Astronaut who once wrestled with a satellite now tackles technology at UW

by Jean Reichenback | September 1, 1989

George “Pinky” Nelson was 19 years old and a long way from home the day Neil Armstrong and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin walked on the moon.

“I was in the Netherlands working as a baseball coach for the summer,” said Nelson, recalling July 20, 1969. “I stayed up all night in an apartment in Amsterdam watching television. When the landing was complete, and they came off the LEM and were walking on the moon, all the Europeans (watching with him) got up and shook my hand just because I was an American.”

None of them, least of all Nelson, suspected that they were congratulating an American astronaut-to-be. The college student from Willmar, Minn., with whom they had shared the Apollo 11 experience, would ultimately make three trips into space aboard a still-on-the-drawing-board piece of technology called the “space shuttle.”

Nelson spent 11 years as a shuttle astronaut. His three flights included a January 1986 launch—the final mission before the Challenger accident—and the first post-Challenger mission, the September 1988 flight of Discovery. This summer he resigned from NASA and on July 15 joined the University of Washington as assistant provost and associate professor of astronomy.

Nelson is no newcomer to campus, however. He earned his master’s and Ph.D. degrees in astronomy at the UW in 1974 and 1978 respectively and spent several month on campus doing astronomy research during the shuttle program’s post-Challenger hiatus.

As an assistant provost, Nelson will focus on moving UW-developed technology from the laboratory to the marketplace. As an associate professor of astronomy, he will reach both undergraduate and graduate students. The classroom is about a year away, however. “I’ve been essentially out of the field for 10 years and it will take a while to get back up to speed,” he said. “I have my work cut out for me.”

Trim and athletic, Nelson’s youthful appearance belies his 39 years. His Administration Building office faces south, across an expanse of roof that serves as a launch pad for seagulls. The coffee mug on his desk proclaims the 20-year reunion of his high school graduating class. The coaster it rests on is really an embroidered uniform patch designed for his last shuttle flight.

“The astronaut job combined three things I really like to do,” he said, reflecting on his difficult decision to leave the space agency. “It was a real mental challenge—a lot of good work to be done, ideas to be had. The second is that it’s a physical challenge so I got to keep myself in good shape. And the third is to fly. The main one, of course, is flying.”

Nelson, designated a “mission specialist” by NASA, logged 17 days in space during his three flights. He spent 10 memorable hours in extra vehicular activity—space walks. During some of them he flew free, without a tether to the shuttle.

Nelson’s first mission—a seven-day flight of Challenger in 1984—sent him untethered into space to attach himself to Solar Max, an ailing satellite launched four years earlier to study sunspots and other solar activity. His mission was to tow the slowly spinning object back to the orbiter’s cargo bay.

“That’s one experience I haven’t been able to put into words yet,” said Nelson about his 10-minute, 200-foot journey between Challenger and Solar Max.

“One of the things I trained to do was to fly the maneuvering unit over to the satellite and stop—not stop flying—but take time and relax and just take it in for a minute or so,” Nelson recalled. What he saw were starts displaying their many colors, a white sun and a distant earth whose atmosphere clings like a narrow blue ribbon to the planet’s edge.

Wrestling with a 5,000-pound, 15-foot by 8-foot satellite is “like moving a boat around except that you can also go up and down,” Nelson noted. The effort was more mental than physical, he said, and, done in space, didn’t even work up a sweat. “Actually I was freezing,” he recalled. “The sun was at my back so the backpack and life support system were keeping me in the shade.”

Nelson spent about three hours trying to capture Solar Max, but design flaws in the man-to-satellite docking mechanism frustrated his efforts. “I stayed out of there for a long time, ran out of gas in the maneuvering unit,” he said. Nelson monitored his fuel supply by watching a series of lights that moved from green to yellow to red. “As long as you’re in the green you don’t think about it,” he said. Eventually, however, he had to report to orbiter pilot Francis “Dick” Scobie (destined to die on a later flight of Challenger) that he was “in the yellow” and must return to the spacecraft.

The satellite was retrieved later by the Challenger’s mechanical arm and the repairs were carried out, as planned, by Nelson and fellow astronaut James van Hoften. The Solar Max, which would have cost $235 million to replace, finally worked, making Nelson’s first mission an unqualified success.

His second mission, a 1986 flight of the Columbia launched almost on the eve of the Challenger accident, was the most problem-plagued of the three. “We could see we were pushing the system,” he said. That didn’t stop him from going, however. “I guess we thought we were better than we were, having been so successful in 23 flights before that,” he said in a low, reflective voice.

