Space Shuttle Commander Eileen Collins is reportedly afraid of roller coasters (as am I, although I’m fine on airplanes).
I asked ISS astronaut Ed Lu about this at Oshkosh, and he scoffed at the very notion that Collins didn’t like rollercoasters. He was quite emphatic about it! He said that anyone taking a ride on a rocket had better be comfortable on rollercoasters. I think Ed Lu is a really great guy (I loved his reports from the ISS), but I wonder if he is incorrect here.
Here’s a snippet from an article on Collins.
A veteran of three shuttle flights, Eileen Collins has logged 22 days in space, yet confesses she is terrified of rollercoasters.
In 1995 she became the first woman to pilot the shuttle, and in 1999 was made commander of a flight to deploy an orbiting x-ray telescope. Just seconds after launch, faulty wiring knocked out computers controlling two of the shuttle’s three main engines. Backup systems saved Cmdr Collins from performing a breakneck U-turn and emergency landing, but her cool response to the crisis won her the admiration of colleagues.
A 48-year-old married mother-of-two from a blue-collar family in upstate New York, Cmdr Collins worked at a miniature golf course and doughnut shop to raise $1,000 for her first flying lessons aged 19. After Syracuse University and Stanford she rose through the ranks of the US Air Force, becoming only the second woman to graduate from the test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
Low-key, persistent and unflappable, her call sign was “Mom”. In 1990 she switched to astronaut training at Nasa.
“I have no nerves, no emotion, no pressure,” she told the Washington Post in the build-up to Wednesday’s launch. “I’ve got a $2bn spacecraft on my hands. I don’t think about what’s happening outside.”
It’s not altitude that kills you, it’s lack of altitude, we used to say at Perris Valley.
I’m also reminded of a line from an Arthur C. Clarke story — he said something to the effect that space travelers tended to be either agoraphobes or claustrophobes…. the former loved the cramped quarters of the space ship ride, but the latter lived for the EVA….
At Fort Bragg, we used to say that it wasn’t the fall that killed you but the sudden stop at the end.
I have a knife phobia. Guns don’t bother me at all, but knives…
Most likely it’s a control thing. If you can control the ride, you aren’t as afraid as you are if someone else is driving.
Space Shuttle Commander Eileen Collins is reportedly afraid of roller coasters (as am I, although I’m fine on airplanes).
I asked ISS astronaut Ed Lu about this at Oshkosh, and he scoffed at the very notion that Collins didn’t like rollercoasters. He was quite emphatic about it! He said that anyone taking a ride on a rocket had better be comfortable on rollercoasters. I think Ed Lu is a really great guy (I loved his reports from the ISS), but I wonder if he is incorrect here.
Here’s a snippet from an article on Collins.
A veteran of three shuttle flights, Eileen Collins has logged 22 days in space, yet confesses she is terrified of rollercoasters.
In 1995 she became the first woman to pilot the shuttle, and in 1999 was made commander of a flight to deploy an orbiting x-ray telescope. Just seconds after launch, faulty wiring knocked out computers controlling two of the shuttle’s three main engines. Backup systems saved Cmdr Collins from performing a breakneck U-turn and emergency landing, but her cool response to the crisis won her the admiration of colleagues.
A 48-year-old married mother-of-two from a blue-collar family in upstate New York, Cmdr Collins worked at a miniature golf course and doughnut shop to raise $1,000 for her first flying lessons aged 19. After Syracuse University and Stanford she rose through the ranks of the US Air Force, becoming only the second woman to graduate from the test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
Low-key, persistent and unflappable, her call sign was “Mom”. In 1990 she switched to astronaut training at Nasa.
“I have no nerves, no emotion, no pressure,” she told the Washington Post in the build-up to Wednesday’s launch. “I’ve got a $2bn spacecraft on my hands. I don’t think about what’s happening outside.”
From http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/jul/11/spaceexploration.usnews
See also http://article.wn.com/view/2005/04/30/NASAs_lone_female_commander_a_rollercoaster_phobic_will_brin/
It’s not altitude that kills you, it’s lack of altitude, we used to say at Perris Valley.
I’m also reminded of a line from an Arthur C. Clarke story — he said something to the effect that space travelers tended to be either agoraphobes or claustrophobes…. the former loved the cramped quarters of the space ship ride, but the latter lived for the EVA….
At Fort Bragg, we used to say that it wasn’t the fall that killed you but the sudden stop at the end.
I have a knife phobia. Guns don’t bother me at all, but knives…
Most likely it’s a control thing. If you can control the ride, you aren’t as afraid as you are if someone else is driving.