posted 01-03-2021 01:19 PM               

It's difficult to understand why somebody would dedicate an important part of his/her life to astronaut training and then leave after a first flight. Also, NASA invests a lot of money in each astronaut for training. So why do they agree with an astronaut leaving early?

posted 01-03-2021 01:59 PM               

For example, Joan Higginbotham was assigned to her second mission when she left to take a leadership position with an oil company. She had worked for NASA for 20 years, including 10 years at the Cape before becoming an astronaut. When she left, she said "it was time to move on."

Kilrain's reasons for leaving are discussed in this earlier thread.

posted 01-03-2021 02:04 PM               

Going back to the pre-shuttle era, I'm always surprised at the Mercury and Gemini astronauts who worked so hard in the early days, but never made an active effort to walk on the lunar surface. Michael Collins was offered the chance to command a mission after Apollo 11, but he turned it down because he wanted to spend more time with his family. And other highly experienced astronauts retired from spaceflight just before the landings began (McDivitt, Schirra, Borman, etc). I think several of those men could have walked on the lunar surface, but they seemed to reach a point where the training (and the internal politics at NASA) just became too tiresome.

In other cases, and especially in the post-Apollo era, I think a lot of people pursue a career as an astronaut for the fame and glory. Being an astronaut can be a stepping-stone to wealth and power. None of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts could have foreseen their astronaut careers when they chose to become pilots, because it was a career that didn't exist at the time. But now, there are tens of thousands of people pursuing astronaut careers at any moment. Many of them are wealthy and well-connected enough to get prime spots at the best schools in the world, or a desirable position in the military. This puts them in a better position to become an astronaut. And after they've been to space even once, they've gained a prestige that will follow them anywhere they go. So instead of staying with NASA, they pursue a career in business, or politics, or public speaking.

It's the same reason that very few politicians are actually interested in public service. Most of them are simply looking to boost their social standing and wealth. In America, many members of Congress are actually pursuing careers as high-paid lobbyists. They become politicians in able to make social connections with the most powerful people in America. And then once they've made those connections, they resign from politics and join a lobbying company, earning millions of dollars by persuading their former colleagues to pass laws benefiting corporate interests.

posted 01-03-2021 02:40 PM               

Many seem grateful to retain their anonymity. Without their blue flight suit or jacket, it is rare for them to be recognized in public. And even with their "smurf" suits on, they tend to draw a smaller crowd than one might expect.

Some have been fortunate to be offered executive positions after their time with NASA, and maybe that was in part because of their astronaut title. But that is not to say they wouldn't have been able to achieve the same without ever joining the program. They were selected by NASA for the same qualities that are generally sought by many businesses.

posted 01-03-2021 03:50 PM            

Robert Satcher was also offered a long duration mission after STS-129 (and would have been the first black astronaut to do so). An oncologist by profession, he chose instead to return to surgery.

posted 01-03-2021 04:22 PM               

It was a difficult decision. I had taken a leave of absence from Bell Labs. I told them I'd be gone probably six years, and I figured during that six years I was going to fly two or maybe three missions. Again, in '78, we thought we were one year from the first, and our class would start flying around the sixth mission. So I figured, well, I'll get maybe two, maybe three and then go back. And here it was, at four years I was put on a crew, but I wasn't going to fly until two years later, so I was gone six years.

And it was a difficult time for AT&T, because in 1984, right at the time I was flying this mission, they were breaking up the Bell system. All the local telephone companies were splitting from AT&T. They twisted my arm somewhat and said that "We've never had a leave of absence beyond four years and you've been gone for six, so if you want to have a career here, you really need to come back."

That all happened maybe six or eight months before I flew my mission. George Abbey had called me in and offered me a second flight. It was a good flight. It was a science mission with the Germans, and would have been interesting, but it was like a three-year preparation to get ready for it. So I went back and I talked to my executive management team at Bell Labs, and was torn for a while, but then I decided I probably should settle down into a real career, because I was always an engineer at heart. I wanted to get back to that, I felt. So I felt a little bit bad not flying a couple more missions, but it would have been quite a bit longer away from my main career.

posted 01-03-2021 07:07 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Henry Heatherbank:
What happened on STS-67?

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posted 01-03-2021 07:57 PM               

There were quite a few astronauts who were scheduled or planning to fly again at the time Challenger happened, and who wound up retiring or moving into management instead. The ones I know of:

• John Young
  
• Owen Garriott
  
• Joe Engle
  
• Bob Crippen
  
• Dale Gardner
  
• Jon McBride
  
• Sally Ride
  
• Bob Stewart
  
• Ox van Hoften
  
• Roy Bridges
  
• Bill Fisher

posted 01-03-2021 09:14 PM               

...in the ten years, I was selected as an astronaut, and ten years stretches out to twenty-two. I always felt like a little boy who had been sent by his mother to the store to get the eggs, but I was off chasing fire engines. I was having a ball, but sooner or later I was going to have to go back to the store and get the eggs.

