¨pivoting, moving from sort of one wing tip to the other. That had just beenâ¨completed. That had gone well. Based on everything, the temperature sensorsâ¨going up sort of in a gradual way and then looking like the wires probablyâ¨burned through and got cut off, I would think things happened very, veryâ¨quickly after that. And once one bad thing happened, it was probably aâ¨cascade at that point, and I doubt there was much time for them to reflect onâ¨much of anything. Probably just trying to do their job, just concentrating onâ¨the tasks and sort of fortunately it was very fast, very catastrophic. Soâ¨that's probably what was happening. But I know what was going through myâ¨head. My head was, `I'm heading home, gonna see my family.'â¨â¨GROSS: You know, from the way you describe re-entry, where you're basicallyâ¨in a fireball and you're going 18 times the speed of sound and it's probably aâ¨pretty rocky ride, it feels like a good re-entry would feel kind ofâ¨catastrophic.â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: Absolutely. You know, there were quite a few rookies onâ¨board and people with their second flight. And I can recall, for example, Iâ¨guess it was my first flight. Dick Richards, the commander, was on his fourthâ¨shuttle flight. He turned around midway through re-entry with his eyes justâ¨big, bugging out, looking at me, and yelled out something I won't repeat, but,â¨you know, `Holy cow, do you believe this?' And then his neck snapped back,â¨looked back forward again.â¨â¨And what happens at that phase is you're getting low enough that you'reâ¨starting to feel the speed. It's sort of like an airplane, you know, climbingâ¨out on the wing all of a sudden vs. being inside it. Rationally, you knowâ¨you've got the speed. You had Mach 25, now you're down to Mach 18. But nowâ¨you're getting low enough that you're starting to see the clouds. You'reâ¨starting to see objects going by much more quickly down below you. You'reâ¨inside that dynamic, fluid sort of feeling of the plasma and the fire and theâ¨bright orange and the noise and the vibration, and it's sort of thrilling.â¨And you trust your systems and so you're relaxed, you're not in any wayâ¨panicking. But I would agree, it's very hard to distinguish what's right andâ¨what's wrong in that sort of environment.â¨â¨GROSS: I'd like to close by asking you to read a letter that you wrote toâ¨your son in February of 1997, when you were aboard the Space Station Mir. Andâ¨this letter is reprinted in your collection of letters to your son calledâ¨"Letters from Mir." Before you read this excerpt, tell us what was happeningâ¨when you wrote this.â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: At that time, we were about to jump in the Soyuz capsule.â¨That's the unmanned--I'm sorry--the manned capsule, three-seat capsule, whichâ¨is the same one, by the way, that should we have to abandon the Internationalâ¨Space Station, that crew would be able to return to Earth in. In my case, allâ¨we did was move it from one docking node, flew around the space station andâ¨came back to a different docking node. So for us, it was an exciting time.â¨We were able to jump in that spacecraft, take off and come back home again.â¨And I got to have the great experience of sort of being an old Gemini, Apolloâ¨astronaut and flying a capsule for the first time.â¨â¨GROSS: Can you read that excerpt for us of the letter?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: (Reading) `Everything will be fine, but space is theâ¨frontier, an unforgiving place, and things could go awry. For example, shouldâ¨we undock successfully and then be unable to redock, the only option would beâ¨to head home. There's a limited supply of oxygen and fuel on board a Soyuzâ¨capsule, so we cannot live in the capsule for long. If we are unable toâ¨redock and then are forced to fly home to the planet, after a fiery re-entry,â¨the capsule would come down under parachute and then plop down ratherâ¨unceremoniously and with a final firm bump in the middle of the desert inâ¨Kazakhstan. I'd be without my passport. That might be the worst part of it.â¨â¨`You know, you can sit here and imagine a lot of less-than-desirableâ¨scenarios, but if the control thruster on our capsule fails to shut off, weâ¨can get ourselves into an uncontrollable spin. Or if the docking mechanismâ¨malfunctions and does not hold us tight enough together to get a good seal, weâ¨would be unable to open the doors. Anyone that's tried to fix a leaky faucetâ¨knows how difficult it is to get a watertight seal, one that is not too tightâ¨and not too loose. Well, airtight is even tougher to achieve. A leak wouldâ¨mean that we would lose all of our breathing air to the vacuum of space shouldâ¨we open the hatch under such conditions.