Dateline: Aboard the Shuttle

By Jamie Murphy

Journalists across the country scrambled to meet a deadline last week, but not for a story about terrorists or politics. This deadline was for a loftier assignment. Their application forms for NASA's Journalist-in-Space Project had to be postmarked Jan. 15 at the latest to be considered in the competition that will place a writer, editor, broadcaster, photojournalist or even cartoonist on a space-shuttle mission perhaps as early as this fall. The chosen one will join a select group of spacegoing civilians, including Republican Senator Jake Garn of Utah, who flew on Discovery last April; Democratic Congressman Bill Nelson of Florida, who went along on last week's much delayed mission of Columbia; and Social Studies Teacher Sharon Christa McAuliffe, picked from 11,400 educators in a similar competition last year, who will lift off at the end of this week aboard Challenger.

True to the unstated bylaws of their trade, more than half of the thousand or so journalists who submitted their twelve-page application forms did so at the last possible moment. "We have applications from editorial writers, columnists, talk-show hosts, a music writer, photographers and sports reporters," said Project Public Affairs Coordinator Jack Bass as he and Project Director Eric Johnson waded through the deluge of last-minute entries. Some 5,500 forms had been requested and sent out since Dec. 1 by the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication, which is coordinating the selection process. But on deadline day, reporters were still calling ASJMC headquarters at the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, to see if their applications would be accepted.

Competition for the journalist's berth is fierce. Although ASJMC would not reveal the names of any applicants, those vying to become the first reporter in space were rumored to include NBC Anchorman Tom Brokaw, The Right Stuff Author Tom Wolfe and ABC White House Correspondent Sam Donaldson. Former CBS Anchorman and veteran Space Reporter Walter Cronkite proudly announced that he was in the running. To be considered, applicants must be U.S. citizens and have five or more years of full-time professional experience reporting contemporary events in print or on television or radio. There is no age limit, and aspirants who reach the final selection process will be screened by a new, less stringent medical standard established by NASA for such civilian projects: free of disease, injury or other condition likely to interfere with the mission or preflight training; eyesight correctible to at least 20/40 in the better eye; able to hear a whispered voice from 3 ft. away (hearing aids are permissible); and a blood pressure reading of less than 160 over 100. "There ought to be a great advantage to prove that any old fart can do it," quipped the 69-year-old Cronkite.

The winner, as the application form notes, will be selected for "demonstrated professionalism" and "the ability to communicate clearly and effectively to mass audiences in both electronic and print media." To this end, each candidate had to write two essays, one explaining how he would communicate the experience of space travel, the other speculating about reporting from space ten to 20 years from now and what it would mean to journalists, their profession and the public.

Although the essay requirements may have caused widespread writer's block and discouraged some potential candidates from sending in applications, others seized the opportunity to spin out spacy prose. "To beat through the air and clouds and sail through the vast ocean of vacuum; what must that be like?" wrote former ABC News Correspondent Geraldo Rivera in words that must have heartened his competitors.

Applicants will first be winnowed to a total of 100, with 20 from each of five geographical regions, by panels of journalists and journalism professors. Then each region will select eight semifinal candidates by late March. These 40 survivors will be interviewed in Washington early in April by a national selection panel that includes such luminaries as former Wall Street Journal Editor Vermont Royster, and Osborn Elliott and James Atwater, deans respectively of the Columbia University and University of Missouri journalism schools. This panel will further narrow the field to five finalists. By mid-April, NASA will choose the winner and a backup.

NASA's competition generated the usual carping among journalists. Some feared that the winner might become a shill for the space agency or be restricted in reporting the training or mission. Veteran space-beat reporters cast wary eyes on some of their competitors who cover other subjects rhapsodically. "No journalist will have any trouble conveying the beauty of space flight," said Aviation Week's Craig Covault. "You need someone who can convey the substance beyond taking deep sighs at the view out the window."

But even the most seasoned space reporters must have been daunted by the trials of newly refurbished Columbia. The shuttle not only had seven launches scrubbed before finally blasting off last week but was waved off three times from landing because of clouds and rain at Florida's Kennedy Space Center. At week's end, after the third wave-off for a Kennedy touchdown, Mission Commander Robert ("Hoot") Gibson brought the orbiter safely back to earth at Edwards Air Force Base in California. That left NASA barely enough time to ferry Columbia back to Florida and prepare it for a Halley's comet mission in March. Columbia's frustrations seemed not to trouble Space Teacher McAuliffe, who plans to broadcast lessons from Challenger via satellite next week to students in schools, colleges and universities around the U.S. "Her enthusiasm is a very infectious thing," said Alan Ladwig, manager of NASA's space-flight participation program. "She's a natural for the mission." --By Jamie Murphy. Reported by Marcia Gauger/Cape Canaveral and Jerry Hannifin/Washington

With reporting by Marcia Gauger/Cape Canaveral, Jerry Hannifin/Washington