Sunday,
October 21
"Discovery" Launches Tuesday with
Italian Astronaut Paolo Nespoli
The
ANNOTICO Report
NASA's
space shuttle crew, is made up of six Americans and an Italian, and has a woman
in charge.
Italian astronaut
Paolo Nespoli is taking a variety of specialties from
his homeland into space, including the one of which he's proudest: the
pressurized compartment named Harmony that will be attached to the
international space station.
Harmony was designed
and built in
Nespoli dreamed of becoming an
astronaut while growing up in a small town near
"I was a kid
watching the images coming from the moon and Mission Control, of the astronauts
bouncing around. That's when I decided, at least I had this dream, I wanted to be an astronaut. I always joke,
Thank God I didn't say I want to be a dancer or something, because I cannot. I
don't have the capabilities."
Nespoli, 50, served his mandatory
year in the Italian army in 1977 and chose to stay on. He ended up a major and
a master parachutist, and spent two years in
He joined the
European Space Agency's astronaut corps in 1998. This will be his first
spaceflight. He will direct the spacewalks from inside the shuttle-station
complex. He also will host an Italian dinner, and he's keeping the menu secret.
He met his wife
in
Discovery's female-led crew consists of 6
Americans, 1 Italian
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Retired Air Force
Col. Pamela Melroy will sit in the coveted front left
seat of the cockpit when Discovery blasts off Tuesday on a mission to deliver a
new live-in compartment to the international space station.
She is only the
second woman to command a shuttle flight —
and "exceedingly grateful" she wasn't the first. Ex-astronaut Eileen
Collins was — in 1999 and again in 2005.
"It's a tremendous
additional burden with all the other responsibilities that you have as a
commander to carry that with you," Melroy said
last month. "I don't particularly care for the spotlight."
Three of Melroy's crewmates are space veterans like herself and three
are rookies.
Here's a quick
look at all seven:
___
Melroy, the mission's commander,
does not see herself as a female leader.
"I am a Pam
leader," she said, noting that every leader is unique. It took her a while
to find her own leadership style, one she is comfortable with.
Melroy, 46, who has degrees in
science, is from
Following the
2003
Her husband,
Douglas Hollett, a geologist, is vice president for
___
Pilot George Zamka never considered spaceflight within his reach, even
when he was in the Marines.
The 45-year-old
colonel and former fighter pilot was enjoying his
military career when someone at test pilot school suggested he apply to the
astronaut corps. It took a couple tries, but he finally was selected in 1998.
This will be his first shuttle flight.
He ranks
spaceflight as risky as combat flying.
"So how do I
deal with that? I have faith in our team, in the good will of our folks to
handle situations as best as they know how, that they don't take anything
lightly, they don't take anything as an automatic and that they're well trained
and that we have tools developed to be able to handle things. And the rest that
you can't worry about, you can't control, you just don't worry about it."
Zamka is married with a
13-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son.
He grew up in
___
Dr. Scott Parazynski is the crew's chief spacewalker and outdoor
repairman.
He will use his
medical skills to practice patching deliberately damaged shuttle tiles in a
first-ever space demo of a high-tech caulking gun and goo.
"The tile
that you're working on, of course, is silica glass. It's very brittle so if you
were to nudge the tile with the applicator tip, for example, you could make the
damage a lot worse," he said. "So like in medicine, first do no
harm."
Besides being a doctor,
Parazynski, 46, is an instrument-rated pilot and
mountaineer. He was ranked among the nation's top 10 competitors in luge during the 1988 Olympic Trials, while still in medical
school. He became an astronaut in 1992. This will be his fifth spaceflight; on
his third, he flew with John Glenn.
Parazynski is married with a
10-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter, and considers home
___
Army Col. Douglas
Wheelock spent 10 days living underwater as a NASA aquanaut three years ago.
Now he gets a shot at space.
He will make
three spacewalks on his first mission, something he's been aiming for ever
since he became an astronaut in 1998.
"I keep kind
of kidding with the rest of the crew. I say, 'Gosh, I hope we hurry up and
launch so they don't figure out they picked the wrong guy,'" he said.
More seriously,
he said: "Being able to look at the shuttle and the station silhouetted
against deep space and silhouetted against the planet, I think it's going to
just take my breath away."
The 47-year-old
aviator is from
Wheelock is
taking into space a jersey and baseball card belonging to former New York
Yankee Bobby Mercer, his boyhood hero who had surgery in December for a brain
tumor. The two have since become friends.
___
Stephanie Wilson
will be making her second shuttle flight in just over a year.
Her main role
will be to operate the robotic arms aboard Discovery and the international
space station during spacewalks and construction work.
Wilson, 41, an
engineer, is among only a handful of black women who have ever served in NASA's
astronaut corps.
She worked on the
Titan IV rocket for the former Martin Marietta Astronautics Group in
She became an
astronaut in 1996.
An avid stamp
collector, Wilson was thrilled when the post office in her hometown of
She is single.
___
Italian astronaut
Paolo Nespoli is taking a variety of specialties from
his homeland into space, including the one of which he's proudest: the
pressurized compartment named Harmony that will be attached to the
international space station.
Harmony was
designed and built in
Nespoli dreamed of becoming an
astronaut while growing up in a small town near
"I was a kid
watching the images coming from the moon and Mission Control, of the astronauts
bouncing around. That's when I decided, at least I had this dream, I wanted to be an astronaut. I always joke,
Thank God I didn't say I want to be a dancer or something, because I cannot. I
don't have the capabilities."
Nespoli, 50, served his mandatory
year in the Italian army in 1977 and chose to stay on. He ended up a major and
a master parachutist, and spent two years in
He joined the
European Space Agency's astronaut corps in 1998. This will be his first
spaceflight. He will direct the spacewalks from inside the shuttle-station
complex. He also will host an Italian dinner, and he's keeping the menu secret.
He met his wife
in
___
Daniel Tani is making the trip to spend some time at the
international space station.
He will change
places with astronaut Clayton Anderson, who has been living on the station
since June and will return to Earth aboard Discovery. Tani
will remain on board until the next shuttle flight, currently targeted for
December.
Tani is eagerly awaiting his
first long-duration mission. He visited the space station in 2001, but stayed
only as long as the shuttle did.
"I view
being an astronaut like being a race car driver or something else that is
really so cool that given the opportunity, you would jump on it," said Tani, 46, a mechanical engineer. "I kind of view
people, humans, in two categories. One who would go do
anything to go into space and the other group who would do anything ... to not
have to go into space, to not take that risk."
Tani's grandparents immigrated from
He met his wife
while golfing in
___
On the Net:
The
ANNOTICO Reports Can be Viewed (and are Archived) on:
Italia
Italia
Mia: http://www.ItaliaMia.com (3 years)
Annotico Email: annotico@earthlink.net