Pilots

Space flight is the most closely regulated, preprogrammed, and highly structured form of flying on earth — er, in the universe. (Flight following is not optional.) But is there a pilot who does not dream of flying in space? When a boy, Gregory J. Harbaugh dreamed. When a man, he lived the dream. Come January, Harbaugh, AOPA 875036, will do for a second time what the rest of us still can only dream of.

Harbaugh is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration astronaut. He's also an active light-airplane pilot, although he can be forgiven if his thoughts right now are focused more on liftoff and reentry than takeoffs and landings.

On April 28, 1991, he was aboard the space shuttle Discovery when it launched on an eight-day Strategic Defense Initiative research flight. Harbaugh, a mission specialist, operated the shuttle's RMS (remote manipulator system), the Canadian-built articulating arm used to lift and retrieve objects from the shuttle's cargo bay. When Discovery touched down at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility on May 6, Harbaugh had logged 199 hours in space. He had become a member of the most elite fraternity of aviators in history.

Early on the morning of January 13, he is scheduled to do it all over again. Harbaugh will be on board Endeavour when it lifts off from the pad at Cape Canaveral for a six-day mission to deploy a tracking and data-relay communications satellite. The STS-54 (Shuttle Transport System) crew also will do x-ray astronomy of the Milky Way and conduct a variety of medical, scientific, and environmental experiments.

On this trip, Harbaugh will function as the flight engineer. (He'll be also wearing an AOPA-embroidered cap, which he offered to take on the flight.) Serving on the flight crew, which also includes pilot Donald R. McMonagle and Commander John H. Casper, has to be the best of the best when it comes to shuttle assignments. But Harbaugh has something else to look forward to as well. He's also scheduled for some EVA — extra vehicular activity. He's going for a walk in space.

The planned five-hour EVA is intended as an engineering study to improve NASA's EVA training program. It's currently done in a huge swimming pool at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. Astronauts wear a full spacesuit as they practice tasks underwater that they will perform in space on an actual mission. The training doesn't quite replicate conditions in space, however. For example, the resistance of the water makes it difficult to begin moving but easy to stop. It's the opposite in space — little effort is required to start walking, but because there is no atmosphere or gravity to resist movement, it takes a lot of concentration and effort to slow down and stop. Better EVA training is crucial to NASA's plans to eventually begin erecting Space Station Freedom.

As a young boy growing up in Willoughby, Ohio, Harbaugh built paper and balsa-wood model airplanes and in general "tried to make all my toys fly." One of his most vivid memories is of the day his father chartered a Cessna 172 and a pilot at Lost Nation Airport in Willoughby for a flight to Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, and a visit to grandmother's. "I just fell in love with flying," Harbaugh remembers.

And with space. Harbaugh grew up reading about and watching NASA's Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab astronauts blast off atop huge missiles into unfathomable adventure, then splash down in choppy ocean waters. Like millions of kids, he must have imagined himself emerging from one of those tiny, charred capsules to a hero's welcome.

But that was dreaming; flying airplanes was reality. Harbaugh won a scholarship to Purdue University with the thought of becoming a professional pilot. He learned to fly while a student at Purdue, but his interest in science steered him to a different educational and career path. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering and, upon graduating in 1978, received a number of job offers. He chose the lowest paying one — as an engineer at JSC in Houston. It wasn't as an astronaut, but the possibility of someday becoming one was tucked away in the back of his mind. While at Purdue, Harbaugh had played escort for several days to NASA Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart. "The way he described it," Harbaugh remembers, "I thought, 'Really, this is something I could do.' "

For the next nine years, Harbaugh worked as an engineering and technical manager in various areas of space shuttle flight operations. Along the way, he earned a master's in physical science and an instrument rating and commercial certificate.

In 1987, Harbaugh got his break. Out of more than 2,000 who applied, he was one of 15 selected as a candidate for JSC's biennial freshman astronaut class. Harbaugh was an unusual choice. Very few astronaut candidates are taken from the ranks of NASA civilian employees. Shuttle pilots are almost all active-duty military officers, while mission specialists typically are either physicians or specialized scientists not employed by NASA.

In August 1988, after nearly a year of intensive classes and training, it was made official: Harbaugh was named an astronaut. NASA's active astronaut corps numbers only about 100. Twenty months later, he was lying on his back, strapped into a seat in Discovery, awaiting the moment when 7.8 million pounds of thrust would pop the spacecraft off the Cape Canaveral launch pad and toss it into space. (Astronauts experience about 3 Gs on the launch, according to Harbaugh.)

No one stays an astronaut forever, though. Following STS-54, Harbaugh wants to fly a third mission before retiring from NASA. What do you do for an encore after you've flown in space a few times? In Harbaugh's book, you keep on flying. "I'd like someday to operate a little airport in New England," he says, still dreaming.