Nelson acknowledged that astronauts take risks but emphasized they don’t go aloft willing to lose their lives. “The main part of any astronaut’s or test pilot’s job is to make sure the system you’re testing is as safe and well engineered as it can be,” he said. “When you’ve done that, you look at the risk that’s left over and decide if that risk is acceptable.”

The crew members of the Challenger never received the information about the defective O rings they needed to make that risk assessment, said Nelson, who had close ties to most of the lost astronauts. “It wasn’t a failure of technology; it was a failure of communication. The engineers knew. The information just didn’t get passed up the line.”

Nelson was aboard an airplane headed for Minneapolis when Challenger exploded on Jan. 28, 1986. He was on his way to appear at the Minneapolis opening of “The Dream is Alive,” the IMAX film about the shuttle program. “I was paged at the airport,” Nelson said. Representatives of the museum which sponsored the showing of the film broke the news to him.

Nelson returned to Houston immediately. “I arrived in time to go out and meet the families,” he said. “We spent most of the next few days at the Scobie’s.”

The September 1988 launch of Discovery — the first since the Challenger — was “the most scrutinized feat of technology that’s ever been done,” in Nelson’s words. “The crew was knee-deep in all the tests and changes to both hardware and software,” he said, and the channels of communication were unobstructed. “That was the big change we made after the Challenger accident,” he added. “We put some very good people in the right places.”

The Discovery crew trained 20 months for that mission, which was “way too long,” in Nelson’s opinion. “I tried to keep my family up to date on what was happening, what the problems were, as I perceived them, and how they were being fixed. But it was still very stressful for them. There was a lot of media attention and that was hard to take.”

Susie Nelson and their daughters, Aimee and Marti, watched from the roof of the launch control center as Discovery carried Nelson, and the United States, back into space on Sept. 29, 1988. The vantage point is reserved for the immediate families of the crew members. “There are designated family escorts from the astronaut office who are assigned to be there with them and there is a plan in effect to handle any contingency,” he said.

Nelson joined NASA in 1978, one of 35 astronaut candidates chosen from more than 10,000 applicants. His selection was by no means the culmination of a lifelong dream, however. The 1970s had been, in fact, a slow period for NASA. “There were no more flights to the moon and the shuttle was reportedly being built but there was nothing much about it yet,” Nelson said.

Nelson was working as an astronomer in Germany in 1977 when he saw an announcement that NASA was accepting applications.

“Becoming an astronaut became a career goal when I filled out the application,” he said with a wry smile.

Lifelong dream or not, Nelson was a model astronaut, according to Steven Hawley, an astrophysicist and a fellow member of that group of 35. “He would be a good guy to use as a template for new astronauts,” said Hawley, who described Nelson as skilled, competent, easy-going and an exceptional team player. “When they’re interviewing someone for the program, they could ask themselves ‘Does this person remind me of Pinky?’”

Hawley flew on Nelson’s second mission, but they had other, more earth-bound ties. Both were members of an all-astronaut rock-and-roll band whose name, “Max Q,” recalls the moment in a shuttle launch when the pressures against the vehicle are the greatest. “We had our world tour this spring,” remarked Nelson. “It took us to the Johnson Space Center for one night. We even had T-shirts printed.

Max Q was formed to entertain at a 1950s party arranged as a morale-booster in the wake of the Challenger accident. “We learned three or four songs and got a good reception. So we decided to keep practicing and ended up learning enough songs to play an evening’s-worth of music.”

Hawley characterized Nelson’s defection from Max Q as “the most serious loss of all” in his resignation from the space program. “We lost our bass player and lead singer,” Hawley lamented. “He was probably the only one with real talent.”

Max Q received the benefit of Nelson’s experience as a member of the orchestra and choir at his high school in Willmar, Minn., a rural community of about 10,000 where Nelson grew up. He also played football, basketball and, his favorite, baseball.

“I was into everything in high school,” he said. “That’s one of the advantages of living in a small town.”

Nelson’s father was a salesman who later became a teacher and is now retired. His mother, also a teacher, died while he was in high school. His nickname, “Pinky,” goes back to the day he was born “for reasons that are lost,” Nelson said. “I have friends from high school who don’t know my name is George.”

From earliest childhood he wanted to be an astronomer. “I remember looking at a comet when I was very small — it must have been 1955 or 1956 — looking through binoculars from the back porch of one of our neighbors,” he said. “They couldn’t get the binoculars away from me. I was fascinated.”

John Glenn, Alan Shepard and the other Mercury astronauts were household names in America in the 1960s, but Nelson’s heroes tended to be sports figures such as baseball star “Duke” Snider. “Kids may have the concept of an astronaut as a hero but they don’t generally pick out one individual,” Nelson said. “The system has done a good job of not promoting individuals and I appreciate that.”

