Scientist reflects on time aboard shuttle

by Taylor Wang

I'm a scientist, not an astronaut, and I hadn't really planned on a shuttle flight.

But in the 1970s, I proposed to NASA to study fluid physics in space, and like any scientist I wanted to conduct my own experiment. So I was selected to fly as a payload specialist. I spent two years training, predominantly to run my own experiment, but also to run other experiments inside the Spacelab. And in 1985, my experiment and I finally flew on mission 51-B.

Everything was fine on the first day of the flight. I turned on everybody else's experiments and they worked wonderfully. But on the second day, when I turned on my own instrument, it didn't work. You can imagine my panic. I had spent five years preparing for this one experiment. Not only that, I was the first person of Chinese descent to fly on the shuttle, and the Chinese community had taken a great deal of interest. You have to understand the Asian culture. You don't just represent yourself, you represent your family. The first thing you learn as a kid is to bring no shame to the family. So when I realized my experiment had failed, I could imagine my father telling me, "What's the matter with you? Can't you even do an experiment right?" I was really in a very desperate situation.

I asked ground control if I could repair the instrument, and they were reluctant -- for good reason. On a shuttle flight everybody's time is booked, and you don't have much free time to troubleshoot. And even though the shuttle is an engineering marvel, the ability to repair things is extremely limited. They have a couple of screwdrivers, a couple of wrenches, but it's pretty primitive. Plus, there were no real replacement parts.

I understood NASA's point of view, but I said, "Listen, I know the system very well. Give me a shot at it." They were still reluctant. So finally, in desperation, I said, "Hey, if you guys don't give me a chance to repair my instrument, I'm not going back."

Well, NASA got nervous at that point. They actually got a psychologist to talk to the other crew members and ask, "Is Taylor going nuts?" Fortunately, my commander, Bob Overmyer, said, "No, he's okay. He's just depressed, and he really wants to repair the experiment. We'll help out." They were on my side. Finally NASA said okay, on a couple of conditions: first, that I wouldn't neglect my other responsibilities, and second, that I would quit after a reasonable effort.

I was relieved, because I hadn't really figured out how not to come back if they'd called my bluff. The Asian tradition of honorable suicide, seppuku, would have failed, since everything on the shuttle is designed for safety. The knife on board can't even cut the bread. You could put your head in the oven, but it's really just a food warmer. You wouldn't even burn yourself. And if you tried to hang yourself with no gravity, you'd just dangle there and look like an idiot.

I started the repair job. The only way to do it was to open up this large compartment and crawl inside. I lived inside the instrument for a day and a half, and the only thing my crewmates could see was my two legs hanging out. Meanwhile, they were fantastic -- they took over all my housekeeping chores for me.

Luckily I was able to solve the problem and resume the experiment. Emotionally, I went from the bottom of the ocean to the top of the mountain. And once it was fixed I was so high I couldn't sleep. I just worked around the clock. The results turned out to be very good -- in fact, we're still using data from that flight more than 15 years later.