HOUSTON — How many of us grew up staring into the night sky, wondering about space, about the stars, about the unknown?
Well, Stokes McMillan did too.
"As a kid, I grew up wanting to be in the space business," he says, recalling watching the sky for the Echo Project satellite with his father when he was a kid.
McMillan grew up in the era of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.
"Rockets back then were basically big tubes that were symmetrical. That’s what a space vehicle looked like," he explains.
When McMillian joined NASA in 1978, the space agency was on the verge of trying something all new: the space shuttle.
"What a radical design it was," says McMillan. "It was such a wild, weird concept. There was always this question in the back of your mind, ‘Is this thing really going to work?'"
In those early years, he worked on the shuttle mission simulator, getting the crew ready for the new vehicle’s first trip into space.
"Those were great days," he says, sharing a photo from April 7, 1981, the final training before the launch. "We had a lot of fun back then."
Slated to take off on April 10, a computer glitch delayed STS-1’s takeoff until April 12, 1981.
"When the shuttle launched, I had tears in my eyes," says McMillan. "It was an absolutely mind-blowing experience."
Not just for McMillan. Earlier this month, the NASA Alumni League compared notes about working on that first space shuttle mission. (Watch the full two-hour conversation here.)
"The shuttle was a brand-new vehicle," Neil Hutchison, a former NASA flight director said. "We didn’t know squat about it."
"We had this thing up there that just didn’t look right," laughed Charles "Chuck" Lewis, another former NASA flight director.
"The early shuttle program, we had the mature judgment of an entire workforce in addressing risk, responsibility, design modification, changes," said Gene Kranz, who was NASA's Director of Flight Operations at the time of STS-1.
The team's work continued all the way to the final space shuttle mission: STS-135 in 2011.
"That was a really sad moment. I couldn’t believe that it was over," says McMillan. "I still think the shuttle was shut down prematurely. It only flew a quarter of the flights it was designed for."
During his time at NASA, McMillan also worked as a team lead on a couple missions and as a simulation supervisor. He eventually retired after more than three decades with the agency.
"I was fortunate enough to live my dream," McMillan says.
So if your dreams always launch you back to space, as his did, he says fire up those engines.
McMillan adds: "I think the legacy for NASA and anyone is, ‘Hey, you might have a wild idea. Go for it!’
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