The Pittsburgh Press from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 24

The Pittsburgh Press Wednesday, November 10, 1982 B-l LUMBIA AND Lenoir, who learned to fly after joining NASA, now has logged more than 2,900 flight hours in jet aircraft. He was a backup science-pilot for the second and third manned missions of Skylab and led the NASA Satellite Power Team that investigated large-scale systems for transmitting solar-generated electricity from orbit to Earth. Before being named to the shuttle crew, he was helping work out the details of launching and retrieving satellites from the reusable space plane. But in recent months, he has been working day and often night preparing for the first mission that will launch satellites. And with work days averaging 12 to 15 hours, Lenoir has sacrificed much of his family time for mission preparations.

launch the first two satellites from a shuttle and will make the first spjc-ewalk in the new shuttle spacesuit. Without any launch duties, Allen also will be the first astronaut to sit back and just enjoy a ride into space. "I will perhaps be one of the first to have the time, given the luxury, to reflect on the launch a little bit. I look forward to doing that." Robert F. Overmyer Robert F.

Overmycr's desire for space adventure evolved from a childhood fascination with flying an activity that has consumed the veteran pilot's life "I didn't look at the moon and say I wanted to go to the moon. I'm not a Noil Armstrong (the first man to step on the moon)," Overmyer said. "We lived right in the flight path of the Cleveland-Hopkins Airport. I'd been interested in flying since I was 5 years old." "I went into the Marine Corps and became a jet pilot. I became an aeronautical engineer.

I decided I wanted to be a test pilot. Then the next extension (was Overmyer, who has spent more than 6,000 hours of his life in jet planes and other aircraft, said he is "tickled pink" to finally get a chance, after more than a decade of waiting, to pilot the fifth mission of the space shuttle Columbia. Overmyer, who enjoys acrobatic flying in open cockpit biplanes as a hobby, believes the launch will be the most exhi'lira'ting part of the flight. "If my heart rate isn't 180 at liftoff, I'll be really amazed," Overmyer said. "That's not the most important part of the flight, but that's it.

They can't take it (the assignment) back once you've lifted off." The 46-year-old Westlake, Ohio, native joined NASA as an astronaut in 1969, after the U.S. Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory Program was canceled. He worked as a support crew member on Skylab and Apollo missions and served as the NASA capsule communicator in Russia's mission control center near Moscow during the historic Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975. Previously, he worked as a test pilot for the Air Force and obtained a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.

Although he tries to spend time on the weekend with his wife, Kathenne, son Robert, 12, and daughters Carolyn, 16, and Patricia, 14, Overmyer admits his time has been limited by shuttle training. 4' Vance D. Brand He said back then he hoped eventually to learn how to fly the space shuttle that then was still largely on the drawing boards. After logging 6,950 flying hours in jets and 30 other types of military aircraft, the veteran pilot is eager to again feel the weightlessness and view the beauty of space. "I can't think professionally or from a personal enjoyment point of view of anything I'd rather be doing right bow than getting ready for a challenging interesting flight Uke this," Brand said.

"I think it's a special pleasure to be a commander. I've got a fine crew. They really know their business. So it'll be a pleasure working with them." Brand said his second wife, Beverly, is excited about his journey into space. But four of his children consider it "a little bit old hat" after witnessing the Apollo-Soyuz mission.

Brand's youngest child, Erik, is only 17 months old. Brand's parents, Dr. and Mrs. Rudolph W. Brand, still live in Longmont.

Brand was to have been the first shuttle commander to let a computer land for him, but the space agency has scrapped plans for its first automatic landing because of simulation problems. Being a test pilot, he made no secret of his desire to do the landing himself. William B. Lenoir Bill Lenoir was an engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when, almost as a lark, be answered an ad in a science magazine and sent off an application for the astronaut corps. "I thought, 'What the hell, why Lenoir said in an interview.

