Prior to this first in a series of military missions, the Air Force and Navy decided to send their astronauts on a tour of military facilities, back in uniform, to receive classified briefings on military space programs. The services called this process "re-bluing". A NASA civilian astronaut angrily asked "What is NASA going to do for us civilians?" A pilot astronaut replied "You're going to get re-nerded".

On STS-27, in discussing the LES survival suits that were supposed to protect the crew in case they had to bail out into the cold north Atlantic, commander Gibson said: "Hell, the fall is going to kill you anyway" (a line from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)