By CAROLYN CARY

Contributing Writer

The Fayette County Chamber of Commerce brought a little bit of NASA to its annual meeting Saturday night. The guest speaker was Capt. Jon A. McBride, USN (Ret), a former space shuttle pilot, a fighter pilot and a Navy test pilot.

McBride was born and raised in West Virginia and joined the Navy in the mid 1960's. He flew over 60 combat missions during Vietnam in the F-4 Phantom.

He attended the United States Air Force Test Pilot School and is also a graduate of the forerunner of the "Top Gun" flight school at Miramar, Calif.

McBride explained to the 360 chamber members that it was 1961 when the first man went up into space, a Russian. In 1981 an American went into space in the "Columbia". He added that to date, 300 people from 14 different countries have now flown in space.

McBride became the voice of Houston for the sixth flight and in 1984 was chosen to command the 13th flight, the maiden voyage of "Challenger". He was proud of the number of firsts of this mission, includingthe first to have seven astronauts aboard and the first with two women.

The crew remained aloft for eight days. A slide of the crew before it left Earth was shown as well as one during flight. He explained that you lose about eight pounds of body fluid in space, and your heart enlarges 50 percent. Additionally, an astronaut has to take calcium supplements the whole time, to keep your bones from becoming mush. McBride added that your whole body enlarges about one and a half inches and your face can look quite puffy.

Crew members can choose what they want to eat while in space and these items are freeze dried ahead and kept in a refrigerator on board. Each astronaut had a color assigned to them, and their food packages were color coded. Consequently, all they had to do for lunch was pick out their color package, thaw it, heat it and chow down. And oh yes, they also took along a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter and jelly.

Each one had to exercise from 30 to 40 minutes a day.

The Challenger again went up in 1985, but all astronauts aboard were killed when the shuttle exploded.

McBride commented that if you had a problem with your back, and had $10 million dollars, a ride in space would cure the problem.

He ended his talk with various slides he took in space of Earth, reminding everyone of its beauty and our responsibility to be good stewards of our planet.