Contributing Writer

The Fayette County Chamber of Commerce brought a little

bit of NASA to its annual meeting Saturday night. The guest

speaker was Capt. Jon A. McBride, USN (Ret), a former space shuttle

pilot, a fighter pilot and a Navy test pilot.

McBride was born and raised in West Virginia and joined the

Navy in the mid 1960's. He flew over 60 combat missions during

Vietnam in the F-4 Phantom.

He attended the United States Air Force Test Pilot School and

is also a graduate of the forerunner of the "Top Gun" flight school

at Miramar, Calif.

McBride explained to the 360 chamber members that it was

1961 when the first man went up into space, a Russian. In 1981

an American went into space in the "Columbia". He added that to

date, 300 people from 14 different countries have now flown in space.

McBride became the voice of Houston for the sixth flight and

in 1984 was chosen to command the 13th flight, the maiden voyage

of "Challenger". He was proud of the number of firsts of this

mission, includingthe first to have seven astronauts aboard and the first

with two women.

The crew remained aloft for eight days. A slide of the

crew before it left Earth was shown as well as one during flight.

He explained that you lose about eight pounds of body fluid in space,

and your heart enlarges 50 percent. Additionally, an astronaut has

to take calcium supplements the whole time, to keep your

bones from becoming mush. McBride added that your whole

body enlarges about one and a half inches and your face can look

quite puffy.

Crew members can choose what they want to eat while in space

and these items are freeze dried ahead and kept in a refrigerator on

board. Each astronaut had a color assigned to them, and their

food packages were color coded. Consequently, all they had to

do for lunch was pick out their color package, thaw it, heat it and

chow down. And oh yes, they also took along a loaf of bread and a jar

of peanut butter and jelly.

Each one had to exercise from 30 to 40 minutes a day.

The Challenger again went up in 1985, but all astronauts

aboard were killed when the shuttle exploded.

McBride commented that if you had a problem with your back,

and had $10 million dollars, a ride in space would cure the problem.

He ended his talk with various slides he took in space of

Earth, reminding everyone of its beauty and our responsibility to be

good stewards of our planet.

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