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VOL.27, NO.1
An astronaut’s view of Earth
Launching a career The first astronauts had been test pilots, but in the mid-1960s, NASA put out a call for scientists to rocket into space as well. “I was 30 years old, and the space age had begun. I was curious, but you know what say about curiosity killing the cat,” Allen said of his initial enthusiasm for applying to NASA. “My wife was very upset. She didn’t like it at all.” Because Allen was one of 14,000 PhD scientists who applied to fly in space, he figured he didn’t have a chance. But in addition to his scientific credentials, Allen was a national wrestling champion and had been inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He was also fleet-footed, able to run a mile in just under five minutes. So in 1967, he was chosen to be one of 11 scientist-astronauts at NASA. “I was astonished I was selected. I think in large
PHOTO COURTESY OF NASA
By Barbara Ruben Joseph Allen didn’t pine to be an astronaut as a child. He never imagined himself blasting off into the dark unknown, peering back down at the round orb of the Earth and walking untethered outside of a space shuttle, unaffected by gravity. That’s because there was no such thing yet as an astronaut in 1940s Indiana, where Allen grew up. Allen, who flew aboard the space shuttles Discovery and Columbia in the 1980s, instead imagined he might become a cowboy or a race car driver or perhaps an explorer of the nearby Wabash River. “But I was too timid to be a race car driver, I was too small and couldn’t sing like the cowboys in the movies, and I just had no idea at the time I would end up being an explorer of sorts,” said Allen, who is now 77 and lives in Washington, D.C. Instead, he became a physicist, doing graduate work at Yale University, where he was when John Glenn first orbited the Earth. Later, Allen became a staff physicist at the university’s Nuclear Structure Laboratory. By the time he retired from the work world in 2003, Allen was chairman of the 8,000-employee defense firm Veridian. But sandwiched between were nearly two decades with NASA and two life-changing missions into space.
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LEISURE & TRAVEL Joseph Allen (right) and fellow astronaut Dale Gardner, shown in 1984, walking in space outside the space shuttle Discovery as they retrieve two malfunctioning satellites, hence their humorous “For Sale” sign. Allen, a physicist who later went on to become chairman of defense company Veridian, flew space missions on two NASA shuttles in the 1980s. Allen is shown today in the inset photo.
part it was because I was in such good physical condition,” he said. Intense training followed, from which Allen emerged as the top astronaut in his class in acrobatics, instrument flying and academics. Allen worked as a member of the astronaut support crew for Apollo 15, the fourth flight to the moon, and on the flight tests for the space shuttle. He also served as NASA’s assistant administrator for legislative affairs in Washington.
A moving experience Finally, on Nov. 11, 1982, it was his chance to blast off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida for six days on the first fully operational space shuttle, Columbia,
with three other astronauts. It was also the first shuttle flight that launched communications satellites into orbit. They also took their sense of humor into space, displaying a sign that read “Ace Moving Co.” Once in space, Allen was awestruck by the view back home. “It was the most glorious experience of my life. The beauty of the Earth takes your breath away,” he said. Orbiting the Earth at more than 17,000 miles an hour, Allen viewed a sunrise or sunset once every 45 minutes from the shuttle’s windows. “I felt as if I was flying in heaven. The atmosphere is so beautiful and delicate, and you can really understand that if something See ASTRONAUT, page 37
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