Nelson has “up and down days” about the future of the space program but, in the long run, he’s very optimistic.

“Space is going to play a big role in the economic future of the country,” he predicted. “Every shuttle flight carries a number of experiments from universities, NASA centers and private industry, and I’m convinced that one of those little experiments is going to produce a process, or a step in a process, that can only be done in space.” That step could be essential to a product worth billions of dollars, Nelson added. “When we start getting something really profitable done in low-earth orbit, the program is going to fund itself.”

Nelson predicts that the private sector will take over many space operations within 20 or 30 years. “But I doubt if companies will have a manned program,” he said. “We may be able to launch unmanned, have the process occur and have it return by itself.” But, he added, a manned program will always be required for “tending, repairing and exploration.”

NASA’s short-term problems include too few orbiters (only three) and a shortage of expendable boosters. Its management problems reflect its inability to adequately pay top managers, Nelson said. The space station, which he predicts will be in place within 10 years, remains to be funded and built.

But he also sees progress. “We’ll probably go back to the moon,” he said.

“Maybe not by the turn of the century, but close.” He also foresees an expedition to Mars. “That’s an interesting place,” he added. “I wouldn’t mind going but it’s a long trip — one and a half to two years.”

Nelson’s latest trip took him a much shorter distance — from Houston to Seattle. His selection for the new UW administrative post came after a national search. He joins an effort already in progress, primarily through the Office of Technology Transfer in the Graduate School, to get UW discoveries into the marketplace.

Alvin L. Kwiram, UW senior vice provost, pointed out that the University is receiving increasing numbers of inquiries from businesses — both domestic and foreign — as well as state and national agencies. These inquiries offer an important opportunity to bring the work of the University out into the community, Kwiram remarked.

“We wanted someone with a background in advanced technology issues and an interest in promotion and development,” Kwiram said about the selection of Nelson. “He has experience in the private sector and the political community, knowledge about the issues and a strong background that will open doors.”

Everyone wins when UW technology is marketed, Nelson said. The community gets new business, new technology and new products, and the University gets “a piece of the action” that includes prestige, financial benefits and a drawing card for resources and talented people.

With all his UW responsibilities, however, Nelson plans to find time to continue his support for the space program. “One of the real interests I have is trying to communicate the excitement of space to young people as a way of getting them interested in math, science, education in general,” he said. “I’m thinking of writing books for young people about space, space science and the environment.”

Those books will probably try to convey some of the appreciation and sense of urgency about the environment Nelson developed during the space travel that carried him so far from home.

“If my experience brought me anything you could call a spiritual point of view, it’s an appreciation for the planet,” he said. ”You realize that this place where we live — all of us live — is not very big. I’ve flown around it in an hour-and-a-half.

“It’s an amazing sight from space to look at the atmosphere,” he continued. “There almost isn’t any. There’s a tiny blue ribbon that goes around the edge of the earth and that’s it.

”When you take off the sky is blue, as you get up, passing through 100,000 feet or so, the view just opens up,” said Nelson, illustrating the phenomenon by moving his hands from an attitude of prayer up and outward in a V-shaped motion. “The sky just collapses on the horizon and you’re above it.

“I was sneaking peeks out the window during one of the launches and I happened to see that,” he added with a sense of awe in his voice. “It’s amazing.”

Jean Reichenbach is associate editor of the Washington Alumnus.

Space Dawgs: Other UW astronauts

Richard F. Gordon, Jr., 59, graduated in 1951 with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. A U.S. Navy test pilot, Gordon was selected for the astronaut program in 1963. He flew two missions, spending a total of 316 hours in space, including three hours of extra-vehicular activity. Gordon piloted the three-day Gemini XI mission in 1966 and served as command module pilot on the Apollo 12 flight to the moon in 1969. He resigned from NASA in 1972. Gordon served as a technical advisor for the 1984 television mini-series production of “Space” by James A. Michener and played the role of “Capcom” in that production.

John M. Fabian, 50, received a Ph.D. in aeronautics and astronautics from the UW in 1974. A colonel in the U.S. Air Force, he was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1978. Fabian was a mission specialist on two shuttle flights, one in 1983 and the other in 1985. Fabian, who also holds degrees from Washington State University and the Air Force Institute of Technology, is vice president for space systems for Analytic Services, Arlington, Va.

Bonnie J. Dunbar, 40, received her bachelor of science and master of science degrees in ceramic engineering from the UW in 1971 and 1975 respectively. She became an astronaut in 1981 and flew a seven-day mission aboard the space shuttle Challenger in 1985. She is currently training for a shuttle flight scheduled for December 1989. Dunbar earned a Ph.D. from the University of Houston.