â¨â¨`Anyway, everything will be fine. Although we think about those badâ¨possibilities in order to prepare to react appropriately should they occur,â¨the odds are that everything will go smoothly, and it'll be another grandâ¨adventure for your daddy, John. I hope that your adventures around the hall,â¨through the kitchen and into the living room, opening every drawer in sight,â¨unhooking every reachable telephone and banging every pot and pan are asâ¨enjoyable. Good night, my little adventurer. Give Mommy one of those littleâ¨kisses of yours for me. Thanks. Love you. I'll be watching over you. Dad.'â¨â¨GROSS: Jerry Linenger, you made it back to your family. You made it back toâ¨your 14-month-old son and your pregnant wife. Did your children have a lot ofâ¨questions for you when they heard about Columbia and heard about the familiesâ¨whose fathers or mothers didn't make it home?â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: As I said, Terry, John is in first grade, and we just sort ofâ¨said that there was an accident and sent him off to make a snow fort. So, youâ¨know, they don't need to deal with that. They'll learn about it when they getâ¨a little older.â¨â¨GROSS: Jerry Linenger, thank you so much for talking with us.â¨â¨Capt. LINENGER: My pleasure, as always, Terry. And again, a tribute to allâ¨the people, hearts go out to the families. These are some great people, and Iâ¨am so proud of the people of the Earth that realize that and are mourning ourâ¨loss.â¨â¨GROSS: Retired astronaut Jerry Linenger. His new book, "Letters from Mir,"â¨collects the letters he wrote to his son during his five months aboard theâ¨Russian Space Station Mir.â¨â¨Coming up, rock historian Ed Ward profiles blues singer Wynonie Harris. Thisâ¨is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *â¨â¨Profile: Blues singer Wynonie Harrisâ¨TERRY GROSS, host:â¨â¨When you hear Wynonie Harris' voice, you'd never imagine that he was tall andâ¨rail thin. He sounds like the other great blues singers in this style, Royâ¨Brown, Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Witherspoon, all of whom were huge. But Wynonieâ¨Harris easily outsold them all in the years between 1945 and '52, and leftâ¨behind some spectacular recordings. Rock historian Ed Ward has his story.â¨â¨(Soundbite of song)â¨â¨Mr. WYNONIE HARRIS: (Singing) Night train that took my baby so far away.â¨Night train that took my baby so far away. Tell her I love her more and moreâ¨every day. My mother said I'd lose her if I ever did abuse her, should haveâ¨listened. My mother said I'd lose her if I...â¨â¨Mr. ED WARD (Rock Historian): Wynonie Harris was born in 1915 in Omaha,â¨Nebraska, to an unwed 15-year-old mother. His father was alleged to be anâ¨American Indian named Blue Jay, but he was raised by a stepfather after hisâ¨mother married. By the time he dropped out of the ninth grade, Omaha was theâ¨center for black music, mostly thanks to the Nat Towles Band, the top flightâ¨organization that spawned many great musicians. Wynonie responded to theâ¨local scene by forming a dance act with Velda Shannon(ph), and the two of themâ¨became featured attractions at nightclubs and theater shows. Playing around,â¨Wynonie got to catch some of the top touring acts, people like Jimmy Rushingâ¨and Big Joe Turner who became his hero.â¨â¨In 1940, Wynonie, with his wife and daughter, moved to LA where he quicklyâ¨became part of the thriving Central Avenue scene. Finally, in early 1944, oneâ¨of America's top black bands, the Lucky Millinder Orchestra, offered him aâ¨job, and the next thing he knew he was in front of a recording microphone.â¨â¨(Soundbite of song)â¨â¨Mr. HARRIS: (Singing) It was an early Sunday morning and the church wasâ¨crowded full. Old Elder Brown(ph) was ravin'; he was angry as a bull. Theâ¨congregation sensed it and they knew just what he meant when he said, `My textâ¨today is you sinners must repent.'â¨â¨Who threw the whiskey in the well?â¨â¨Singers: In the well.â¨â¨Mr. HARRIS: Who threw the whiskey in the well?â¨â¨Singers: In the well.â¨â¨Mr. HARRIS: 'Cause Deacon Jones knelt down to pray, all he said was, `Hey,â¨hey.' So who threw the whiskey in the well?â¨â¨Singers: In the well. Now who...