So when we flew, [I made my decision.] It takes several months to go through [all the] debriefing, and I thought, "I am to the point in my life where if I'm ever going to shift into academia, I better do it now, or I will end up as a NASA manager for the rest of my life." [Now] that's an easy decision to make. So as soon as we essentially finished the debriefing, I put in a resignation. As I recall, I signed it on the twelfth of November '85 to go into effect the first of July '86, so I could start teaching the fall of '86. I was going to spend [the intervening] time choosing the university to go to.

Well, right after that we had the problems [of the STS 51-L, Challenger accident]. A number of [astronauts] said to me, "Oh, man, I wish I had done what you did, but if I resign now, it's going to look like cowardice." So I was the first one to leave the program after the big accident, but I had already done the paperwork much [earlier].

posted 01-04-2021 02:25 AM            

The other five Canadian mission specialists based in Houston all flew again, at some point, except him.

posted 01-04-2021 07:17 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by hbw60:
I'm always surprised at the Mercury and Gemini astronauts who worked so hard in the early days, but never made an active effort to walk on the lunar surface.

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Michael Collins admitted he did not want to go through the process again, even if it meant not walking on the Moon. Wally Schirra had been through that cycle the longest of those you mention, and really only became motivated to fly Apollo when it became a matter of "avenging" Grissom and his crew. Borman and McDivitt had not only been cycling through crews, but Borman had the added pressure of helping NASA recover from the Apollo 1 fire and McDivitt had basically lived with the lunar module's development for three years.

posted 01-04-2021 11:11 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Henry Heatherbank:
Does anybody know why he never made a second Shuttle flight?

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I flew STS-34 and came back and the Astronaut Office sent me to Florida as what was called a "Cape Crusader," the lead astronaut support person. So I spent all of 1990 pretty much going back and forth between Florida and JSC. And a couple of things happened: I fell absolutely, totally head over heels in love with the Kennedy Space Center and at the same time, the Kennedy Space Center liked me.

So [Kennedy Space Center director] Jay Honeycutt, at the Olive Garden on Merritt Island one night, looked at me and said "Are you ready to get a real job?" And I said, "What do you mean a real job? I've got a real job, I'm in line to go fly as the commander," or whatever. Anyway, he was recruiting me.

So I went back to Dan Brandenstein, who was chief of the Astronaut Office at that time, and the line was long to go fly again, and so I went into Dan and said I got a job offer and I am trying to decide what to do. Tell me when I am going to fly again and am I going to fly as a pilot or commander? And he said, "Four or five years and you're going to fly as a pilot again."

I was pretty old when I got there, I came later then many of them. I added it all up and said I'm not waiting. I'm not a big fan of simulators, I love flying, I've gotten that check in the box — to use Honeycutt's term, "You've been there, done that, nobody will ever know the difference if you've flown once or six times."

posted 01-04-2021 11:15 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Delta7:
The ones I know of: Joe Engle

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posted 01-04-2021 10:07 PM               

For some, to make a spaceflight is less of a dream one can't enough of (as some of us make feel — I wouldn't want to retire until I hit my seven flight ceiling!) and more of a professional goal. Some may think, "I went, I did it, it's time to move on to other professional goals."

I remember an astronaut in the 1998 group made a statement to that effect. A reporter asked about his landing and how amazing it must have been. He said it was, but he also enjoyed watching the sunrise with his wife the morning after.

Also, some consider that the spaceflight is not the only reason for being there and feel other elements of supporting the program are as rewarding and fulfilling (thinking of statements Fisher, Hernandez, Higginbotham said) as the spaceflight part. Fisher had said it is about human spaceflight, not just about flying in space.

posted 01-05-2021 10:54 AM            

This was changed, of course, due to the lack of commanders in the early 90s, and all 1984 pilots (except Hammond) actually ended up flying as commanders in their second missions.

By the way, tried to "staff" pre-Challenger 1986 to 1988 manifested missions with the astronauts available by then (of course, provided they were all flown as planned). Assuming that the planned 1986 class would have become available for assignments somewhere in fall of 1987 (thus, their actual flights were not going to be earlier than in the second half of 1988), I was surprised to see how undersized the astronaut corps was then, as to have those missions flown would require flying pilots and most of mission specialists once in every eight to nine months (assuming that 1980 pilots got their commands on their third flights)!

posted 01-05-2021 09:06 PM            

And there's the unspoken danger factor as well: people should remember Mike Mullane's "relief" that nobody else was present on the mid-deck during the STS-36 launch to see his hands shaking with nerves, or the Dave Hilmers gallows humour quote that he had no future plans post-MECO (i.e. in case he was killed in a launch mishap). We should not discount that some astronauts may have figured they had chanced their luck with whatever flight opportunities they had, and didn't want to push it any further, although I expect admissions to that effect would be very rare. (Although not shuttle-related, Mike Collins alluded to pushing his luck and the danger factor about a second flight to the Moon as possible commander of Apollo 17: that a moon mission was a "daisy-chain" of lots of events, the failure of any one which could mean death, and that he had taken enough chances on Apollo 11).

posted 01-06-2021 07:15 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Henry Heatherbank:
So that is consistent with what McCulley was told by Brandenstein and his reasons for leaving.

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