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Cakewalk in Space

Posted on: Thursday, 4 August 2005, 21:00 CDT

Aug. 4--Long before Steve Robinson was an astronaut, when he was just starting at NASA/Ames Research Center in Mountain View, he performed delicate tests on spacecraft in a high-pressure wind tunnel where the temperatures could reach 1,500 degrees.

That was nothing compared with the pressure he faced Wednesday.

As friends and family in the Bay Area cheered, Robinson took an unprecedented spacewalk and gently pulled off two pieces of ceramic-fabric cloth protruding from Discovery's belly. Friday, he may take on another repair to make sure the shuttle can re-enter the Earth's atmosphere without burning up.

"I have been very excited and proud. What mother wouldn't be?" asked Joyce Robinson, the astronaut's mother, who watched the zero-gravity repair from her Moraga home.

From his youth, Robinson has been mesmerized by all things airborne.

His bookshelves bulged with texts on airplanes and rockets. While at Campolindo High School in Moraga where he graduated in 1973, Robinson built his own hang glider. He now owns two antique airplanes and learned to fly at the Palo Alto Airport.

Even his musical interest has a flying theme. Robinson plays lead guitar in a rock band of astronauts called Max Q, which refers to the maximum air pressure astronauts experience during a shuttle launch.

"I was fascinated with things that flew just about as soon as I could walk," Robinson said in a biography posted on NASA's Web site. "I grew up just trying to make things fly and then trying to make myself fly."

Robinson earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical/aerospace engineering from the University of California-Davis and later earned advanced degrees in aerospace engineering from Stanford University. Robinson started work at NASA/Ames as an undergraduate, and he stayed there for 11 years.

He tried six times in 12 years to enter the space program, until 1994, when he was accepted and moved to Houston. This is his third space shuttle mission, including a trip with his idol John Glenn in 1998.

Richard Johnson, Robinson's math teacher at Campolindo High, remembers when, as a senior, Robinson built a hang glider in his family's garage. "It wasn't too long that he had the damn thing completed and he was making test flights around Contra Costa County," said Johnson. "I always cautioned him that I don't want to read about him as a casualty, and he said, 'Don't worry, I will be all right.' "

And on Wednesday, he was. Standing on the end of the international space station's 58-foot-long robot arm, Robinson tugged out the first piece of fabric as the two linked spacecraft passed over Massachusetts. By the time he had pulled out the next strip 10 minutes later, he had crossed the Atlantic and was zooming over the French coast.

"It looks like this big patient is cured," he said.

"Steve, we trained for four years. You're going to spend the next four years signing autographs," said his spacewalking partner, Soichi Noguchi.

But Robinson was barely out of his spacesuit when Mission Control informed the crew there was a chance that another spacewalk might be needed Friday to deal with a torn thermal blanket beneath a cockpit window. The blanket could rip away during re-entry and slam into the shuttle, which could causing grave damage.

So far, the mission has had a range of scares, including debris breaking free of the fuel tank. None of the loose material posed serious a danger, NASA officials determined after careful inspection. Discovery is set to land at Kennedy Space Center in Houston on Monday.

Dave Driver, a mechanical engineer at Ames who flew 1940s vintage airplanes with Robinson in Palo Alto, said he will be relieved to see his friend back on Earth so he can buy him a beer.

"I have high confidence in this mission," he said, "But I will be relieved when he comes home."

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Source: San Jose Mercury News

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