Thomas D. Jones

“Bernard Harris, Mission Specialist: Most notable about STS-55 was that we were only the third launch pad abort. After the main engines ignited and just as we were getting ready to lift off, the master alarm went off. The main engines got cut off after three and a half seconds. I was sitting in the right rear seat on the flight deck where I could look out the overhead windows. I had a wrist mirror, so I pointed the mirror out and looked down the side of the vehicle toward the flame trench. After the engines cut off and the master alarms were turned off, what I saw was a hydrogen fire rolling up the side of the vehicle. I thought, “Holy shit! We’re gonna die!” Fortunately, the launch controllers quickly got everything safed. Jerry Ross on the middeck said, “Are we moving?” My eyes shifted from the overhead window to the commander and pilot who were throwing switches. As I looked out Steve Nagel’s window, I saw the gantry moving. I was thinking, “The launch pad’s moving. No, it’s not the pad. It’s us!” We swayed six feet (two meters) one way, and then six feet (two meters) the other direction. Eight three-and-a-half-inch-diameter (nine-centimeter-diameter) bolts clamp the shuttle’s boosters to the pad. Going back and forth, I was thinking, “I sure hope those damn bolts hold! If they don’t, we’re dead!” It took a good ten minutes or so for the swaying to damp out.”
― Thomas D. Jones, Space Shuttle Stories: Firsthand Astronaut Accounts from all 135 Missions