Astronauts Prepare With 'Lucky' Launch Day Rituals

Oct. 23, 2007 — -- As NASA geared up for this morning's launch of Discovery to the International Space Station, fueling up and weather concerns weren't the only things on the astronauts' minds.

No space shuttle mission launches without following some important time-honored rituals that include cakes, playing cards and mission stickers. Forget the four-leaf clover and a lucky rabbit's foot. Shuttle crews have their own good luck charms.

NASA Cmdr. Pam Melroy says the astronauts won't leave for the launch pad until they are done playing cards.

"There is a ritual card game that has to be played after everyone suits up, and you cannot walk out the door until the commander loses," Melroy told ABC News.

Is she tempted to throw the game? Melroy says absolutely not.

"That would violate the whole principle. And if everybody is waiting and watching the clock, so be it."

Anchovies became the good luck symbol for her flight on STS 92 in October 2000.

"We [delayed the launch] for weather, for a pin in the wrong place, and so forth. We had a crew that was very close, and we liked to eat out together, and there were a couple of people who really hated fish, and there were also several people who liked fish, so we had a pizza for lunch every day," she said. "And we had some pieces with anchovies and some without, and so the last holdout had to eat anchovies, and we did in fact launch the next day."

Then there is the cake.

Pilot George Zamka says a beautiful cake appears before every launch and the crew always poses for a photo with the cake. But the cake goes untouched.

"It is a very nice cake, but we don't get to eat it," Zamka said. "We just look at it and celebrate with it, but we don't get to eat it. I think they store them in a room somewhere, so somewhere there is 30-plus years of cake."

Another ritual is observed when the crew leaves the astronaut quarters to get into the van that takes it to the launch pad.

The doorway of the quarters is decorated with stickers from every previous mission. Zamka says that if an astronaut has flown on a previous mission, he or she has to find that sticker.

"If someone has a sticker up there from a previous mission, they need to slap it," Zamka said. "That is kind of funny. Some of us are height-challenged so you see this ungraceful hop to slap it, but they all make it."

Astronaut Scott Parazynski, who has flown four times, carries the same good luck charm with him on each mission.

"I have always carried a little tiny photo album of my family, a little ringed photo album that has pictures of my kids when they were 6 months old," Parazynski said. "You are in this unique, wonderful environment, but the earth is always beneath you and you think of the people that are down there and you think about home and you are very excited to get home and tell them all your stories as well."

"There is a very strong connection with home even though you are thousands and thousands of miles away."

Astronaut Dan Tani, a dedicated baseball fan, who is distraught that his beloved Cubs missed the World Series again this year, is hitching a ride up on the shuttle to the space station, where he will be staying for two months.

His good luck charm? His Cubs hat.

Hopefully it will bring the shuttle crew more luck than it has brought the Chicago Cubs.