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Author
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Topic: John Young's post-51L flight assignments
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RichieB16
Member Posts: 552
From: Oregon
Registered: Feb 2003
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posted 09-15-2007 11:11 AM
   
I have read that following the loss of the space shuttle Challenger, John Young made some unfavorable comments and was never to fly again (presumably because of his comments). I have also heard that Young had been considered for command positions early in the selection process after that but was never actually placed on a crew. I assume that STS-31 was one of these missions (because he was selected as CDR of STS-61J before Challenger) but does anyone know what (if any) flights he was considered for after Challenger? |
Tom
Member Posts: 1597
From: New York
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted 09-15-2007 12:38 PM
61-J I believe is the only post-Challenger flight that he was assigned to. |
Jay Chladek
Member Posts: 2272
From: Bellevue, NE, USA
Registered: Aug 2007
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posted 09-16-2007 04:44 AM
You want to get a perceived sense of Young during those early post Challenger days, pick up a copy of Mike Mullane's "Riding Rockets" as Mike paints a picture of John as seeming to be a bit on the abrasive side. By the time Tom Jones got into the astronaut program (the subject of his book "Sky Walking"), John seemed to have mellowed a bit. |
kr4mula
Member Posts: 642
From: Cinci, OH
Registered: Mar 2006
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posted 09-17-2007 11:12 AM
I only remember hearing that Young was in line for the Hubble launch mission prior to the Challenger. As for him stirring things up, he had a long history of doing so and even earned a moniker for his polemic memos: "Young-grams." Some of those are still floating around. Somewhere in my files I have copies of his infmaous ones in the immediate post-Challenger period that were suppsoedly the ones that got him canned from future flights and pushed out of the Astronaut Office. I'll see if I can dig those up, but the essence was that they complained about safety and were ignored. That didn't sit well with many within NASA at the time. His timing and insensitive approach were both very poor and generally perceived as not constructive. |
art540
Member Posts: 432
From: Orange, California USA
Registered: Sep 2006
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posted 09-17-2007 12:00 PM
There is an axiom that in every organization there is always some one who knows what is going on. That person needs to be sought out and fired. |
Naraht
Member Posts: 232
From: Oxford, UK
Registered: Mar 2006
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posted 09-17-2007 01:04 PM
quote:
Originally posted by kr4mula:
I'll see if I can dig those up, but the essence was that they complained about safety and were ignored.
I'd be very interested in reading those. A good followup to the recent Tindallgrams collection post. |
kr4mula
Member Posts: 642
From: Cinci, OH
Registered: Mar 2006
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posted 09-19-2007 12:26 PM
I'll see if I can find those memos. I've moved several times since I first found them in the JSC archives, but hopefully I won't need a shovel to dig them out. |
RichieB16
Member Posts: 552
From: Oregon
Registered: Feb 2003
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posted 09-24-2007 11:00 PM
I would also really like to read those. |
Ken Havekotte
Member Posts: 2915
From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard
Registered: Mar 2001
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posted 09-25-2007 05:53 AM
Didn't see this post until now, but I also have copies of Young's agency critical post-Challenger memos in my 51-L files. If not posted here in a day or two, I'll attempt to post one or more here. |
kr4mula
Member Posts: 642
From: Cinci, OH
Registered: Mar 2006
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posted 09-25-2007 11:50 AM
I haven't been able to find mine. I suspect they got shuffled in randomly with some other papers when I boxed stuff up for my last move. While I'm sure I could find them eventually, I don't have the time to dig that hard at the moment, so please go ahead and post your copies. |
E2M Lem Man
Member Posts: 846
From: Los Angeles CA. USA
Registered: Jan 2005
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posted 09-25-2007 05:11 PM
It is strange that so many of the astronauts that John was trying to protect- were unkind to him. Brewster Shaw I thought was the most unkind- saying something about Young was just a troublemaker, and the such. |
mjanovec
Member Posts: 3811
From: Midwest, USA
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted 09-25-2007 05:33 PM
I don't recall Shaw saying anything of that sort, but perhaps you heard something that I didn't hear.I know Mike Mullane was critical of Young in his book Riding Rockets, but Mike points out that he still has respect and admiration for Young even if he didn't like his management style. Like any "office" setting, you can get two people who are both basically decent and good human beings, but they just rub each other the wrong way and don't like each other all that much. Or they simply have different ideas on how to get something done. That can be doubly so if the other person is your supervisor and is telling you what to do and/or has power to steer your career in whatever direction they prefer. So it shouldn't be any surprise that certain astronauts didn't get along very well and may not have very high opinions of each other to this very day, even if both astronauts were doing what they thought was the right thing at that time. With Young, one can tell from his interviews that he has a sort of dry personality that you either love or hate. Heck, two people can hear Young say the same thing...and one will interpret the statement as a joke and the other will interpret the statement as biting criticism. (Just look at the different interpretations of Young's speech from his Spacefest appearance.) Also, our perspective of Young here on cS is shaped by our admiration of his achievements on six spaceflights. Few, if any of us, here have actually "worked" for him. So it's hard to say what he would have been like as a boss. Like most bosses, I'm sure he had his fair share of supporters and detractors. And I suspect both sets of people have their own valid reasons for feeling the way they do. |
