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(Christa McWhirter)
After supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in a deadly riot last week, the FBI circulated an internal bulletin warning of armed protests being held at all 50 state capitols at least until Inauguration Day.
Here in Austin, local and state law enforcement officials have ramped up security around the Texas Capitol, the Texas Legislature has adjourned until Jan. 26 and downtown businesses have boarded up their storefronts—again.
Law enforcement
The Texas Capitol reopened on Jan. 4. Two days later, it closed abruptly due to the Capitol riot, which was accompanied by a local protest of Trump loyalists with signs that read "Hang traitors" and vehicles decorated with Qanon hashtags. By Tuesday, it had reopened in time for the first day of the Texas legislative session. Lawmakers gathered for the first time in two years, amid the ongoing pandemic and under heavy security presence.
The police presence will continue at least through Jan. 20, when President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be inaugurated.
The Texas Department of Public Safety has deployed additional officers to the Texas Capitol and "is continuously monitoring events and their impact on public safety," according to a statement shared with Austonia. "While we do not discuss operational specifics, DPS will continue to adjust our operations as needed to maintain public order and address potential threats."
DPS Director Steven McCraw told state senators this week that authorities are monitoring multiple sects, which could prompt the need for reinforcements if they decide to travel to the capital and band together, as the Austin American-Statesman reported Friday.
The Austin Police Department confirmed it has "reports of planned assemblies" in a similar statement. "We fully respect people's ability to exercise their First Amendment rights, and we will be prepared to respond as needed to ensure the community's safety," it read in part.
DPS has not requested the assistance of the Travis County Sheriff's Office, but the agency has a plan in place to respond if that changes, a spokesperson wrote in an email.
Meanwhile, federal law enforcement is also at work.
The San Antonio branch of the FBI said its "efforts are focused on identifying, investigating and disrupting individuals that are inciting violence and engaging in criminal activity," in a statement shared with Austonia.
And the U.S. Attorneys representing the four districts in Texas issued a press release on Wednesday headlined "Don't Mess With Texas," which announced their intent to prosecute any crimes committed at the Texas Capitol or elsewhere in violation of federal law.
Elected officials
After the riot at the U.S. Capitol, three Democratic state senators, including Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, sent a letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Speaker Dade Phelan asking them to prohibit firearms at the Texas Capitol on the opening day of the legislative session.
"As there are still individuals who are questioning the legitimate results of the November General Election, it is imperative we take action to prevent this anger from making its way into the halls of the Texas Capitol," they wrote.
The state Republican leadership denied the request.
"We've had security briefings and also had increased trooper presence for Opening Day," State Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, said in a statement shared with Austonia. "We all felt safe, protected and able to focus on the business of the people."
Two days into the session, both houses of the Texas Legislature adjourned until Jan. 26, which will keep lawmakers away from the Capitol until after Inauguration Day. Coupled with the increased police presence, this vote has led State Rep. Vikki Goodwin, D-Austin, to feel more safe. "That, of course, will help," she told Austonia.
But Goodwin remains concerned about the prospect of violence on Wednesday. "Of course, there will be those who show up at the Capitol, and I just think that people should be very wary and cognizant of what's going on around them," she said.
In the meantime, she is focused on her work as a legislator.
Last month, Goodwin filed a bill that would make it a class B misdemeanor to display a firearm while "attending or within 500 feet of a public demonstration." She was prompted to do so by the death of Garrett Foster, who was shot by an Uber driver while attending a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Austin last July.
"If somebody is at a rally to express their point of view, we don't need that extra tension in the air," she said.
She also plans to be at the Capitol on Jan. 19, the day before the inauguration, to advocate against Confederate Heroes Day, a state holiday that sometimes conflicts with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is on Monday.
Local businesses
A handful of downtown businesses—including 7-Eleven, Total Men's Primary Care and a post office branch on Congress Avenue—have boarded up their storefronts ahead of Inauguration Day.
(Christa McWhirter)
Buford Snyder, who owns Snyder Commercial Glass Service, told KXAN that his company boarded up several businesses this week amid concern about looming protests.
Still, many storefronts remain uncovered.
Eric Joyner, a security guard in the area, says most of the buildings he patrols were untouched over the summer, when protestors gathered en masse in response to police violence and racial injustice. "You just never know what's going to happen though," he said.
Christa McWhirter contributed to this story.
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Bruce McCandless II's untethered spacewalk made history in 1984. The red stripes above his knees were the only way that NASA could determine which astronaut was Bruce and which was his fellow spacewalker, Bob Stewart. (NASA)
'Wonders All Around' is a new book by Austinite Bruce McCandless III about his dad, the astronaut Bruce McCandless II. (Bruce McCandless III)
I met McCandless III, who lives in Austin with his wife Pati, for a coffee a few months ago, thanks to the introduction from a mutual friend. As we talked about losing our dads, being writers and parents and living in Austin while still dealing with COVID, his dad's famous flight didn't come up, but the process of writing such an epic biography of a complex, only recently passed man was something worth unpacking over coffee.
