the explorers journal - The Explorers Club

me a lot more confidence that we had most of the
critical problems solved, had things under control.
Back in ‘62 you always wondered whether we had
really thought of all the things that might go wrong.
JC: Maybe you could enjoy this one a little more
JG: Oh, you could. The purpose of the whole
program had changed. In ‘62 we were trying to
determine if we could just make orbital spaceflight,
and we proved we could. Through the years, as we
took a preeminent position in the space program,
the purpose was not just to catch up with the
Soviets but one where we’re doing research. In ‘62
I had some little experiments, too—spectrometer
readings of the sun, stuff like that—but by 1998
the whole purpose was fundamental research. We
had 83 projects on that one Discovery flight. Later,
Columbia had 90. We split those up so each of us
had our responsibilities and a strict schedule for
carrying them out. Every day’s mission was routine,
but they did make changes to schedules from the
ground if you needed more time on a particular
project. Between experiments, too, you had time to
get up and look out the window more and enjoy that
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beautiful view, whether day or night.
My altitude in ‘62 was 160 miles (257 km)
down to a little more than 100 miles (160 km) on
a slightly elliptical orbit—not as high as we were
on Discovery, about 350 statute miles (563 km).
You’re looking at whole countries and things like
the Red Sea just laid out on a map below. You’re
above big weather systems and you can see the
whole patterns stretching out in circular form.
Sunsets and sunrises are very different. You’re going
almost 18 times the normal rotational speed of
the Earth, so the sun goes up and down rapidly.
But you also see the Sun’s rays channel through
the atmosphere following the curvature of the Earth
down to a termination point, with very brilliant colors
at the moment of sunset. The Earth’s atmosphere
acts as a prism for the light coming to you, and
for a few seconds you see a variance of the whole
spectrum—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,
violet—at the same luminous intensity you see only
with reds, oranges, and yellows at sunset on Earth.
JC: Ever regret not landing on the Moon
JG: I would liked to have been on one of those lunar
STS-95 mission commander Curtis Brown and payload specialist John Glenn on the flight deck of Discovery, November 1, 1998. Image courtesy NASA.