On 13 June, NASA will launch seven astronauts on Space Shuttle ENDEAVOUR (STS-127) to the International Space Station. This is the 29th mission to the space station, the 10th anniversary of the station and ENDEAVOUR’s 22nd flight into space. ENDEAVOUR first launched in May 1992, about the same time Commander Christopher Cassidy ’93, USN was knee-deep in mathematics finals. He had no clue that this shuttle would be ferrying him into space in the next decade, only the second SEAL to ever leave the planet Earth as an astronaut.
“I'd be lying if I said I wanted to be an astronaut all my life,” Commander Cassidy said. His resumé backs this statement up. He has been deployed as a SEAL four times, two of those times to Afghanistan and one of those being just two weeks after the September 11 attacks. His Afghani missions were in Kandahar Province along the border where he led SEALs in 23 missions. Commander Cassidy was awarded two Bronze Stars for these missions, one with valor device and the Presidential Unit Citation.
“I was platoon leader and no one got hurt,” he modestly stated. “We were exploring a cave after the Tora Bora mission. We went into a Cave of Interest for over a week.” (Nine days in the Zhawar Kili cave complex suspected to have been an area where al Qaeda fighters regrouped after the bombardment of Tora Bora.)
It was another alumni that turned his attention to the possibility of becoming an astronaut—Captain Bill Shepherd ’71, USN, the only other SEAL to make that leap. “I called him to find out what his path was to NASA,” Cassidy said, “and I got really excited. If he can do, it I can do it. I started to put the pieces together in 2000,” the same year he earned a master's degree in Ocean Engineering from MIT. He got the call from NASA the day after he returned from Afghanistan four years later.
His three young children were obviously excited when he broke the news, “but now that they are older, they are really excited,” he laughed, especially about the trip to Florida to watch their dad blast into space. But since they relocated to Houston for his training, being an astronaut did not automatically make him the coolest dad on career day: all the astronauts are there in Houston. “There are quite a few of us around with kids,” he said. “Three other astronauts have kids in my kids’ classes, so it’s not that impressive. They’re like, ‘Aw man! Where’s the fireman?’”
His training as a mission specialist has been greatly helped by his Academy and SEAL experience. “Most of my training now is in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab,” he explained. “We put on our space suits and practice space walks under water. Having SEAL training was a huge help.” He also said that Navy is a “doing” place and his training for NASA is all about doing and procedure. “The Academy teaches time management and you learn to get organized,” he said. “As a mid, you have so much going on, you have to do all that’s required of you. It’s the same here. We have to train, but we have to keep up with our flying, do public speaking, still be a good father and husband, etc.” He does find it odd not to have troops he is responsible for after years as a commander, from company commander at the Academy to a SEAL platoon commander. “Not being in charge of anyone felt strange,” Cassidy said.
Another aspect of his training that amused him was his first two years. “You know how the military has acronyms for everything?” he asked. “Your first two years as Astronaut Candidate is ASCAN. No joke. You really can’t wait to get out of the ASCAN phase.”
Regardless of the unfortunate acronym, training has “all been fun” for Cassidy, from picking out his menu in the food lab to sharing one office with seven joking astronauts from four branches of service and three countries. “I’m a new astronaut, so it’s just fun to experience all of this,” he says ... except for wearing diapers. “It’s weird—it takes some getting used to.” When one is suited in a space suit for six or seven hours in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (aka, pool), one doesn’t really have a choice. “Sometimes I feel like this whole experience is all very weird, but taxpayers pay a lot for us to do this, so we do it right.”
Now he is ready. After all his years training, the mission is almost upon him. ENDEAVOUR is taking Japanese space station payloads to the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) called “Kibo” (which means “hope” in Japanese). Commander Cassidy will be a space walker on three of the five scheduled walks. Lately he has been prepping in their Virtual Reality Lab that also has the Mass-Handling System, “a metal box you can move around to give you a feel for how it feels to move objects with no gravity.” Just another day at the office.