In a montage of images from the shuttle program (plus one taken by a launch spectator), Garrett Reisman (center) is shown with his fellow Caltech astronauts Greg Chamitoff (at left) and Bob Behnken.

Caltech has boasted a couple of alumni astronauts since humans started venturing off the planet 47 years ago, including the only scientist-astronaut to walk on the moon (geologist Harrison “Jack” Schmitt ’57). Now the Institute has held its first alumni reunion in space.

On March 11, two alumni astronauts, Garrett Reisman, PhD ’97, and Robert Behnken, PhD ’97, rode into space aboard the space shuttle Endeavour. Behnken returned to Earth with Endeavour 16 days later; meanwhile his fellow alum, Greg Chamitoff, MS ’85, was getting set to take a ride on the space shuttle Discovery—planned for launch on May 31—replacing Reisman at the International Space Station.

With the shuttles scheduled to be mothballed in 2010 and many candidates in the astronaut program still waiting for their first launch, Behnken, Chamitoff, and Reisman were fortunate to get seats on the shuttle and a place among the select group of men and women who can say that they’ve been in space. Not long after they reached the space station and started adjusting to round-the-clock life in zero-G, Behnken and Reisman also got to step out for some space walks, or what NASA likes to mundanely call extravehicular activity (EVA).

Their main tasks outside the shuttle involved installing a section of a Japanese laboratory called Kibo and assembling and putting in place a Canadian-built robot called Dextre, which will help the space station’s robot arm perform routine maintenance. On his third space walk during the 12-day shuttle stay at the space station, Behnken had to wield a hammer and knock a piece of equipment into place. While they’re still on the ground, astronauts endlessly practice the types of operations that they might find themselves performing in space until they could probably do them in their sleep. Yet this particular procedure was not in the training manual.

Behnken helped install part of a Japanese lab and a Canadian robot during his three space walks.

“We had a case with a scientific payload with a couple thousand material samples” that had to be attached outside the European-built Columbus laboratory, said Behnken, who spoke with Caltech News as he wrapped up his postflight debriefings at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. He said that the experiment case needed to be installed in a particular orientation. “As I was fitting the pins in place, I noticed metal on metal interference that was generating metal shavings. NASA cleared me to give it a shot with a hammer.” Behnken duly locked the balky piece into place. Although the Apollo astronauts used garden-variety tools like rakes and scoops on the moon years ago, Behnken says that this may have been the first time that a hammer was deployed in space.

For Behnken, a major in the U.S. Air Force and a graduate of the Air Force Test Pilot School, hammering a pin, even in space, was no big deal. But he reports experiencing two major thrills from the astronaut experience. “Probably one of the most exhilarating experiences was liftoff,” he says. “We launched at night, so first we were illuminated by the bright lights on the launch pad. After launch, we went into darkness, then we went into a couple of cloud banks and the engine and motor lit up the clouds, so we saw a bright orange light and then darkness again. Plus, with all the vibration, the acceleration is a feeling I’ll never forget. About eight and a half minutes after liftoff we were in orbit and we had already gone half way around the world.

“The second memorable moment was the first EVA,” he says. “The view from space was really remarkable. While you are inside the shuttle, many of the windows are pointed at the space station, so the view of Earth is a little restricted. But while you are outside, you have the full view, and there will never be a better view of Earth than what you have through the space-suit helmet. For me, the most remarkable thing to see is the sunrise and sunset. You can really see the depth of the atmosphere, especially if there is a storm on the horizon.”

The International Space Station orbits Earth at about 200 miles above the surface. Inset: Showing off his creative talents, Reisman took a self-portrait on a space walk, capturing his helmet, the mirror image of the Space Station in his visor, and Earth below.

Reisman also got to work on Dextre and on the Japanese lab during his space walk, but one of his biggest thrills involved an extracurricular activity inside the space station. On April 16, the lifelong Yankees fan, donning a Yankees’ cap and T-shirt, threw out the ceremonial (and in this case, virtual) first ball at Yankee Stadium before the Bronx Bombers’ game with the Boston Red Sox. Reisman’s throw inside the space station was shown in a tape delay on the stadium’s Jumbotron screens. “Flying in space is really great, but throwing out the first pitch in the Yankees–Red Sox
game . . . I was very excited about it,” Reisman said during a video press conference. Many celebrities and politicians who have thrown out a first ball have embarrassed themselves by failing to reach home plate, but, even at about 200 miles above Earth, joked Reisman, “The best thing about throwing a first pitch up here, it’s impossible to bounce it.”

Reisman treated Yankee fans to a first pitch from space.

Reisman, who learned to fly through the Caltech Flying Club, feels a special kinship with the Institute, since it’s where he met his wife, Simone Francis, MS ’96, while they were graduate students. Francis, who is also a pilot, reports that, besides the opportunity to pitch to thousands, Garrett’s most exciting moments so far have been the Endeavour launch and the space walk. But even ordinary tasks are extraordinary in space, Francis told Caltech News. “He says just floating around the station is the most amazing thing and makes everything he has to do—even boring or unpleasant things like rearranging cargo or drawing his own blood—loads of fun.” During the space station’s weekly video conferences, which Francis says she often attends with her sister, “he spends most of his time demonstrating his somersault technique, making funny faces, and showing us how he plays with his toys in microgravity. We had him juggle his rubber NYC sewer rat and two inflatable pirate cutlasses.”

