NASA has
joined astronaut Randy Bresnik, who is in orbit now, in the waiting game for
the birth his daughter, just one day before the spaceflyer is poised to make
his first spacewalk.
"There's no
word yet," space station flight director Brian Smith told reporters late
Friday.
Bresnik is
flying on NASA's space
shuttle Atlantis, which is docked at the International Space Station to
deliver tons of spare parts and other supplies. His wife Rebecca, meanwhile, is
here on Earth preparing
to give birth to their second child - a baby girl.
NASA
officials said the baby's birth was slated for as early as today, while Bresnik and his crewmates delivered a wealth of supplies and performed vital station maintenance. But it could
now be tonight or sometime Saturday, when Bresnik and another crewmate are due
to step out on their mission's second spacewalk.
Smith said all of NASA is pulling for the Bresnik family, but joked that the
baby's delayed arrival has thrown a wrench into NASA's well-oiled shuttle mission plan. He said as much to the flight surgeons at Mission
Control in Houston.
"I told
them, 'Don't the doctors and Rebecca realize this is NASA and I've got a really
well thought out, well-planned, meticulous plan, and they are not abiding by
it,'" Smith said with a smile. "But I am not going to be able to control that
situation. Rebecca's on her own."
Bresnik and
his wife initially believed they could not have a biological child and adopted
a son, now 3 1/2, from Ukraine last year. They found out Rebecca was pregnant just
a few months later.
In a NASA
interview recorded before Atlantis launched
Monday, Bresnik and his wife said they planned to induce the baby's birth two
weeks early because of medical concerns and hoped that would allow them some
leeway in coordinating her arrival to a less-busy time in Bresnik's mission. Bresnik
will perform two spacewalks - on Saturday and Monday, respectively - before the
mission ends with a post-Thanksgiving landing on Nov. 27.
That may not
be the case now. But Smith said that is completely okay.
"We will accommodate
whatever Rebecca and her new baby want to do," he said.
Bresnik has
said his situation is no different from those experienced by military personnel
who are deployed overseas, away from their families.
He is by no
means the first parent
to fly in space, but he is only the second American to be in orbit while
expecting his wife to give birth. NASA astronaut Michael Fincke coached his
wife through the birth of their daughter from the space station during his own
long-duration flight in June 2004. Fincke met his daughter Tarali Paulina for
the first time when she was four months old.
If Bresnik's
daughter is born during Saturday's spacewalk, Smith will speak with flight
surgeons and draw up a plan for notifying the astronaut. Bresnik will be 100
percent focused on his mission, regardless, Smith said.
"I'm just as
interested as everybody else, and I'm hoping that everything just works out
perfect for them," Smith said.
SPACE.com
is providing complete coverage of Atlantis' STS-129 mission to the
International Space Station with Staff Writer Clara Moskowitz and Managing
Editor Tariq Malik based in New York. Click here for shuttle mission
updates and a link to NASA TV.
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