By Michele Robertson
Local high school students got a taste of what it’s like to spend time in space thanks to astronaut Dr. Drew Gaffney, who was also inducted into the Carlsbad Hall of Fame.
Dr. Gaffney was in town for his 60th class reunion with Carlsbad High School and had the opportunity to speak to juniors and seniors at the school. During the morning presentation to seniors, Dr. Gaffney shared insights on what life was like for nine days in space. As he addressed the students, he expressed hopes that more astronauts would come from Carlsbad.
A video presentation showed what a day in the life of an astronaut looked like. A few highlights from the presentation include:
• At takeoff, the shuttle weighed 3 million pounds and only 250,000 pounds on its return.
• In eight minutes, the shuttle is going 25,000 mph.
• In space, gravity doesn’t take blood down to the legs.
• If you were a space creature, your lungs would be one-third smaller than needed on Earth because lungs work differently in space.
• Dr. Gaffney got NASA to put tortillas on the space shuttle so that he and another New Mexico crew member could have them with meals.
• Astronauts have temporary hearing loss from being in space; the shuttle is a giant tin can and very noisy.
• After nine days in space, it took two or three days to acclimate to being back on Earth.
• Humans, jellyfish, and rats were on the shuttle to see how they react in space.
• Currently there are 28 astronauts, there were up to 40 when there were many space flights. One-third of the astronauts are now women, only eight out of 60 were female in the past.
Dr. Gaffney flew 3.2 million miles in 146 orbits and experienced over 130 sunrises and sunsets during his nine days in space. He and fellow crew members also conducted over 18 experiments. He was selected as a payload specialist astronaut for the June 1991 STS-40 Spacelab Life Sciences mission (SLS 1), the first shuttle mission dedicated to biomedical research. Dr. Gaffney was a co-investigator for experiments that studied human cardiovascular adaptation to spaceflight. This mission brought back more peer-reviewed and published medical data than any NASA flight before. Dr. Gaffney has had over 100 publications in the areas of patient safety, space physiology, and cardiovascular regulation, according to NASA.gov.
Many contests were held on the space shuttle while in flight, one of which being to see if they could throw an M&M into another crew member’s mouth from 25 feet away. “Try that on Earth!” Gaffney exclaimed. Another was to see how many astronauts could stack on top of one another and do pushups. Dr. Gaffney was on top of that stack and was repeatedly pushed into the roof of the shuttle, sending them toppling over after just a few pushups. Still, they created the world record for pushups in space.
“One of the best things about being in space is seeing the Earth,” Dr. Gaffney explained. He went on to describe traveling over the west coast of the United States to the east coast in about four minutes. He also noted that he could find Carlsbad (or the general vicinity) every time they passed over. Dr. Tucker Compton shared during the induction ceremony, that “there are no boundaries seen from space. We are all one, and all in it together.”
Dr. Gaffney is a 1964 graduate of Carlsbad High School and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1968 and a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of New Mexico in 1972.
Mayor Richard Lopez presented Dr. Gaffney with a plaque commemorating his induction to the Hall of Fame, sharing that Dr. Gaffney represents the spirit of curiosity that defines us and that he is a reminder of the greatness that comes from our community.
Dr. Gaffney encouraged students to seek assistance from leaders in the community, recalling times when he was a child and had help from community leaders in completing merit badges. “There is tremendous support in Carlsbad,” he said.
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