Space: Dateline: Aboard the Shuttle

Journalists across the country scrambled to meet a deadline last week, but not for a story about terrorists or politics. This deadline was for a loftier assignment. Their application forms for NASA's Journalist-in-Space Project had to be postmarked Jan. 15 at the latest to be considered in the competition that will place a writer, editor, broadcaster, photojournalist or even cartoonist on a space-shuttle mission perhaps as early as this fall. The chosen one will join a select group of spacegoing civilians, including Republican Senator Jake Garn of Utah, who flew on Discovery last April; Democratic Congressman Bill Nelson of Florida, who went along on last week's much delayed mission of Columbia; and Social Studies Teacher Sharon Christa McAuliffe, picked from 11,400 educators in a similar competition last year, who will lift off at the end of this week aboard Challenger.

True to the unstated bylaws of their trade, more than half of the thousand or so journalists who submitted their twelve-page application forms did so at the last possible moment. "We have applications from editorial writers, columnists, talk-show hosts, a music writer, photographers and sports reporters," said Project Public Affairs Coordinator Jack Bass as he and Project Director Eric Johnson waded through the deluge of last-minute entries. Some 5,500 forms had been requested and sent out since Dec. 1 by the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication, which is coordinating the selection process. But on deadline day, reporters were still calling ASJMC headquarters at the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, to see if their applications would be accepted.

Competition for the journalist's berth is fierce. Although ASJMC would not reveal the names of any applicants, those vying to become the first reporter in space were rumored to include NBC Anchorman Tom Brokaw, The Right Stuff Author Tom Wolfe and ABC White House Correspondent Sam Donaldson. Former CBS Anchorman and veteran Space Reporter Walter Cronkite proudly announced that he was in the running. To be considered, applicants must be U.S. citizens and have five or more years of full-time professional experience reporting contemporary events in print or on television or radio. There is no age limit, and aspirants who reach the final selection process will be screened by a new, less stringent medical standard established by NASA for such civilian projects: free of disease, injury or other condition likely to interfere with the mission or preflight training; eyesight correctible to at least 20/40 in the better eye; able to hear a whispered voice from 3 ft. away (hearing aids are permissible); and a blood pressure reading of less than 160 over 100. "There ought to be a great advantage to prove that any old fart can do it," quipped the 69-year-old Cronkite.

The winner, as the application form notes, will be selected for "demonstrated professionalism" and "the ability to communicate clearly and effectively to mass audiences in both electronic and print media." To this end, each candidate had to write two essays, one explaining how he would communicate the experience of space travel, the other speculating about reporting from space ten to 20 years from now and what it would mean to journalists, their profession and the public.