Catholic astronaut from Essex to head for space station aboard shuttle

Thomas Jones was a 9- or 10-year-old student at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Essex when the idea of becoming an astronaut first crossed his mind.

He still remembers the day when the school’s Franciscan sisters rolled out a flickering black-and-white television so their students could watch one of the early manned Gemini missions. From the second the young daydreamer caught sight of astronauts roaring off to space, he became entranced by the idea of sitting inside one of those rockets.

“It became an intriguing possibility to me,” Jones recalled. “I started doodling space ships on paper and seriously thinking about the space program.”

Some 30 years later, Jones is now a veteran NASA astronaut who has been in space three times. He was scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral Jan. 19 aboard the space shuttle Atlantis but the launch has been postponed to no earlier than Feb. 6 to allow workers to perform additional testing on the solid rocket booster cables.

This mission will be Jones’ most challenging to date — delivering the new U.S. laboratory module Destiny to the international space station and assembling it.

It’s an assignment that will see the 45-year-old former B-52 combat pilot complete his first series of space walks. Suspended in space, he and four other crew members will attach the new lab to the space station using a robotic arm.

“It’s going to be a very complex mission,” said Jones from his Houston training center in a phone interview with The Catholic Review. “We’ve been training for this for three-and-a-half years. Everything has to go like clockwork.”

The astronaut was scheduled to perform a space walk on his last shuttle mission in 1996 but missed his opportunity when the shuttle hatch wouldn’t open.

Although any mission in space requires him to devote his fullest attention to his work, Jones said he can’t help but be inspired by the beauty of the universe. Nothing can compare to leaving Earth at a speed of more than 17,500 miles an hour, he said.

“You could be at the top of Mount Everest sitting in an armchair, and you still wouldn’t have the same sense of exhilaration,” Jones said. “You have these views that are incomprehensible. Instead of states sweeping by, you see whole continents going by when we take off. It’s just one exciting revelation after another.”

After witnessing the immensity of the universe from a view few could imagine, Jones said he has no doubt that God exists.

“When you’re in space, and you look back at earth, it strikes you as an overwhelmingly beautiful vision,” said Jones, who helped set a space shuttle endurance record of nearly 18 days in orbit during his last mission.

“It makes me think that God constructed us to appreciate this aspect of creation,” he added. “He put something in our brains to appreciate the magnificence of creation.”

Many of Jones’ family and friends plan to be in Florida for the launch. They include his mother, Rosemarie, who — ironically — refuses to fly. Thomas Grzymski, one of Jones’ closest friends and a parishioner of St. Clare in Essex, said he plans to say some extra prayers that day.

“You get a very different perspective when it’s your friend who’s actually sitting there waiting for takeoff,” said Grzymski, a former St. Clare school board member.

As on previous flights, Jones said he plans to take along the Sunday liturgical texts so he can pray the scheduled Bible readings along with millions of Catholics down on Earth.

Conventual Franciscan Father Donald Grzymski, a close friend, brother of Thomas and the president of Archbishop Curley High School in Baltimore, has also typed up a selection of six psalms that Jones plans to tape inside his crew notebook for when he gets a free moment to pray.

Tokens of his Catholic school upbringing will also be making an appearance in space. Jones said he plans to bring a photograph of current Mount Carmel elementary school students, a patch bearing the coat of arms of Archbishop Curley High School and, at Father Grzymski’s request, a photograph of St. Clare students gathered in the shape of a peace sign.

In a nod to his Baltimore roots, he has received permission from NASA to take some freeze-dried crab soup as a special way of warming the chill of space.

“I think it’s important for everyone to have a dream,” Jones said. “Don’t just brush it off and say I’ll never do that. If I had given up, I’d have never gotten this opportunity. Always keep trying to fulfill your dreams.”

Email George Matysek at gmatysek@CatholicReview.org

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