TRAINING AND COMBAT. Hoot Gibson, Top Gun Space Shuttle Astronaut. EPISODE 8

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Published 2023-05-09
TRAINING AND COMBAT. Hoot Gibson, Top Gun Space Shuttle Astronaut. EPISODE 8

Hoot Gibson, Top Gun, Space Shuttle Astronaut, commercial pilot, air racer, and RC enthusiast. Listen to the story of a great American, an icon of aviation, and a national hero.
Episode 8 is focused on his outstanding military career.

HOOT GIBSON SERIES SEASON 1:
EPISODE 01:    • The Real TOPGUN | Robert "Hoot" Gibso...  
EPISODE 01 EXTENDED:    • The Man Who Can Fly Anything. From Pi...  
EPISODE 02:    • Seconds From Disaster | STS-27 PART 2...  
EPISODE 03:    • Seconds From Disaster | STS-27 PART 2...  
EPISODE 04:    • Hoot Gibson's Hangar #04 | A Rare Ins...  
EPISODE 05:    • The Man Who Can Fly Anything.  EPISOD...  
EPISODE 06:    • The Man Who Can Fly Anything | Hoot G...  
EPISODE 07:    • The Man Who Can Fly Anything EPISODE ...  
EPISODE 08:    • TRAINING AND COMBAT. Hoot Gibson, Top...  
EPISODE 09:    • Shooting MiGs In Vietnam, and Top Gun...  
EPISODE 10:    • From The F-14 Tomcat To The Space Shu...  
EPISODE 11:    • The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster...  
EPISODE 12:    • Investigating Accidents | Hoot Gibson...  
EPISODE 13:    • Fatal Accident | Hoot Gibson Episode ...  
EPISODE 14: COMING SOON
FULL PLAYLIST:    • The Man Who Can Fly Anything. HOOT GI...  

The Space Shuttle Atlantis (OV-104), at the time the youngest in NASA's shuttle fleet, made its third flight on a classified mission for the United States Department of Defense (DoD). It deployed a single satellite, USA-34. NASA archival information has identified USA-34 as Lacrosse 1, a side-looking radar, all-weather surveillance satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Atlantis' Thermal Protection System tiles sustained extensive damage during the flight. Ablative insulating material from the right-hand solid rocket booster nose cap had hit the orbiter about 85 seconds into the flight, as seen in footage of the ascent. The STS-27 crew also commented that white material was observed on the windshield at various times during the ascent. The crew made an inspection of the shuttle's impacted starboard side using the shuttle's Canadarm, but the limited resolution and range of the cameras made it impossible to determine the full extent of the tile damage.

The problem was compounded by the fact that the crew was prohibited from using their standard method of sending images to ground control due to the classified nature of the mission. The crew was forced to use a slow, encrypted transmission method, likely causing the images NASA engineers received to be of poor quality, causing them to think the damage was actually "just lights and shadows". They told the crew the damage did not look any more severe than on past missions.

One report describes the crew as "infuriated" that Mission Control Center seemed unconcerned. When Gibson saw the damage he thought to himself, "We are going to die"; he and others did not believe that the shuttle would survive reentry. Gibson advised the crew to relax because "No use dying all tensed-up", he said, but if instruments indicated that the shuttle was disintegrating, Gibson planned to "tell mission control what I thought of their analysis" in the remaining seconds before his death.

Hoot Gibson’s Hangar, aviation’s premier podcast, hosted by America’s premier aviator, Hoot Gibson, “The Man That Can Fly Anything."

Don’t miss a single episode. Video podcasts air exclusively on Air2AirTV and aviation’s premier Youtube channel - Dronescapes, producing aircraft documentaries, exclusive stories, and interviews from veterans, pilots, and aces, in their own words. WWII missions, Vietnam's stories, and much more!

Hoot Gibson’s Hangar audio podcast can be downloaded from all top podcast directories: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, TuneIn Alexa, Overcast, PocketCast, Castro, Castbox, Podchaser, and many more.

You can also download the audio podcast on Air2AirTV by clicking on the RESOURCE tab below each episode.

#aircraft #nasa #hootgibson
All Comments (9)
  • @Stl10699
    My Dad and Hoot flew together at Southwest. He told me about him when I was about 6 or 7 and he has always been one of my main idols. Thank you both for these videos. Im gonna show my son there just like my Dad showed me.
  • @BlairJohnson-qz3mp
    Great interview with Hoot...thank you. In the '80's I was a young engineer at NASA Dryden. We lost a pilot, Dick Gray...Hoot was at the memorial. Very sad indeed. I was also interested to see when Hoot is talking about the F-104, there is a photo op where Ed Schneider "comes in". Great memories. BTW, I was able to sit back seat in the 2-seat F-104 with Einar Enevoldson for a couple of hops, one of which was doing tower fly-bys to calibrate the airspeed system. Likely some of the best memories I've had.
  • @ericjayjohn4388
    This is an incredible episode! I could listen to Hoot all day long! The way he explains things closes any gaps in understanding for a layperson! Awesome interview! Thanks Hoot!