"I just sent in the little clipping and they sent me back three reams of paper to fill out" Although the Coral Gables, native never dreamed of becoming an astronaut until he saw that advertisement, be accepted NASA's offer in August 1967 to become one of the first scientist-astronauts. Lenoir, now 43, left behind a successful career at MIT, where he had received bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering, and had been honored for his teaching skills. Now, after waiting 15 years, he is about to fly aboard the space shuttle Columbia on its fifth flight, and the first one to carry satellites into orbit. He is one of a new breed of shuttle crewmen called a mission specialist a flight engineer on this mission. A mm Tomorrow, Vance Brand, Robert F.

Overmyer, William B. Lenoir and Joseph P. Allen will make the fifth voyage of the space shuttle Columbia. This voyage, however, will be the first operational mission with its main goal to launch two communication satellites, one American and one Canadian. Although not as glamorous as the first moon landing, it is perhaps the most significant of the space age as the shuttle is used for the first time for commercial means.

"This is the first flight where we're setting out to use the shuttle the way we promised to use it," says commander Brand. This trailblazing voyage may well be the forerunner to regular, commercial use of space vehicles. Here is a look at the men who will be aboard the Columbia. Vance D. Brand SPACE CENTER, Houston (UPI) -Vance D.

Brand always liked flying. He took his first airplane ride at age 5 and now he is ready to make his second space voyage as the commander of the fifth mission of the space shuttle Columbia. "One thing in my life that enhanced the interest was my father paid for both of us to go up in a Ford Trimotor," Brand said. "I was a little kid, and I was really impressed with it. The Longmont, native earned bachelor's degrees in business and aeronautical engineering from the University of Colorado.

He later earned a master's degree in business adminstration at UCLA. into flying was purely an emotional decision," Brand said in an interview. "I got into it and liked it." Brand, SI, was a jet fighter pilot for the Marine Corps between 1953 and 1957. Following his release from active duty, he remained in jet fighter squadrons of the Marine Corps Reserve and Air National Guard for another four years. In 1960, Brand joined Lockheed Aircraft Corp.

as a flight test engineer on the P3A Orion aircraft. He also worked as a test pilot on the Canadian and German F-104 development programs. He was selected as an astronaut in 1966 and trained to fly to the moon as a backup pilot for Apollo 15. The stocky, gray-eyed blond made history in 1975 as Apollo command module pilot on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project the first space hookup between American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts. The Russians called him Vanya.

-'A 4 I Vt Is William B. Lenoir CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (UPI) -Highlights of the five-day flight of the fifth mission of the space shuttle Columbia: Tomorrow The Columbia is scheduled to take off at 7:19 a.m. EST with its first four-man crew commander Vance Brand, Robert F. Overmyer, Joseph P.

Allen and William B. Lenoir. Also aboard will be two satellites the first cargo to be launched from the shuttle. The ship is to reach a preliminary orbit 10 minutes after blastoff and climb into a safe 184-mile high orbit at 8:04 a.m. The first of the two satellites, a communications relay craft owned by Satellite Business Systems, is to be launched from i- Wis i nig Joseph P.

Allen "I've always felt I rather be best than first at something, realizing full well that first is a forever and best is very temporary because there's going to be somebody right behind you a little better," Lenoir said. Joseph P. Allen Joseph P. Allen was working in a nuclear physics lab at the University of Washington the day in 1967 he received an unexpected telephone call from Alan Shepard, America's first man in space. Shepard, then the head of the astronaut corps, asked Allen to join NASA as one of the first scientist-astronauts.

"I was quite surprised and thought about it, but not for very long," Allen said. "The odds were against (the selection). There were thousands who had applied. Goodness knows what they (NASA) were looking for." Allen said he was ready for a move when Shepard's call came. "I sent in an application since I was in the process of looking around.

It was time I moved on and did some other sorts of science," he said. "I never made any plans as though it was going to happen, ever." Allen left behind a successful science career that included master's and Ph.D. degrees in physics from Yale. But he was more than just a laboratory scientist, having earned a Fulbright scholarship to Germany, and after his selection for the astronaut corps, he served as mission scientist preparing for the Apollo 15 moon mission. He then spent several years in Washington.

