Word: ship
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...GOOD SHIP MICKEY MOUSE
Even a lowly yeoman like Glenn will have his hands full getting ready to fly aboard his new ship. The first time Glenn flew, he was in a mere demitasse of a spacecraft--one with a single window, 56 toggle switches and barely 36 cu. ft. of habitable space. The joke around NASA in that earlier era was that you didn't so much climb inside a Mercury capsule...
That training will be something of a new experience for Glenn, who is used to being the captain of any ship he flies. The flight plan for the October mission lists seven Discovery crew members, from Curt Brown, the commander, to Steve Lindsey, the pilot, through three mission specialists and two payload specialists. Glenn's is the last name on the list. No sooner did the crew first meet last January than Glenn made it clear that the chain of command was fine with him. "They wanted to call me Senator, and I said no," he says. "I'm coming...
...most hair-raising parts of Glenn's training involves emergency escape procedures. Crew members on shuttles must be prepared to ride slide-wire baskets down from the launch pad if a fully fueled shuttle threatens to blow; shimmy down an escape pole and parachute away from the ship in the event of a postlaunch emergency below an altitude of 20,000 ft.; and rappel down ropes from the hatch if the spacecraft makes an emergency landing on tarmac. On his Mercury flight, Glenn's only safety measure was an escape rocket designed to ignite and carry the spacecraft...
...Spartan satellite that will be released into space to take readings of the sun, a pallet of sensors to measure the ultraviolet environment of space, and several new components for the Hubble Space Telescope that need to be tested in the extreme conditions of space. Most important, the ship is carrying the Spacehab science module, a pressurized laboratory that is connected to the crew compartment and provides additional space for conducting medical experiments. It is here Glenn will be doing most of his work, processing blood and urine samples from the rest of the crew and sitting still...