FSU officials are trying to recruit astronaut Norm Thagard - "a genuine
American hero," according to university President Sandy D'Alemberte - to a
position at Florida State, his alma mater.
By Irene Klotz Brown
Special to the Florida State Times
FSU officials are trying to recruit astronaut Norm Thagard - "a genuine
American hero," according to university President Sandy D'Alemberte - to a
position at Florida State, his alma mater.
Thagard, a Floridian whose name graces FSU's student health center, may not be a hard sell.
"I've always been obviously partial to FSU," he said. "I would love to come back, but so far we've never gotten together on that. I might pursue it if it looked like there was a possibility of that. I'd certainly like to look into it."
According to D'Alemberte, it is very much a possibility. FSU is competing with other universities reportedly also interested in hiring the astronaut, who has just returned from an historic mission on the Russian space station Mir.
"I cannot imagine a better hire for FSU than Norman Thagard," D'Alemberte said. "He is a genuine American hero, and he would be an inspiration for our students.
"The great thing about Norm is that he has been able to work in so many different areas -- engineering, aviation, medicine, space research. He has even mastered a difficult foreign language. He would be a great teacher and role model for FSU students, who must learn to live in an age of technology and an age when international forces will be very much at play."
D'Alemberte did not elaborate on the details of the negotiations.
Thagard was born in Marianna and grew up in Jacksonville. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering science from FSU in 1965 and 1966. He also has a medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
The astronaut-physician returned in July from the Russian space station, where he spent 215 days. On his fifth and probably final flight, Thagard set the U.S. record for the longest space mission.
In addition to medical research, Thagard viewed his assignment as observation, to identify potential problems for future flights. On his return, he said he could handle anything for three months, but would worry about loneliness and cultural barriers on longer flights.
Despite its hardships, the Mir posting was an assignment Thagard could not pass up.
He was intrigued by the prospect of three months in space, of seeing how long-term weightlessness would affect his body. And he liked the idea of being the first U.S. astronaut on Mir, a result of the budding space partnership between the United States and Russia. NASA officials hope the Mir project will stabilize financing for a long-desired $30-billion, multinational space station, scheduled to begin construction in November 1997.
Thagard's assignment was not plush: total confinement in a cluttered, nine-year-old isolated outpost; no family; and companions who spoke little English. But the hardships weren't important to the soft-spoken former Marine pilot who had flown 163 combat missions in Vietnam.
Thagard spent a year in Russia training for the flight, learning the language and the culture. His wife -- the former Rex Kirby Johnson of South Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. -- and teen-age son, Daniel Cary, came with him.
On March 14, he left them behind to rocket into orbit for the fifth time in his 20-year NASA career. His crewmates were a brilliant young pilot named Vladimir Dezhurov, age 32 at the time of launch, and a vivacious flight engineer, Gennady Strekalov, a veteran cosmonaut who had survived a Soyuz rocket explosion.
At first, Thagard was busy. There were experiments to run, equipment to set up and always a hunt for the proper tools to do the job. After nine years of near-continuous occupancy -- 17 crews had already lived aboard -- Mir station had the look of a cluttered utility room, with dozens of items placed for convenience in zero-gravity, not tidiness.
Though he lost 17 1/2 pounds on Mir, Thagard does not blame the Russian space diet, which leans toward canned meats, borscht soups and tinned perch. Rather, he faults a poorly devised food-monitoring plan. Scientists had asked the crew to scan bar codes into a computer for all the foods they ate. The problem, Thagard explained later, was that only a few foods had the bar-coded labels.
Dezhurov and Strekalov ate as they pleased, ignoring the absence or presence of bar codes. Fastidiously, Thagard honored the scientists' request to eat only bar-coded food, though it challenged his already diminished appetite.
Thagard, who is normally lean -- 5'9" tall and 156 pounds -- exercised two hours a day, because he believed bone and muscle loss in weightlessness could be offset by muscular conditioning. He returned to Earth July 7 in good enough shape after nearly four months in orbit to stand up, remain standing until the shuttle's hatch was opened and walk out unassisted.
Despite some slow days, Thagard said life aboard Mir station was "benign."
"The station was very livable," he said. "The air was clean. The food really was not bad at all, and the toilet worked, which is always important in space."
Shortly before shuttle Atlantis blasted off to retrieve the crew, the stride of the mission was broken with the news of Dezhurov's mother's death.
"It was a sad moment, and it was also kind of a frustrating moment because as an American I didn't really know how I ought to react.
"The American tendency would be to go and try to comfort the person, but I couldn't know that wasn't the exactly wrong thing to do."
Thagard said it would be harder to experience a family member's death in space than in a war.
"In Vietnam, you probably would have been given compassionate leave and would have been able to return for the funeral. Obviously in a case like that -- in space -- that's not going to happen."
Dezhurov, who was making his first spaceflight, was relieved of chores for two days of mourning.
Thagard said he wouldn't be opposed to flying again. However, at age 52 and with five flights completed, his chances of re-assignment are slim.
"I don't know how you top a mission like this," he said.
FSU officials hope to persuade him to top it with an academic career in Tallahassee.
Irene Klotz Brown of Melbourne, Fla., is a wire-service reporter and freelance writer specializing in aerospace.