The affable Crawfordsville, native, who learned to fly after joining the space corps, served as a staff consultant on science and technology to the President's Council on International Economic Policy. He worked as NASA Assistant Administrator for Legislative Affairs in Washington, D.C., from 1975 until 1978. Then be returned to Johnson Space Center for work on the shuttle program. He served as a ground support crewman for the maiden flight of the space shuttle Columbia and now is one of four crewman for its first operational mission. Allen, 45, a trim 5-6, 125 pounds, looks younger than his age.

He likes handball, squash, sailing and skiing. He also is interested in music and photography. He is married and has two children and until recently had never missed any of his son's football or soccer games. He and fellow astronaut Bill Lenoir will at 7:54 a.m. and enter Columbia's open payload bay for 3 hours of tests, including practicing mechanical operations for a space repair mission planned for 1984.

More than a half hour of live television is planned to show portions of the spacewalk. Monday With the mission's major objectives scheduled to be completed, the astronauts will spend some time operating three scientific experiments developed by college students. There will be brief television shows for each experiment, beginning at 7:27 a.m. showing a.test designed to see how fluid moves in weightlessness under government. "That isn't exactly true, although they do have an Inspector of Steps.

But there are nearly 15 miles of city-owned steps in Pittsburgh, going up mountainsides. (The city still has some steps, but they aren't as important as they were before autos and buses became as numerous as they are today. The rest of the column is noticeably out of date.) "Pittsburgh has everything you can think of, and yet no one distinctive character. You can't say it's a city of easy liberty, such as New Orleans, or a city of high cosmopolitanism, as San Francisco. "People here just work, as one fellow put it.

Business, rather than people's spirit, dominates Pittsburgh. The business is steel. "And is Pittsburgh booming now! Some of the mills are even turning out a daily production far beyond the mills' theoretical capacity, as figured by engineers. They say there is work now for every ure Of Satellite History WASHINGTON (UPI) The United States made communications history 22 years ago when a taped radio message from President Eisenhower transmitted in California bounced off an orbiting 10-story balloon and was picked up in New Jersey. Another major step will be taken tomorrow and Friday, if all goes according to plan, when two of the most advanced radio relay satellites are launched in orbit from the open cargo bay of the space shuttle Columbia.

There are dozens of communications satellites orbiting the globe today, but all were launched on the noses of rockets good for one use only. Even though the 1960 launch of the Echo 1 balloon marked a communications milestone, it soon became apparent that active satellites were needed to make space communications practical. Such "comsats" have become the major cargo for America's fleet of reusable space planes. The shuttle will launch five more radio relav satellites next year and 13 in 1984. As many as four or five can go up in one shuttle.

The two to be launched on the tomorrow's flight of the Columbia its first "operational" mission are twin satellites owned by Satellite Business Systems and Te-lesat Canada. "I find I don't miss the specific milestones. I miss the day-to-day things I cannot put a name on It's time," Lenoir said. Lenoir, who stands 5-10 and weighs 150 pounds, also has given up his woodworking and sailing. The soft-spoken scholar said his daughter Samantha, 14, son William 17, and wife, Elizabeth, are thrilled about his first space voyage on board the space shuttle Columbia.

His father, Samuel, lives in Miami. Lenoir is eager to go into space, but denies being excited, in the common sense of the word. Lenoir said he feels no personal sense of history about being aboard the shuttle's first operational mission and docs not see himself in a pivotal role in the space program. Columbia and would be used to launch either of the satellites if they could not be launched earlier for some reason. During a night portion of the ship's 37th orbit, at 11:25 a.m., the astronauts will attempt to photograph a strange glow noticed on the ship's skin during the shuttle's third flight.

