Fayette man looks back at flight on Columbia, dangers of re-entry
Seventeen years ago, Buffington native Bob Cenker took the journey of a lifetime when he flew as an astronaut aboard the space shuttle Columbia.
This past weekend, a devastated Cenker watched with the rest of the world as television reports showed Columbia falling to earth in the skies over Texas and Louisiana. “It was clear from the video that the vehicle was breaking up,’ said Cenker in a telephone interview from Boulder, Colo., where he is on business. “At 250,000 feet, it was virtually a certainty that no one survived.’
Cenker, 54, and a self-employed aerospace systems consultant living in New Jersey, has been in Boulder all weekend working with the Ball Aerospace Corp. on weather satellites. He said he was in the shower Saturday about 8 a.m. when one of his associates called and told him to turn on the television.
“I didn’t know anyone (of the astronauts who perished) but Columbia was the vehicle I flew on,’ Cenker said.
The son of Julia and the late Nick Cenker and a 1966 graduate of Uniontown Area Senior High School, Cenker earned bachelor and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering from Penn State University and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Rutgers University. He and his wife, Barbara, have three children, Daniel, Brian and Laura.
Cenker was an RCA Systems engineer when the company chose him to be a payload specialist on the space shuttle after NASA had rejected him twice before as a regular astronaut. Cenker was scheduled for Space Shuttle Mission 61-C on the space shuttle Columbia.
After seven delays, Cenker embarked on a six-day mission into outer space and landed back home Jan. 18, 1986, 10 days before the space shuttle Challenger exploded.
While the Challenger accident occurred shortly after lift-off, Cenker said he was always more worried about something happening upon re-entry, as occurred with the Columbia.
“I had discussed this with my dad before the trip and we were more worried about re-entry than the launch,’ Cenker said. “In the early days, re-entry was always a frightening time.’
The aftermath of the Columbia tragedy has already produced theories on why it happened. Cenker doesn’t believe that NASA has yet figured out the exact cause of the accident but he noted with confidence, “They will.’
Although Cenker didn’t know any of the astronauts from the Columbia tragedy, he trained with two who were part of the Challenger crew: Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire high school teacher, and Gregory Jarvis, a New York aircraft engineer.
Speaking about the character of astronauts in general, Cenker said, “I told my wife after I had gone through training that even if my mission was scrubbed, it was worth it to meet and work with these people. People sometimes have the notion that these people are daredevils and it isn’t true. They have a lot of talent and an appreciation of the risk.
“I was training with Christa McAuliffe and she was asking, ‘What happens if this happens?’ or, ‘What happens if that happens?’ They said there would be a loss of crew. No one was being flip about it. They were stating facts. They just accepted it,’ Cenker said.
Reporting of the recent tragedy has included commentary on America’s lack of interest in the space program.
Yet, the country has been quick to express its grief during this disaster along with its admiration for these lost heroes.
“I’ve always found it to be an enigma,’ Cenker said. “…While I do think people are for it, it’s in a casual way on a day-to-day basis. But when something like this happens, it’s nice to see an outpouring of support. (The space program) is not an issue that drives people’s lives like taxes or health care, but it is something they do care about.’
Cenker himself would jump at the chance to make another flight. In fact, he did apply again and he’s not counting himself out yet for a return visit.
“John Glenn was 77 the last time he went up,’ said Cenker. “I have a lot of years left.’
Meanwhile, the Herald-Standard contacted Adam Korona, a Georges Township native now working in Houston, Texas, with Boeing to design space walks and technical support for the space station, for comment on the Columbia tragedy. Korona was not able to give an interview, however, as Boeing complies with a request from NASA not to talk with the media about the accident.