There is no
shortage of experience at the helm of NASA's next space shuttle mission.
With a
total of four shuttle flights and 844 hours of space time between them, STS-114
commander Eileen Collins and mission pilot James Kelly are well prepared.
The two veteran
astronauts are heading up the seven-member crew of NASA's first space shuttle
flight since the Columbia
disaster. Discovery, their spacecraft, is now set to launch no earlier than May
22 after being delayed Wednesday.
"The launch
date is not important," Collins said during an interview earlier this month.
"We need to wait and do this right."
The commander
A retired
U.S. Air Force colonel, Collins, 48, joined NASA's astronaut ranks in 1991. The
Elmira, New
York native has flown on three previous shuttle
flights, serving as NASA's first female shuttle pilot during STS-63 in 1995 and
then as the first female shuttle commander aboard the STS-93 mission in 1999.
"I'm not really aware that there's any difference between
male and female crewmembers," Collins told reporters. "It may mean something to
the rest of the world that there's a woman commanding this flight, if so that's
great. I hope to be a role model for young women to come into this field."
Collins
said she's focused her primary attention on preparing herself and her crew for
the STS-114 mission, which will test new tools and procedures to enhance
shuttle safety.
"This crew has been so brilliant and motivated, they make my
job easy," she said. "We are aware that that the whole world is watching, but
we're focused on the mission."
Discovery's STS-114 flight will mark a new start for NASA's
shuttle program, which was stalled after the Columbia orbiter broke apart during reentry
on Feb. 1, 2003, killing its crew. More than two years later, NASA shuttle
officials say they have a better understanding of the risks involved with human
spaceflight and are confident Discovery's flight will be the safest the agency
has ever launched.
"I believe
that we have studied the risks... and that at this point we are ready to say it's
time to go back and fly," Collins said.
With an
airline pilot husband, Collins has told SPACE.com that the risks of flight and
spaceflight are well known in her home. She has also taken care to explain her
upcoming mission with her two children, showing them video tapes of past
missions to communicate the importance of NASA's flight program.
"The space
shuttle is critical to completing the International Space Station," Collins
said, adding that the station is a springboard to reach out to Mars. "And to
me, that is the most exciting dream I have...to see, one day, people walking on
the surface of Mars."
The pilot
Taking
stock of NASA's space program and discussing it at home became a focus for STS-114
pilot James Kelly, 40, following the loss of Columbia's STS-107 crew.
"You have
to revisit every decision you've ever made to be in the program and fly in
space," Kelly said, adding that he had many discussions with his wife following
the Columbia
accident. "We had talked about all of that before, but this time I spent a lot
more time with the kids."
A father of
four, Kelly said that while he believes the STS-114 mission carries less risk
than his previous spaceflight - 2001's STS-102 flight aboard Discovery - he took
care to go over the technical details of his next launch with his two older
boys, ages 15 and 14.
"It makes
them more comfortable, and I talk a lot more about why I do this," Kelly said.
A U.S. Air
Force lieutenant colonel, Kelly is both shuttle pilot and an operator for both
the shuttle and space station robot arms during Discovery's flight. The mission
is his second trip to the ISS since his 1996 acceptance into the astronaut corps,
though he admits the station will likely look much different that the picture
in his memory.
"I think the biggest difference I'm going to see is the
clutter," Kelly said. "When I got there on my last mission the U.S.
lab [Destiny] had just arrived and there was nothing in it."
The lack of
space shuttle flights to the ISS since the Columbia accident has led to an accumulation
of spare parts and other items that cannot be readily returned to Earth aboard
the Russian Soyuz spacecraft currently used to ferry new crews to the station.
Kelly said
he expects the STS-114 flight to be as busy as STS-102, which was NASA's first 4-person
shuttle crew to deliver a fresh astronaut rotation to the ISS, but will still
consider it a test flight despite his previous experience with the Discovery
orbiter.
"I consider
every flight to be a test flight and I agree when [Columbia investigators] said we have always
been a test vehicle," Kelly said. "Every shuttle flight has things on it that
have never been done before, this one just has more."
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