NASA's
shuttle Endeavour will have a pair of seasoned astronauts at the helm when it
rockets towards the International Space Station (ISS) later this week.
Veteran
spaceflyer Scott Kelly is commanding a seven-astronaut crew for Endeavour's
STS-118 construction mission to the ISS. Returning to space alongside him will
be experienced shuttle pilot Charles Hobaugh.
"You know,
just flying is such a privilege and a great experience," Kelly said in a
preflight interview. "The big thing I want to do is just fly a flight."
Kelly,
Hobaugh and their five crewmates are slated to launch Aug. 8 and spend up to 14
days in space to haul fresh cargo, spare parts and install a new piece of the
orbital laboratory to its starboard-most side. The crew also includes teacher-turned-spaceflyer
Barbara Morgan, who originally served as backup to New Hampshire
schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe in 1985 during NASA's Teacher in Space program.
McAuliffe as among the crew of the space shuttle Challenger when it broke apart
just after launch in January 1986,
First
command
While
Kelly, 43, has flown in space before, Endeavour's STS-118 mission will mark his
first to the ISS and as commander.
"It's
clearly different," said Kelly, a commander
in the U.S. Navy, who last flew as pilot of NASA's shuttle Discovery during
1999's STS-103 flight to the Hubble Space Telescope. "As a pilot you're
responsible for your own job, and as a commander you're responsible for your
own job and for everything else that's going on."
A native of
Orange, New Jersey, Kelly first joined NASA's astronaut ranks in 1996. He
served as a backup crewmember for the space station's Expedition 5 crew in 2002
and led NASA operations in Star City, Russia before heading up the agency's
space station branch of the Astronaut Office. But life as an astronaut was not
originally the ultimate goal for Kelly, who is married to wife Leslie and has
two children.
"It's quite
surprising to be here," said Kelly, who has logged more than 3,700 hours in 30
aircraft and flew combat air patrol over Kuwait during Desert Storm, in a NASA
interview. "It was more just the kind of the concept of flying in space and
taking flying to the next, most challenging level that inspired me."
After 11
years at NASA and almost eight days in space, Kelly has shaped a new view of
the importance of human spaceflight, both now and for the future.
"I think if
we're going to continue to as a species eventually, far in the future, we're
going to have to find another place to live," he said. "And this is just a
stepping stone towards that goal."
Kelly is not the only member of his family to fly in space.
His identical twin brother, Mark Kelly, is a veteran shuttle pilot with two
spaceflights to the ISS under his belt and is set to command NASA's STS-124
flight to deliver part of Japan's
Kibo laboratory to the station next year.
"I
certainly talk to my brother a lot, certainly not only about work," Scott Kelly
said of his twin. "He is a good source of information for me if I have any
questions that only somebody who's kind of been there and done that can
answer."
A
pilot's pie-in-the-sky
Like Kelly,
Hobaugh, 45, never seriously believed he'd end up a professional astronaut, though
he does recall reading about flying in the T-38 jets NASA uses to train
astronauts as a student in grade school.
"Being an
astronaut's kind of a pie-in-the-sky thought," said Hobaugh, U.S.
Marine Corps lieutenant colonel with the call sign "Scorch," in
a NASA interview. "But it's an incredible job...it's my job to go fly in space."
The Bar Harbor,
Maine native is a veteran USMC pilot, logging more than 3,000 hours in over 40
different aircraft, including vertical takeoff and landing Harrier jets. He
flew combat missions in the Persian Gulf during operations Desert Shield/Desert
Storm and later served as a naval test pilot instructor before joining NASA's
astronaut corps in 1996. He spent nearly 13 days in space as pilot of NASA's
STS-104 mission in 2001 aboard Atlantis to help install NASA's Quest airlock at
the ISS and change out the station's crew.
The risks
of human spaceflight, and shuttle flight in particular, are crystal clear to
Hobaugh, who is married to wife Corinna Lynn and has four children. On Feb. 1,
2003, he was serving as spacecraft communicator, or CAPCOM, in Mission Control
when the space shuttle Columbia
and its seven-astronaut crew were lost during reentry. But after NASA's work to
return its shuttle fleet to flight in 2005, he is confident that the current
risks are worth the payoff.
"[Y]ou've
got to understand in taking this job is that it is a risky business. You're not
doing it with any reasonable assurance of coming back every time," he told
reporters in a preflight interview, adding that mission success will always be
the top goal. "There are things that will happen and things that we need to get
past, so that's kind of where I'm at there."
One of the
key things to remember in space, Hobaugh added, is to set time aside to
appreciate spaceflight during a mission.
"You're
really cheating yourself if you don't sneak a peek once in a while," he said.
"It really puts a good perspective on what the flight's all about."
Kelly, too,
said he hopes to take some time to savor his first flight as shuttle commander.
"It's been
eight years, or almost eight years, since I flew last so I'm really looking
forward to this flight," Kelly said. "Hopefully the fact that I flew once
before, I'll be able to maybe enjoy a little bit more, or appreciate a bit
more."
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