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hugs, only smiles and waves. Sometimes there isn’t even a single pane of glass between an astronaut and home. Sometimes only an idea and some paint get in the way.
    They boarded a bus that took them from the landing facility to the crew quarters to catch some rest, maybe even a little sleep. And then they went through the entire routine again, starting with an uneasy dinner and ending with a tight squeeze through the hatch.
    Inside the crew cabin, one last hand-up was waiting for them, from an astronaut-turned-technician called the Caped Crusader. He helped each man into his seat. For each of them, one by one, four parachute clasps were done up. Four seat clasps were buckled. Oxygen hoses were attached, helmets were put on, communications lines were plugged in, and headsets fired to life. In the scramble, Pettit’s bag of coffee was taped under his seat, and Budarin managed to spruce things up a bit, tying a windup toy bee on a string to one of the locker doors in front of him. (It was strange for Pettit to see a barrel-chested man who looked like Charles Bronson, with his deeply lined forehead and head of thick hair, fumbling with a child’s plaything just then.) At last, the nervous work was done. Everybody was tucked away more than two hours before launch. Cold water began running over their bodies through their wired-in undergarments. It felt like jumping into a swimming pool on a hot day.
    They were given one last wish of good luck. The hatch was closed. And that was it. That was the last of the lingering.
    Except. Across the Atlantic Ocean, at two small towns in Spain, the weather was bad. In Morón and Zaragoza, clouds rolled in andthe winds picked up. It wasn’t an inconvenience solely for holiday-makers. Both towns are home to air force bases; both of those have been designated Transoceanic Abort Landing Sites for the shuttle. If one of the three main engines fails, or if some other critical component breaks down and makes entry into orbit impossible, the shuttle’s commander has between eight and fifteen minutes to try to return to the launch site, to slingshot his way around the globe and touch down in California, or to set his sights on the middle ground of Spain, where about sixty pilots, astronauts, technicians, and medical emergency personnel had gathered alongside an otherwise empty runway. Just in case, they checked their watches and fired up ambulances and sent a weather balloon into the sky. On this early morning, however, they didn’t need the balloon to give them the forecast. Just as the launch window opened at the Cape, the teams at Morón and Zaragoza watched lightning flash across black skies and shook their heads.
    The countdown stopped. Bowersox, Budarin, Pettit, and the rest of
Endeavour
’s crew were helped out of the cockpit.
    Fate would have to wait once again. Better luck tomorrow.
    ·   ·   ·
    After all of which—after all of the switch outs and misfires and delays—even the cold-eyed Ken Bowersox spent the following evening trying to keep his heart rate within acceptable levels. It hadn’t helped one bit, he muttered to himself, that their mission number was STS-113. The crew had whispered to one another about asking for a new designation, perhaps moving on up to STS-114, jumping the way hotel elevators skip that cursed floor. Maybe it was all that they needed to end their bad run, like a baseball player changing his socks to break out of a slump. But in the end, pride subsumed the talk of jinxes; they decided to swallow their ill feelings. If outsiders somehow caught wind of their conversations, they agreed that they would brush them off as a joke, a defense mechanism, a distraction to lighten a somber mood. And yet deep down, there remained an unease in them, a low, unshakable hum in the background. It wasn’t fear, and it wasn’t despair, and it wasn’t resignation. It was a creepinganxiety, a kind of shadow. Having been suited up for the third time, a few of them