Legionnaire traces path from Iowa farmlands to outer space

Legionnaire traces path from Iowa farmlands to outer space

Loren Shriver is commander of American Legion Post 119 in Estes Park, Colo., one of the highest posts, sitting at more than 7,500 feet of elevation.

That’s fitting. After all, Shriver is a retired astronaut who logged more than 385 hours in space, including missions on space shuttles Discovery and Atlantis. The retired Air Force colonel has also flown over 30 different types of single- and multi-engine fixed-wing and helicopter aircrafts.

Growing up on a small farm in rural Iowa, Shriver dreamed of becoming a pilot. Finances were tough so Shriver looked at options then discovered his ticket to fly.

"Wow. The Air Force Academy. They will teach me how to fly, and that was it," he recalled.

After four years at the academy, he had a degree but no pilot training. Off he went to Purdue University to get his master’s degree before returning to Iowa to marry his high school sweetheart, Diane. The next stop was Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Okla., to commence pilot training in the spring of 1968.

“Vietnam was going hot and heavy in those days,” Shriver said. “I was hoping I would be able to get a fighter aircraft and be assigned there. That may sound a little strange for somebody to put it like that, but that's the way it really was. But of course, there was a pipeline of pilots training and then when they finished they would end up going to Vietnam. I decided to stay at Vance Air Force Base as an instructor pilot, because that was all part of the mission as well.”

After around four years as an instructor, Shriver was assigned an F-4 to Southeast Asia. By the time he arrived in Ubon, Thailand, most of the combat had concluded. While at Ubon, Shriver applied for the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base. He was accepted and finished in early 1976.

“I did a couple of fairly minor but important test projects at Edwards,” he said. “Then I was assigned to the F-15 Joint Test Force, and flew for about two and a half years testing F-15s just before they started to go operational.”

Soon enough, Shriver would hear of an opportunity that would change everything.

“While I was at Edwards, NASA put out its call for space shuttle astronauts, and I said, ‘Well, gosh, it looks my background is pretty compatible with what they're looking for,’” he said, noting a few thousand other military pilots would also qualify.

Then one morning in January 1978, the director of Flight Crew Operations in Houston called. “He asked me, ‘Are you still interested in becoming an astronaut and flying the space shuttle?’” Shriver recalled. “I remember instantaneously thinking that was the silliest question I'd ever been asked in my life. Without hesitation, I said, ‘Absolutely I'm still interested.’”

And thus began his 15-year career as a space shuttle astronaut.

His first mission was in 1985 aboard Discovery. “It was a mission sponsored by the Department of Defense, highly classified,” Shriver said. “To this day I've not ever been able to talk about what we did.”

A few years after the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster, Shriver returned to space as commander of Atlantis.

“That was a very fun mission,” he said. “During that mission, we carried up the Hubble Space Telescope, and got it activated as much as we could do onboard, let go of it, and left it there in space in late April of 1990. It's been up there ever since.”

His last flight was again as commander of Atlantis in 1992 when the shuttle carried a payload sponsored by the European Space Agency.

Hurtling through space is a unique experience that Shriver shares with only a select few.

“Being in space is quite a special thing, for an Iowa farm boy especially,” Shriver said, noting that a thrust of 4.5 million pounds is necessary to get the 250,000-pound shuttle into space. “As you lift off the launch pad, and go into the ascent phase, that's about a g and a half acceleration right there. But because of all that thrust and you're in a dense part of the atmosphere, the ride is almost violent, in terms of shaking and rattling and everything that has to take place. There's a huge amount of energy being expended to get you in and get that many pounds into orbit. So, naturally it's a pretty dynamic ride. I prefer the world dynamic over violent, but it's somewhere in between the two. It's quite a ride for the first two minutes.”

Once the fuel boosters are no longer needed, they are jettisoned and the ride “becomes as smooth as glass.”

“It’s just tremendously different than the first two minutes,” Shriver said. “It's like electric propulsion, almost. You don't feel too much. You don't hear anything. You're well beyond supersonic at that point.”

Breathing, of course, is more challenging in outer space.

“You notice very quickly that the change in the breathing rhythm from natural to a forced inhalation because of all the weight on your chest,” he explained. “You sure are glad when you hit main engine cutoff because it takes that big gorilla of your chest and now you can breathe normally, and you're on your way to being in a weightless environment in a coasting orbit around the Earth, traveling at that high rate of speed, 17,500 miles an hour.”

When it comes to the re-entry phase, the massive shuttle takes on the feel of a glider after a two-minute deorbiting burn.

“For about an hour then, you spend gliding from 17,500 miles an hour, starting halfway back around the Earth, of the surface of the Earth, and you're free falling into the atmosphere for about the first 30 minutes or so,” Shriver explained. “So, you don't lose much speed during that particular phase. Then you start to encounter the upper thin parts of the upper atmosphere, starts to produce friction on the space shuttle itself, plus your angle of attack is fairly high, so that's causing an increase in drag. That's how you slow down then, is as you come deeper and deeper into the atmosphere, the friction creates kind of a sheath of ionized gases right around the space shuttle.”

As the shuttle transitions to entry mode, it slows down gradually.

“You transition fully into normal aerodynamic control that a normal glider would have,” Shriver said. “Eventually, of course, it's completely a glider. When you go subsonic, that's typically the point at which we took over and started flying. When you first become subsonic and take control, a typical place for that to happen would be right over the top of the runway that you can land on. Make a big sweeping turn, continuously into dive, again because that's the only thing that's holding your airspeed up to make it flyable.”

Around 1,800 feet above ground, the shuttle crew moves the critical move from steep dive to shallow dive.

“When you get to the landing phase, you got one shot at landing, and so we used to practice that phase over and over again in shuttle training aircraft,” Shriver said.

Now in retirement, the Shrivers have landed in Estes Park, the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park and home to the Stanley Hotel, made famous in the Stephen King classic “The Shining.”

Shriver wanted to continue to serve. American Legion Post 119, chartered in 1920, was ready to oblige.

Past Post Commander Terry Rizutti and fellow members have helped Post 119 to become more relevant and increase awareness of The American Legion in the Estes Park community. The post has started a Legion Riders program, expanded its children and youth programs, and increased membership.

Shriver aims to build on the progress that Rizutti oversaw during his time as post commander.

“I view it as an extension of a lifetime of service to the country,” Shriver said. “When I was a kid at the farm, we did have a few World War II veterans who came back and picked up farming again. I only knew a few of them, and they never talked about what happened. I always thought that was kind of curious, but what I think it instilled in me was there was always something greater than yourself, higher than yourself, always a cause that you should be working toward or for, and that would help benefit the rest of the people in the country. Basically, my entire lifetime has been that way.”

As Post 119 continues to serve its community under Shriver’s leadership, he encourages veterans to find their own meaningful path, whether it’s working or volunteering.

“Don't have the, ‘You owe me’ outlook. Instead, ‘Here's what I can do for you,’" he recommended. “Get involved. Offer your experience and most employers I know would just chomp at the bit for that opportunity to give you a job. That would be my advice. Just because you retired from one thing, jump in to the next phase with all you've got.”

That’s the mindset that has taken Shriver from flat Iowa to outer space to the mountains of Colorado.

Includes reporting by Tony Dumosh, public relations chairman for the Department of Colorado.