Robert “Hoot” Gibson was a guest at Tucson’s Spacefest in 2019 when he met author Czarina Salido and illustrator Michelle Rouch.
The women heard his story; he inspired his grandson, now 12, to enjoy flying.
They thought it would make the perfect children’s book.
“I showed them photos and maybe a video or two of me taking my grandson, Andrew, flying in my airplane, which is a Beechcraft Bonanza,” Gibson recalled.
“They suggested a book about a wise, old owl grandfather who takes his youth owlet, Andrew, flying. It really wasn’t that difficult to agree.”
In “First Flight,” the owlet becomes confident through daily practice flights. Despite challenges, he learns about the reward of consistent effort.
Written for children ages 6 to 8, the 32-page book serves as a tribute to his grandson, who has become a popular figure at book signings.
“I did a book signing with my grandson,” he said. “We went down to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, which is only a two-hour drive from where we live, on Dec. 21. We both wore our blue NASA flight suits.
“He was a star. He was such a hero because people wanted his autograph on the book as well. It was so much fun. I keep telling Andrew this book is about you, and it actually is.”
His career as an astronaut and pilot was gratifying.
Gibson entered the U.S. Navy after college and served as a fighter pilot in the F-4 “Phantom” and F-14 “Tomcat” aircraft, flying combat missions in Southeast Asia and making more than 300 carrier landings aboard the aircraft carriers USS Coral Sea and USS Enterprise.
After attending the Navy Fighter Weapons School, better known as TOPGUN, and the Navy Test Pilot School, he served as a flight test pilot prior to being selected to become an astronaut in 1978 in the first Space Shuttle astronaut selection. In 18 years as an astronaut, he flew five flights, four of them as mission commander, aboard the space shuttles Challenger, Columbia, Atlantis and Endeavour.
His final space flight was the first mission to rendezvous and dock with the Russian Space Station Mir in 1995. In his career with NASA, he held the positions of deputy chief of NASA aircraft operations, deputy director of flight crew operations and chief astronaut. In a flying career spanning more than 60 years, he has accumulated more than 14,000 hours of flight time in more than 160 types of military civilian
He is in the National Aviation Hall of Fame and has established six Aviation World Records and three Space World Records. Manning a space shuttle flight was incredible, he said.
“The launch is exciting, going straight up and accelerating,” he said. “It only takes 8 ½ minutes to get to space. From the time we lift off until we shut the enginers down. We are in space in 8 ½ minutes.
“It’s a spectacular view that we have of a planet from orbit. You never get tired of it. If you don’t have anything to do, you’d have to park yourself at one of the big windows with a camera and get pictures of the Earth. Being weightless is wonderful. You don’t to walk. Anywhere you fly, everywhere you go, you get to the point where you come back and land and when you have to stand up and walk again, you say, ‘This gravity stuff really stinks. I want to go back and be weightless.’”
During the re-entry and landing, the space shuttle goes about 17,500 miles an hour, he said.
“The temperature outside your windows will be 6,000 degrees,” he said.
“You’re surrounded by fire for 15 minutes during the re-entry. Then you land on a runway and all of that is spectacular. When someone asks me, ‘What is the best part?’ I would just answer, ‘Yes.’”
Gibson said the shuttle missions “spoil you forever.”
“Rollercoasters can’t rise to the same level of excitement,” he said. “It really is spectacular. I got to do it not just once, but five times altogether. You see things on the fifth one that you didn’t notice on the second one. It’s just spectacular.”
Tucson Festival of Books: Robert “Hoot” Gibson
WHEN:Noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 15, and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday, March 16
WHERE: Bookpress Publishing, Booth No. 151
PRICE: Free admission
INFO: tucsonfestivalofbooks.org