RichieB16
Member Posts: 552
From: Oregon
Registered: Feb 2003
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posted 07-04-2008 08:54 PM
I have read a few times over the years that John Young was unofficially grounded following the STS-51-L mission because he publicly criticized NASA for the loss of the shuttle and her crew. However, I have also read that over the years the followed his name did pop up from time to time for various shuttle mission assignments because he remained an active astronaut. I know that he never flew another mission after STS-9 (and that he was the commander of the HST deploy mission STS-61-J prior to the Challenger disaster). But, what I am wondering is if anyone knows what later shuttle mission(s) that he was considered for? Editor's note: Threads merged. |
Hart Sastrowardoyo
Member Posts: 3445
From: Toms River, NJ
Registered: Aug 2000
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posted 07-04-2008 09:53 PM
Although I've seen payload assignments and shuttle launch dates as ridiculously far as Mission 91T (!), the latest crew manifest I've seen dates to either late 1984 (Rockwell) or mid 1985 (Morton Thiokol). I don't have the documents handy, but even these don't list Young as commander of the Hubble deploy mission. What it seems to me from reading these is that payload opportunities and launch dates are determined first (e.g., the need to place a communications satellite in a certain orbit within a certain window), then the mission specialists for the secondary payload, then the commander and pilot, then the payload specialists. All of this is IMHO way of saying that if Young was indeed tapped for a fourth Shuttle flight post-61J, it was unofficial. Unless, of course, someone has a December 1985 or January 1986 crew assignment list which shows otherwise. Slightly off-topic, but reading these lists are fun (I inadvertantly sold my copy of the 1984 Rockwell list, which was part of a (non-Rockwell) book. For instance, there was another 51D crew with Brandenstein as CDR and Jarvis as PS but before Walker was named... and a shuttle crew (I forget which one, might have been another makeup of the Brandenstein crew from another list) in which Garneau was still the first Canadian in space but flew later than 41G. |
RichieB16
Member Posts: 552
From: Oregon
Registered: Feb 2003
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posted 07-04-2008 11:27 PM
I seem to remember (and I could be way wrong) that STS-61-J was to be Young's third shuttle mission set for the summer of 1986. I was under the impression that this mission was originally the HST deployment flight. |
heng44
Member Posts: 3387
From: Netherlands
Registered: Nov 2001
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posted 07-05-2008 02:32 AM
I can't find the proof right now, but I believe that Young was officially assigned as commander to mission 61J, the Hubble deploy mission scheduled for August 1986. After the Challenger disaster he was replaced by Loren Shriver... |
Greggy_D
Member Posts: 977
From: Michigan
Registered: Jul 2006
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posted 07-05-2008 12:11 PM
At Spacefest I asked Young, "Is there any shuttle flight between STS-9 and STS-118 (in orbit at that time) that you wish you could have flown?" His response, "I sure wish I could go back to the moon." Um... okay. |
ea757grrl
Member Posts: 729
From: South Carolina
Registered: Jul 2006
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posted 07-05-2008 11:17 PM
According to Dennis Jenkins' "Space Shuttle: The First 100 Missions," page 339, STS-61J, the Hubble deployment mission tentatively scheduled for August 1986, would have included: - John Young (CDR)
- Charles Bolden (PLT)
- Bruce McCandless (MS)
- Steven Hawley (MS)
- Kathryn Sullivan (MS)
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RichieB16
Member Posts: 552
From: Oregon
Registered: Feb 2003
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posted 07-06-2008 11:11 AM
Thats what I thought...however he was apparently never allowed to fly again after Challenger because he made some negative comments.However, I have heard that when they were picking crews during the 1990s...his name was occasionally suggested for an assignment (which always ended up being turned down). I have no idea if he really was ever seriously considered for flights during the 1990s, does anyone know if he was? Also, if he was, what flights would they have been (if that was known)? |
Delta7
Member Posts: 1505
From: Bluffton IN USA
Registered: Oct 2007
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posted 07-09-2008 09:04 PM
Only speculation, but if Young were still considered eligible for flight assignment during that time, he probably would have had his pick of assignments. I presume he would have commanded STS-31. Other possibilities could have included STS-49 (Endeavour's maiden flight); STS-61 (Hubble Rescue), and STS-71 (1st Mir docking). By then, at age 64, he probably would have been considered too old to keep on going, if he even made it that far. |
OV-105
Member Posts: 816
From: Ridgecrest, CA
Registered: Sep 2000
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posted 07-10-2008 09:36 PM
I think the memos from the Rogers report grounded Young. Once he was no longer Chief of the Astronaut Office and Abbey was also out of the office I think that made him the odd man out. After reading mike Mullane's book there were not too many of the 78 to 84 astronaut class that liked the way John ran the place. |
RichieB16
Member Posts: 552
From: Oregon
Registered: Feb 2003
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posted 07-10-2008 11:31 PM
I haven't read Mullane's book (yet), but I would be interested in learning what about Young's style of running the astronaut office that the others didn't like? Young has always been one of my favorite astronauts but somewhat of a mystery to me. |
kr4mula
Member Posts: 642
From: Cinci, OH
Registered: Mar 2006
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posted 07-11-2008 12:11 PM
Read Mullane's book and throw in "Dragonfly" and you'll get a good sense of how things were run in that era (and beyond). Young, who is my favorite astronaut, wasn't known as an open book to anyone. Throw in the Kraft-Abbey-Young "good-old-boy" network and traditionally opaque methods of crew selection (despite what Slayton insisted) and you got a certain Machiavellian air to the astronaut office. I'll be very curious to read what Young says about any of this in his memoirs. |
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