Behind every NASA mission was a sizable army of civilians called on to realize the success of the country’s endeavors. Some, like African American female mathematicians, are rightfully recognized. Most are not. We think Utahns shouldn’t be left out.
Before astronauts could land on the moon, they needed to know where they could park the lunar module. Enter Jim Taylor, a retired physicist who now resides in Utah. He and his colleagues worked for a company in Ohio that was tapped to map the moon and help NASA select a suitable spot to touch down. His team pioneered methods for 3-D charting the extraterrestrial object and sent their maps along to the space administration.
Former Utah Sen. Edwin Jacob “Jake” Garn is the most visible of Utahns in the space program. Garn was born in Richfield, studied at the University of Utah and served as mayor of Salt Lake City before beating Wallace Bennett to serve as one of Utah’s senators from 1974-1993.
In 1985, while head of the Senate appropriations subcommittee that handled NASA, Garn asked to fly on a Discovery shuttle mission. He flew as a “payload specialist,” or, in his words, as the first human guinea pig in space, subjecting himself to a host of experiments gathering data on the effects of microgravity on the human body. He became the first sitting senator, first Utahn and only Salt Lake City mayor to fly in orbit, and NASA named its primary shuttle training facility after him.
Garn’s 1985 shuttle flight wasn’t the only success that year. Utah native and University of Utah graduate Don Lind flew on Challenger’s 1985 flight. Before that, Lind helped develop the flight plan for Apollo 11's moon walk. And Mary Cleave, a USU research associate, flew as a mission specialist on the shuttle Atlantis, also in 1985.
Then, tragedy struck. In 1986, Challenger blew up one minute after launch. The fault quickly fell to Utah-based Morton Thiokol, an aerospace manufacturing company that designed the booster rockets for the vehicle. One Utah engineer, Roger Boisjoly, vigorously opposed the launch, claiming he and several other engineers had evidence the fatal O-rings were unsafe. According to Boisjoly, Morton Thiokol management rebuffed their concerns and gave NASA the green light.
In a radio interview with NPR later in life, Boisjoly described the persistent heartache and anxiety he felt for being rebuked by officials who ignored his pleas. It was a decision that left seven Americans dead.
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Naturally, the shuttle project fell under intense scrutiny. To get NASA back on track, President Ronald Reagan asked former University of Utah president James C. Fletcher to assume the mantle of leadership and restore America’s faith in the program.
These people with Utah ties weren’t the only ones to serve their country to explore the final frontier, and they won’t be the last. Nor will they be the only people in offices, communities, churches and families who perform their duties with quiet excellence and ask for no reward.
Reagan was known for displaying a plaque on his desk that read, “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he does not mind who gets the credit.” We may love our celebrity astronauts, but their triumph is only the tip of an American iceberg tens of thousands of people strong. To those who sacrifice so others can succeed, we salute you this week.