Eldernaut's Mission: Science Or Publicity?

October 18, 1998|By MICHAEL CABBAGE Space Coast Bureau

HOUSTON — The big question facing NASA scientists was pretty straightforward in February 1962: Can humans safely travel in space?

``Back then it was to see if we could do this thing or not,'' recalls astronaut John Glenn, who at 42 became the first American to orbit the Earth. ``Would your eyes change shape? Would you . . . become nauseous and [get) vertigo so bad you wouldn't know what you were doing? Could you swallow?''

Glenn's successful three-orbit mission helped lay to rest some of the more farfetched fears about flying in space. The simple science questions of the early '60s have gone the way of the pillbox hat.

So has unqualified support for sending Glenn into orbit.

The 77-year-old U.S. senator from Ohio and national hero is taking considerable heat for his planned Oct. 29 return to space aboard shuttle Discovery.

This time, the potential science payoff is murkier. Skeptics question whether the rationale for flying Glenn _ to put him through a battery of in-orbit medical tests _ is a fig leaf covering another agenda.

Glenn insists it isn't so.

``If you eliminate the science benefit, then there's no reason except that I want to go again,'' Glenn said. ``But that's not a justification for sending someone. There's lots of people who would like to go.''

Science or politics?

Officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration say Glenn is going because he is an ideal test subject.

Some of the effects of space flight _ bone loss, weakened muscles, loss of balance and sleeplessness _ mirror the aging process. Who better to look for possible links than an aging Mercury astronaut with a meticulously documented medical history?

But critics are saying other things:

That Glenn's trip is more of a sentimental journey than a research mission. That the assignment is a political quid pro quo for his past support of NASA and the Clinton administration. That the real goal is a public relations windfall designed to rekindle flagging interest in the space program.

``This isn't science,'' said Alex Roland, a former NASA historian who teaches at Duke University. ``You don't take the first person who comes in off the street and build a scientific question around them.''

NASA researchers concede that a single flight by one older astronaut won't yield revolutionary results. But they contend Glenn will be a valuable reference point in much larger studies comparing the effects of space on different age groups.

``Sen. Glenn is just going to give us one set of data,'' said Arnauld Nicogossian, NASA's associate administrator for Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications. ``If you ask me what I'm going to do with Sen. Glenn's data in isolation, I would tell you that's the wrong question.''

It was Glenn's idea.

As a member of the Senate's Special Committee on Aging, he stumbled across the similarities between growing old and the effects of space flight in 1995.

``He did his own library research on the parallels,'' said David Liskowsky, the mission's life sciences program director at NASA headquarters. ``He came to us and said `Are you aware of this?' We were.''

In the summer of 1996, Glenn made a surprising proposal: Send him into orbit as a 70-plus-year-old guinea pig.

``[I) proposed that somebody should be looking into this new area that I thought was very important, and obviously I hoped it would be me,'' Glenn said.

Initially, NASA was cool to the idea. Glenn persisted.

Finally, a year and a half later, his efforts paid off.

The space agency's scientists approved his selection, and doctors pronounced him physically fit.

He has been under fire ever since.

Some of the harshest criticism has come from Musgrave, who retired from the astronaut corps after being told he wouldn't fly again.

``I cared enough about space to do it for 30 years,'' Musgrave said. ``I did not leave for greener pastures, then come back as a passenger.''

Glenn has been stung by those and similar charges that he used his congressional clout to get the assignment.

``I'm not back as a legislative passenger,'' Glenn said during a recent visit to Kennedy Space Center. ``I'm back as a science passenger. That's the basis on which I was selected. It's the basis on which I trained.''

Despite the occasional pot shots, scientists generally have been supportive of Glenn's flight. Not all, however, are sold on the mission's potential benefits as advertised.

Skepticism remains over whether the research really will address any fundamental questions on aging.

Nevertheless, even researchers not associated with the project concede that watching Glenn's 77-year-old body respond to microgravity might yield some interesting and unexpected results.

``Glenn is a good choice for several reasons, including his health and his age,'' said Andrew Monjan, chief of neurobiology at the National Institute on Aging. ``When we have a chance to study these things in older individuals, we should take it.''

No joyride

For Glenn, the nine-day flight will be one long visit to the doctor's office.

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