Jerry Ross holds the record for number of flights to space - seven - all aboard the now defunct Space Shuttle. Only one other astronaut shares that distinction: Ad Astra's Franklin Chang Diaz. Ross retired from NASA in 2012. His book "Spacewalker" (2013) is the remarkable story of his life. Cover quotes from the late Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, and the late Gene Cernan, last man on the moon, are testament to that.
Jim Clash: People want to know: Has anybody had sex in space?
Jerry Ross: You know I’m a married man, right [laughs]?
Clash: Yes, but I'm not saying from personal experience.
Ross: No one to my knowledge. If you’ve seen the interior of ISS, there isn’t a whole lot of room there.
Clash: Where do you fall in the debate about getting humans to Mars: go to the red planet directly, or back to the moon first?
Ross: I don’t think we have the technology to send humans to Mars directly. It would be an incredibly brute-force thing. It makes more sense to return to the moon and start developing technologies needed to go to Mars there. You are only two days from home on the moon. Because of its great distance, you will need resources pre-positioned on Mars to stay for the extended periods required. We’re also not going to be able to bring a lot of spare parts like we can aboard ISS. What if there is a mechanical failure? And how do we deal with radiation? We also need to understand how to use water-ice on the moon to manufacture water we can drink, bathe with, use to make meals, grow crops with, ultimately use to manufacture rocket fuels. So I’m of the camp of we go to the moon to develop those capabilities and, as soon as we’ve got them ready, press off toward Mars.
Clash: You had already flown one mission before Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986. Where were you when that tragedy happened?
Ross: Los Alamos. Immediately we terminated everything and flew back home, holding onto the hope that maybe some of the crew had survived. I was saying silent prayers for my friends, for their souls. But when we landed, we were told they had not made it.
Clash: You flew six more times after that. Did your commitment to the space program overcome any fear you may have had going forward?
Ross: I started to do some soul searching. We always knew something like that could happen, but when you’re in the flying game, it’s always going to happen to somebody else. When you see your friends die on national TV, it forces you to rethink what you’re doing. I talked to my family around the dining room table. I asked what they each thought about me continuing to participate. Fortunately, both they and I came to the opinion that for me to quit would mean that my friends lost their lives in vain. You have to come to an understanding of the risk versus the gain, and what you’re potentially subjecting your family to. I always felt what I was doing was important enough to take the risk.
Clash: Speaking of fear, how did you deal with it personally?
Ross: Preparation. I wanted a great level of detail because when it came to malfunctions, one procedure was written for each failure. But say you had two failures at once - an electric and plumbing failure - you might start running one procedure but get yourself into a worse situation doing something that might be bad for the second failure. The only way you can think [critically] is if you’re armed with enough information to question every step as you go along.