I hadn't read the book yet, but over the next few weeks, I got to know the McCandless family in such a sweet way that I wanted to write a little about the book here to perhaps inspire you to seek out a copy of "Wonders All Around."
As much as this is a book about space, it's also a book about grief. And persistence. And stoicism. And masculinity and maternality.
The elder McCandless died in 2017, just a few years after losing his wife, Bernice, to cancer.
This passing of the torch from father to son left the younger McCandless inspired to take on this decades-long narrative. McCandless III sets the tone for the book with a memory of the family sitting around the dinner table at their home outside Johnson Space Center near Houston in the mid 1970s, when his dad, who joined NASA in 1966 at the age of 28, wasn't sure he'd ever actually make it to space.
"Our dinners were somber affairs. We ate around a rectangular Formica table in the breakfast nook. Tracy and I sat on benches padded with orange vinyl cushions. Mom and Dad occupied faux-Spanish style chairs with green felt upholstery. Despite the informal, Howard Johnson's-at-the-airport feel of the furnishings, there was a tension in the air that set in right around the time the frozen string beans started steaming. I had the feeling that my sister and I had forgotten to do something important, though I couldn't figure out what it was, or that judgment had been rendered on us and we'd been found guilty of … something — again, it was unclear what. Horseplay was prohibited. The TV and all sources of music or other frivolity were turned off, and singing was strictly forbidden. The only sound came from the aquarium pump. My father had a 100-gallon tank along the wall behind his chair. Sometimes the big plecostomus would attach itself by its mouth to the glass facing us, and I imagined it sucking all the oxygen out of the room."
Imagining what it must have been like to require oxygen to survive, not in outer space but in the living room with your family, sets up the story of the McCandless ancestors, including a guy who was killed by Wild Bill Hickok and the author's grandfather, who was an admiral in the U.S. Navy.
No pressure, Bruce.
It was fascinating to read about the 18 years that Bruce McCandless II worked for NASA before he finally had his first flight, which debuted the Manned Maneuvering Unit, a jet-fueled backpack that he and Ed Whitsett Jr. spent so many years developing. (That's the joystick-controlled machine he's wearing in that mind-bending poster that hung on millions of Americans' walls over the following decade.)
The author McCandless has the unenviable task of trying to put into words what that flight must have felt like. His dad flew 150 feet away from the shuttle Challenger, which would, of course, break into a million little pieces just a few years later.
When President Reagan called the shuttle to congratulate the astronauts that day in 1984, the command center set up a demonstration space walk to give the president a live view of McCandless through the shuttle window.
Bruce McCandless II, trains with Kathy Sullivan, right, in preparation to launch the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA)
The only problem was, there wasn't much fuel left. McCandless went out anyway, trying to stay within 10-15 feet of the spacecraft. He got into position and turned off the unit to preserve propellant. After the president said a few words and the video switched off, McCandless turned on the unit and "looked for the closest piece of the orbiter, pointed at it, put the hand controller in +X (and) got a sort of sighing noise as it accelerated in that direction." He ran out of fuel just as he grabbed onto a rail on the orbiter. Hand over hand, he brought himself back to the donning station.
It's that kind of suspense that made this book so thrilling to read.
There's space tension like when McCandless is operating as CAPCOM, the only person talking to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin while they are walking on the surface of the moon, and his commander wants him to break protocol and call them back early, even though there are no signs of distress.
The book is also so touching. I cried while reading about the declining health of Bernice, who survived so many astronaut wife struggles over the years and at the end of her life remained a loving partner and mother.
Bruce McCandless was a Navy pilot who was picked to join NASA in 1966. His first space flight wasn't until 1984. (NASA)
It's easy to forget that McCandless II had an entirely other memorable historic moment—launching the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990—and this one seems to have struck an even deeper chord with McCandless III.
The Hubble launch was McCandless' second and final flight. He was 52 and had worked at NASA for 24 years.
McCandless II spends the last chapters of the book making a compelling case that his dad's work to fix and update the Hubble are among the greatest achievements to science. He continued to work on Hubble for another two decades after retiring from NASA through his work at Lockheed Martin.
Bruce McCandless, left, and the flight crew that launched the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990. He was 52 years old. (NASA)
He was the "nuts, bolts, screws, and wires guy," the auto mechanic rather than the scientist, who kept the telescope going 340 miles above Earth for more than twice its life expectancy. The Hubble has been cited in more than 18,000 scientific papers and has revealed countless secrets and unsolved mysteries from around the universe and beyond.
"The size, shape, and sheer spectral weirdness of the images boggle the imagination and make prophets and dreamers of us all," McCandless writes toward the end of "Wonders All Around. "Some of us pay therapists to tell us we're important and unique. Then we check in with Hubble so the satellite can inform us just how galactically marginal we all are. The truth is somewhere in the middle."
What a beautiful reminder.