Like his fellow astronauts, Reisman took a number of mementos into space, including the magical floating Institute pennant. On one of the shuttle’s passes over California, he snapped the adjacent photo of Pasadena, with Caltech at the bottom, center.

The often-changing sleeping schedule at the space station, where he’s rooming with two Russians, has meant some adjusting for Reisman, Francis says. “As the sole American astronaut aboard the station, Garrett has primary responsibility for all of the U.S. station segments as well as the European and Japanese modules and the Canadian robotic arm. He spends a typical day performing routine maintenance on the various systems of these components, including life support, heating and cooling, etc., and conducting experiments within them (on fluid dynamics, plant growth, etc.). He must also exercise for two hours every day,” says Francis, who applied once to the astronaut program herself, and says she “would go to space in a heartbeat.”

As Endeavour rocketed away from Earth, ferrying Behnken and Reisman into the sky, the plume of smoke and flame propelling their ride may have struck them quite literally as a blast from the past. More than a decade earlier, they had been buddies at Caltech, both working in the basement of the Thomas Lab as graduate students in mechanical engineering. “For me, it was really great to fly with Garrett,” says Behnken. “I had known him for years at Caltech and that made it pretty neat. When I arrived at the Johnson Space Center, Garrett was my sponsor (the guy who takes you out to dinner and makes sure you are getting settled during the first couple of months). We rarely worked together directly at NASA, but because we already had a friendship from years before, we could pick up where we left off and work or socialize like the time had never passed.”

For at least one Caltech professor, watching Behnken and Reisman fly into space together summoned a range of emotions. Chris Brennen, the Hayman Professor of Mechanical Engineering, knew Behnken well and was not only Reisman’s PhD advisor, but became a father figure to him after his own son, Patrick, was killed in an auto accident and Reisman’s father died. An experienced mountaineer, Brennen often guided both Behnken and Reisman on hiking trips in area mountains during their Caltech years. On one such excursion, while Brennen and a group of students were preparing to rappel down a waterfall in the San Gabriel Mountains, Reisman tied the rope to a tree incorrectly, leaving Behnken, the first one in line, hanging upside down until he could be rescued.

In hindsight, that rappel misadventure was good preparation for Behnken and Reisman’s latest joint effort. A decade later, they found themselves again in a precarious position—strapped in, flat on their backs in the shuttle—as they waited to lift off from Cape Canaveral. “It was a highly emotional experience for me,” says Brennen, who watched the launch at the Kennedy Space Center. “The tears of emotion rolled uncontrollably down my cheeks as this magnificent machine roared into the night sky in a blaze of light, vibration, and thunder. I felt pride that I had some small part in the development of the incredible turbopumps at the heart of the space shuttle main engines, perhaps the most remarkable turbomachines ever built. Pride in the two magnificent young men who rode this monster into space. Fear, of course, for their safety and the well-being of Simone, who stood just a few yards away; this is dangerous business, and many things can go wrong as we know only too well. Sorrow because Garrett carried with him mementos of my son and my late wife, Doreen, symbols of lost loves being carried into the heavens. But also hope for the future—my eldest daughter, Dana, and her two children were also there to witness the launch.”

The space shuttle Discovery (right) arrived at the launch pad at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on May 3. At left, Greg Chamitoff participates in a training session in the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility at the Johnson Space Center.

While Behnken and Reisman were grabbing hammers, throwing baseballs, and enjoying other aspects of space travel, Caltech’s next alumni astronaut was preparing for his turn. Greg Chamitoff, who earned his master’s degree in aeronautical engineering before leaving for MIT to get specialized training in spacecraft guidance and control and his PhD, says that becoming an astronaut has been a lifetime dream.

“I was born in Montreal, and when I was six years old, my family took a trip to Florida,” Chamitoff says. “My father was always interested in the space program,” and he took his family to witness the launch of Apollo 11, the first mission to put humans on the moon. “When we saw the launch, my dad explained what they were doing, and I told him, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ And I never looked back.”

Chamitoff, who applied to the astronaut program several times over a 10-year period before he was accepted into the same class as Reisman, is scheduled to remain at the space station for six months, where he will help install a second section of the Japanese lab and conduct about 40 experiments. “One experiment is about duration in space and the effects on nutrition and health. There are also fluid physics experiments. Fundamental research will come out of that.”

Chamitoff says that the toughest aspect of the trip will be the long separation from his wife and three-year-old twins. “I’ve been training for a long time and this is an incredible opportunity. When you live for a few weeks in a new place, you get a sense of the place. I’m looking forward to living there long enough to know what it’s like to live in space.”

Chamitoff says he’s also looking forward to seeing Reisman, with whom he became close during their astronaut training. “Garrett’s a great friend. When I get up there, he’ll be the one to welcome me.”