Spokane man’s brother heading to space, again
Two years ago, Terry Fossum stood in the family viewing area at Cape Canaveral, watching with a mixture of fear and pride as space shuttle Discovery blasted off and took his brother, Mike Fossum, into space.
Terry, who’s 46, had been rooting for more than a decade for his older brother to reach that moment.
For Mike Fossum, who is now 50 years old and the oldest member of this shuttle crew, that launch ended a 13-year wait. In 1993 he left the Air Force to join NASA, but until 2006 he never was assigned a seat on a shuttle flight.
A Spokane resident and former executive officer at Fairchild Air Force Base, Terry Fossum soon will make a trip to the cape to watch Mike Fossum take his second trip into space. That launch is scheduled for May 31.
“I’m extremely proud of him, not just that he gets to do what he’s dreamed about, but also that he overcame all those times when he kept applying for a spot, only to get the call that he didn’t make the cut again,” Terry said.
What probably won’t change this time is the mix of trepidation and concern during the second Discovery liftoff, he said. “The last launch, as all the family members watched, not a one of us was breathing the whole time the shuttle got off the pad.”
The two brothers grew up in McAllen, Texas. Both attended Texas A&M and joined the Air Force after graduation. Terry said his brother always had a passion for fixing things – and for finding a way to get to space.
A few years ago, Terry said their mother, Patricia Fossum, found one of Mike’s childhood books about the space program. Inside the cover, in his second-grade handwriting, Mike had written, “I will end up touching the stars.”
This time, their mother will join them at the family viewing site. Two years ago she was in a Houston hospital, unable to attend. During that 13-day mission, Mike Fossum called his mother from the shuttle.
While his brother’s Air Force career took him around the country, Terry’s finally brought him to Spokane in 1988. He became the executive officer of the base’s B-52 squadron and remained a captain until he resigned his commission in 1996.
Mike acknowledged that the concern his family has for his well-being, waiting for liftoff, is matched by every crew member strapped into their seats on the launch pad.
“The fact of the matter is you’re sitting on four million pounds of explosives,” he said. It would be unthinkable for any normal person to be in that position and not feel some fluttering of the stomach.
On this mission, scheduled for 15 days, Mike Fossum will take at least two spacewalks. One goal is to attach segments of the Japanese-designed Kibo laboratory to the space station.
The Kibo laboratory, carried inside the payload bay of the shuttle, is about the size of a school bus, Fossum said.
Walking in space is, he added, much like scuba diving, except that there is no viscosity of water to cloud the view of what’s around you.
Once a spacewalker steps through the hatch into space, the view of Earth is initially a bit disturbing, he said.
“You look straight down at the Earth and you have no sensation at all that you’re really moving at 17,500 miles per hour. You feel like you’re stationary, and there’s this blue-white-and-green ball moving underneath you.”
When the flight ends after two weeks and Discovery glides to a landing, Fossum said two feelings will engulf the crew of seven astronauts.
“No. 1 is, gravity sucks. And then you sit back and realize, ‘Hey, we really did it.’ “