Lawmaker Did What Was Expected of Him--Got Sick : He Prefers Space to Senate, Garn Admits

The first elected official to fly in space said Thursday that he did what he was supposed to do aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

He got sick.

But spending his first two days of flight suffering from space sickness was a small price to pay for a “dream come true,” Sen. Jake Garn (R-Utah) said during a press conference televised from the Discovery.

Garn, chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the budget of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, participated in continuing experiments designed to understand the effect of weightlessness on the human body. NASA officials had indicated that Garn’s contribution could be enhanced if he succumbed to space sickness while conducting the experiments, and the senator said he did not let them down.

“I’ll be very honest with you,” he said. “I didn’t feel good for two days.”

When asked as his space flight neared an end if he would rather be an astronaut or a senator, he said:

“That is one of the easiest questions I’ve ever had to answer.” If he were 10 years younger, he said, “I would chose to be a working astronaut over being a senator so fast it would make your head swim.”

In a reference to the futile impromptu attempt Wednesday to rescue a stranded satellite, Garn said: “I’ve watched a fantastic crew do an incredible job. It was really a remarkable performance . . . a masterful job.”

Space flight, he added, was even better than he had dreamed.

“Every day, I would pinch myself and think this can’t be real . . . . I’m not here . . . . I’m not seeing this.”

On their last full day in orbit, the seven-member Discovery crew took time out to talk briefly with President Reagan also. The President, in a phone call from the Oval Office, told the astronauts that “we saw a lot of human ingenuity at work” in the unsuccessful effort to rescue a stranded satellite.

Makes Pitch for Budget

Reagan used the opportunity to make a pitch for his budget also.

He told Garn: “You are doing a fine job up there, but I could use your help down here right now in getting the federal budget under control and arranging assistance for some people fighting for their freedom in Central America.”

“I’ve missed you, but I’ll be back on Tuesday,” Garn responded. “I’m well aware of the (scheduled) vote on Nicaraguan aid on Tuesday night, and I’ll be voting just the way you’d like me to when I get back.”

The Discovery was scheduled to land at the Kennedy spaceport at 4:17 a.m. PST today, ending the 16th flight in the shuttle program.

During the press conference, Discovery commander Karol J. Bobko, 47, reflected on the unrehearsed rendezvous with the disabled satellite, built and owned by Hughes Communications Inc.

“It’s a great feeling to rendezvous with a speck in the sky,” he said.

Dr. M. Rhea Seddon, who used the shuttle’s mechanical arm to yank a lever on the satellite that was believed to have been stuck, said that the astronauts had turned the spacecraft into an arts and crafts center while they fabricated the tools to use in the effort.

“It reminded me of Girl Scout camp,” said Seddon, 37, the only woman in the crew.

The other members of the crew are Donald E. Williams, 42, the pilot; S. David Griggs, 45, Jeffrey A. Hoffman, 40, and Charles D. Walker, 36.