Page 43 of Atmosphere

Already there seemed to be an unspoken hierarchy emerging, with favorites and leaders, long shots and outsiders.

Hank, Teddy, Duke, and Jimmy were training to fly chase—to be the pilots who guided the shuttle to the landing site once it reentered the atmosphere. Vanessa and Griff were spending a lot of time in the dunk tank, experimenting with what was possible on spacewalks.

Lydia and Harrison had been added to the team working on the thermal protection system—the shuttle’s complex protective skin of tiles and blankets—which meant they had the most hands-on time with the spacecraft itself. And Donna, Marty, and Joan had been assigned to Spacelab, an orbital science laboratory designed by NASA’s European counterparts.

Donna was studying the effects of weightlessness on the human body, for which Joan was immensely grateful. She was still puking in microgravity.

Joan, herself, was preparing for ultraviolet and X-ray astronomical observations from space. She’d helped design experiments for a set of planned solar instruments, and soon would begin making calls to geologists and physicists she’d known in her time in academia to get their ideas about potential shuttle experiments in those fields, too.

Despite how necessary each of these jobs was, Antonio was partial to certain people in Group 9, and he showed it. He favored Lydia, Griff, Harrison, and Hank. He gave them more scheduled time on the most relevant and urgent skills that one would need to fly.

So, yes, Hank probably was the favorite of the pilots. But this was not something Joan was particularly interested in talking about at 11:30 on the last day of the year, when everyone was trying to—for one small moment of their lives—let go.

“I think Hank will get assigned first,” Lydia said.

“Can we talk about this another time?”

Lydia sighed. “Sorry for trying to remain focused on the objective.”

“I’m just saying that you could back off a little,” Joan said.

“Do you honestly not realize that everyone here is clocking everyone else? That Antonio is going to hear about everything that happens here tonight? Someone gets drunk and passes out in the bathroom and trust me, all of JSC is going to hear about it and there’ll be a little mark next to their name.”

Joan knew this was true for all of them, herself included. Who she was, what she did in her spare time, how she chose to conduct herself…it all mattered. It would be weighed in terms of passing training and would be a factor in what roles she was assigned. It would no doubt be considered when—or if—they put her on a mission.

“Look, Joan, you want to get up there as much as I do. So doDonna and Vanessa. And you know damn well they aren’t going to put two of us on a mission together at first. They are going to assign one woman at a time, because we’re novelties to them still. We’re not the same as a male astronaut until one of us or two of us or even three of us have gone up there and proven that we are. So if I want to get assigned, it means I have to wait out all of the women in Group 8, most likely. And then I have to make sure Antonio chooses me over you or Donna or Vanessa. So go ahead and blow off steam and take your eye off the ball—I don’t care. Because the first crew assignment for our class, you can bet your ass I’m going to be on it. If it means I need to curry favor with Hank so he wants me to be on his crew, I will. Especially because I know he’s more likely to push for Donna, since they’re sleeping together.”

There was nothing Lydia was saying that Joan didn’t already know. “Lydia, you have to do what you have to do,” Joan said. “Just leave me alone tonight, please.”

“I really don’t get you, Joan,” Lydia said.

“What’s not to get?”

“I see you working harder than almost anybody else out there except me,” Lydia said. “You’re up in the T-38s all the time, you’re puking in microgravity and going right back up the moment they give you a chance, you’re studying like hell for these classes, asking more questions than anybody. When the astronauts are running the simulations, you’re always there in Mission Control, always watching, keeping notes, just like I am. You look like you’re just as desperate to get into that seat as I am. The only other thing you have to focus on is politics, and you’re not doing it.”

Lydia was right about the simulations. They weren’t letting any of the ASCANs on them yet, but whenever Joan heard that any of the astronaut crews were doing one, she made sure to be there. She watched as the simulation supervisors threw every possible problem at them. It was one of her favorite parts of the job, being on that floor, watching it all unfold.

One of the jets starts leaking and you don’t understand how toclose the manifold while properly accounting for the other lost jets? The crew dies.

One, two, three buses go down and you can’t figure out if you’ve lost critical redundancies in time to act? The crew dies.

A radiator inside the payload bay doors has a blockage at the same time the flash evaporator is low on water, which means the heat of the spacecraft is not dispersing, and you can’t fix it? The orbiter burns up and the crew dies.

Any one of the ASCANs who was chosen would be putting their lives in the hands of their fellow crew members and everyone down in Mission Control. Hank, she knew, would do anything to save her life. Donna, she was confident, would, too. Griff would. Vanessa surely would.

Would Lydia?

It suddenly seemed too full of risk to ignore Lydia. Or Jimmy. Or Marty, or any of the ASCANs she didn’t get along with. Success would be found together or not at all.

“Hear me out, Lydia,” Joan said. She grabbed an unopened beer from the cooler next to them and handed it to Lydia. “You’re not just an astronaut—do you get that?”

“Well, not yet,” Lydia said.

“No, I mean…this isn’t all that you are.”

Lydia looked at Joan as if she were the stupidest person she’d ever met.

“Come on,” Joan said. “You have hobbies.”

---