An 8-minute telecast is scheduled for 3:19 showing Allen and Lenior working in shuttle's airlock. Sunday Allen and Lenior start donning pressure suits at 3:24 a.m. and 1 hour 20 minutes later begin breathing pure oiygen in preparation for the first spacewalk from the shuttle. They leave the ship's airlock 4 Gilbert Love Adventures In Retirement "Trolley cars run over the tops of houses one minute and through a tunnel the next." (Some of that is exaggerated, but our topography is much as he described it, and you may recognize some familiar places in his recital. He was impressed by the devices used to cope with the terrain more than 200 bridges and tunnels for autos, for trolleys, for trains.) "And theEthe steps," he went on, "Oh Lord, the steps! I was told they actually had a Department of Steps in the city Mights Of Columbia's Mission W.IWHWI I II I 1M II ijlli ill Robert F.

Overmyer the influence of surface tension. It will be followed by an attempt to grow a perfect crystal in weightlessness, and a test of the ability of sponge cells to regroup when there is no gravity to help them. Tuesday This is come home day. The astronauts begin to close up Columbia's cargo bay at 5:21 a.m. and button up the ship for the return to Earth.

The pilots at 810 a.m. are to receive the "go" for re-entry, and plan to fire the ship's twin braking rockets at 8:31 a.m. while sweeping over the Indian Ocean for the 81st time. Landing is scheduled for 9:27 a.m. at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

capable man who wants to work." "Pittsburgh," the column continued, "is smoking and roaring into a boom that is likely to go beyond anything of the pre-depression days. Money is flowing again. And when Pittsburghcrs have money, they spend it. "The milltown stores are overrun. Steel workers and miners, after years of scrimping, are buying radios, and new rugs, and clothes, and everything else they haven't had for years." (His last paragraphs sound like ancient history.) "There's an old saying in Pittsburgh, dating back to the days when the mills paid off in gold: 'No coal dust, no gold Well, there's plenty of coal dust now, and gold dust too.

"Pittsburgh is a dirty city. It wasn't libeled a bit when it got that reputation. But Pittsburgh people like people everywhere, love prosperitx And a dirty shifi collar here means prosperity. a A A r- 4' i -i ium fn ii ir in it Columbia's cargo compartment at 3:17 p.m. A rocket motor will be fired 45 minutes later to push the satellite toward its parking orbit.

Friday Columbia's astronauts launch the second satellite, owned by Telesat Canada, at 3:25 p.m. while the shuttle is crossing the Pacific for the 22nd time. After the shuttle moves safely away, a rocket motor aboard the satellite will be fired at 4:10 p.m. toward the stationary orbit 22,300 miles high. A few minutes later, Brand will turn Columbia so its right side is facing the sun in a 47-hour thermal test.

Saturday This is a light day for the crew of the Pittsburgh rnie Pyle Left Visual Pkt flown over it, and driven all around it, and studied maps of it, and still I hardly know one end of Pittsburgh from the other." Continuing, he wrote: "The reason for all this is the topography of Pittsburgh. It's up and down and around and around and in betwixt. Pittsburgh is hills, mountains, cliffs, valleys and rivers. "You may have a friend who lives a half a mile away. But to get there you circle 3 miles around a mountain ridge, cross two bridges, go through a tunnel, follow a valley, skirt the edge of a cliff, and wind up at your friend's back door an hour after dark.

"Right downtown," he asserted, a freight train goes by a fourth-story office window. One side of the city postoffice is coal black, because the railroad is right beside it. "The main passenger line of another railroad runs smack through the center of a steel mill There just wasn't any place else to put the railroad. I have here an interesting word picture of Pittsburgh as it was in the bad old days before smoke control, Renaissance I and other improvements made our community someplace special. It was written in 1937 by an expert in such matters, Ernie Pyle, the Seripps-Howard reporter who roamed the United States, writing columns about its people and places, then became a famous correspondent in World War II.

Lois Schiffhauer of the Bloomfield area found the column in a foot locker belonging to her late husband and sent me a copy. I'll quote most of it, and add some comments "as we go along. "Pittsburgh is undoubteldy the cockeye-dist city in the United States," Ernie wrote. 'Physically it is absolutely irrational. It must have been laid out by a mountain goat.

"It is the only city in the country inhere 1 can't find my way around. The only- one of which I can't get a mental picture. I've.