â¨â¨Mr. WARD: For some reason, it took Decca, Millinder's label, over a year toâ¨release "Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well." But when they did, the song tookâ¨off. By then Wynonie had already been fired from the Millinder band forâ¨asking for pay raises, who's living back in LA. Since the hit was credited toâ¨Millinder, Wynonie wasn't under contract and the myriad of independent labelsâ¨in Los Angeles came knocking at his door. He never said no and recorded forâ¨FILO, Apollo, Aladdin, Hamptone, Bullet and others. A lot of early bebopâ¨artists wound up in the pick-up recording bands behind him, Howard McGhee,â¨Oscar Pettiford and Teddy Edwards among them. Even weirder is this pianoâ¨player.â¨â¨(Soundbite of song)â¨â¨Mr. HARRIS: (Singing) Well, if you ever heard the boogie the way it shouldâ¨be played, you'd love to boogie the rest of your days. Take this boogie.â¨â¨Mr. WARD: It was Herman Blount's first session, but hardly his last. Asâ¨Sun Ra, he made hundreds of records during his lifetime, although in a muchâ¨different style. The problem was none of the scores of records Wynonie wasâ¨making sold very well. He was making his money touring but the real problemâ¨was that he was writing his own material and he wasn't a very good songwriter.â¨The solution showed up one December night in 1947, in the form of two whiteâ¨men from Cincinnati who knocked on his hotel door. A naked woman answered andâ¨Wynonie was stretched out on the bed in a pair of pink silk undershorts, withâ¨two others. Syd Nathan, the older of the men, owned King Records and Howardâ¨Kessel worked for him. Nathan wanted King to become a force in black musicâ¨and Kessel thought Wynonie Harris was his ticket. He was right.â¨â¨(Soundbite of "All She Wants to do is Rock")â¨â¨Mr. HARRIS: (Singing) Stop all the clocks. I just got the news that my babyâ¨wants to rock. All she wants to do is rock. All she wants to do is rock.â¨All she wants to do is rock, rock and roll all night long.â¨â¨Mr. WARD: "All She Wants to do is Rock" was Wynonie's big number one recordâ¨for King, sitting on the charts for three months in the summer of 1949.â¨Curiously, though, his most important record, the one that would change popâ¨music history, came and went in 1948 without ever charting.â¨â¨(Soundbite of song)â¨â¨Mr. HARRIS: (Singing) I heard the news, there's good rockin' tonight. Gonnaâ¨hold my baby tight as I can, tonight she'll know I'm a mighty man. I heardâ¨the news, there's good rockin' tonight. Have you heard the news...â¨â¨Mr. WARD: Roy Brown wrote the song and had the hit with it, but it wasâ¨Wynonie Harris' version Elvis Presley bought and played over and over and, heâ¨hoped, copied with his own band. One of Nathan's smart moves was to takeâ¨country songs and have black artists record them, so Hank Penny's Westernâ¨swing hit, "Bloodshot Eyes," was rearranged for Wynonie Harris and sold likeâ¨crazy. Nathan had a whole stable of songwriters turning out material for himâ¨and Wynonie took full advantage.â¨â¨(Soundbite of "Bloodshot Eyes")â¨â¨Mr. HARRIS: (Singing) Now just because you're pretty and you think you'reâ¨mighty wise, you tell me that you love me, then you roll those big brown eyes.â¨When I saw you last week, your eyes were turning black. Go find the guy thatâ¨beat you up, ask him to take you back. Don't roll those bloodshot eyes at me.â¨I can tell you've been out on a spree. It's plain that you're lying when youâ¨say that you've been crying, don't roll those bloodshot eyes at me. Now Iâ¨used to spend my money...â¨â¨Mr. WARD: But after "Bloodshot Eyes" had its run of the charts in 1951,â¨Wynonie Harris fell victim to changing times. For one thing, he had a numberâ¨of very risque songs in his repertoire which was fine when the main market wasâ¨jukeboxes in bars, but not so fine once radio became the medium that made theâ¨hits. For another thing, the R&B audience was turning toward vocal groupsâ¨instead of blues shouters. By 1954, he was reduced to recording junk likeâ¨"Good Mambo Tonight," and his King contract ended. He continued to performâ¨and his last gig was November 1967, on an all-star blues show at Harlem'sâ¨Apollo Theater. But his throat was acting up and it turned out to be cancerâ¨of the esophagus and he died in LA on June 14th, 1969. He was Wynonie to theâ¨end. They found a bottle of scotch in his bed when they moved his body.â¨â¨GROSS: Ed Ward lives in Berlin.â¨â¨FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. I'm Terry Gross.â¨â¨(Soundbite of song)