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Next Shuttle Crew Has Waited Years to Fly

Posted on: Thursday, 22 June 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Traci Watson

HOUSTON -- It used to be that an astronaut was a person who flew in space. These days, an astronaut's main occupation is waiting to fly in space.

Just ask the next space shuttle crew, some of whom have been waiting to fly for a decade. By the time shuttle Discovery blasts off, which could be as early as July 1, the American astronauts aboard will have waited an average of seven years to fly.

The wait has been longest for the crew's three "rookies," NASA lingo for those who've never been to space. Stephanie Wilson and Lisa Nowak have waited 10 years to make their first flight, having joined NASA in 1996. Fellow rookie Michael Fossum has waited eight years to fly since becoming an astronaut in 1998.

By contrast, astronauts hired from 1990 to 1995 waited an average of three to four years for their first flight.

"This is not how I envisioned it," Wilson says. "I thought (by) 10 years, I would've had three or four flights and done all the things I could possibly do."

The crew's veteran fliers have faced wearisome waits, too. "It's been a long road for us, (including) a couple years of training for most of us," says mission commander Steven Lindsey, who was last in orbit in 2001. "It's good to be back here getting ready to fly."

A mix of bad luck and tragedy has grounded Lindsey and his crew. The most devastating factor was the disintegration of shuttle Columbia, which killed the crew of seven in 2003. A chunk of foam insulation came off the vehicle's fuel tank during launch and punched a hole in the ship's wing.

It took NASA more than two years to improve the foam and other parts of the shuttle to launch the first flight after the accident. That mission, in July 2005, was also marred by a shower of foam debris, though it caused no damage.

The first mission since then is Discovery's 12-day flight, which will resupply the International Space Station and test methods of repairing the shuttle in orbit.

As a result of the Columbia accident and its aftermath, only seven astronauts have flown in the shuttle since early 2003. From 2000 to 2002, by contrast, an average of 30 astronauts a year flew on shuttle missions, according to NASA data. The steep drop in the number of available seats to space means half of the United States' 101 astronauts still await their first flight.

Even before the Columbia accident, the number of astronauts who hadn't flown was rising. NASA went on an astronaut hiring binge in the 1990s, but delays in building the International Space Station and fewer retirements than expected cut the number of seats on space flights, says Kent Rominger, head of NASA's astronaut office.

Rookies wait longer to make their first flight, and veterans wait longer to return to orbit. Discovery pilot Mark Kelly last flew in 2001, his crewmate Piers Sellers in 2002. The seventh crewmember, Thomas Reiter, is a German hitching a ride on the shuttle to the space station.

The long waits have made the Discovery crewmembers the envy of their colleagues, Rominger says.

"Hey, they're the guys who are lucky enough to be next in line," he says.

"They've shown great patience," he says, especially the three rookies.

Fossum first applied to be an astronaut in 1985 and was accepted in 1998. He slogged through eight years without an assignment to fly in space.

"You start to think, maybe it's really never going to happen," Fossum says. "You've got to not dwell on it. ... It would drive you crazy."

When he got assigned to the Discovery flight, he was in shock. "I don't know what I said, probably something unintelligible," he says. "After all those years of being around the space business and dreaming about doing it, to finally get the call!"

Nowak came to NASA in the largest astronaut class in the agency's history. There were 44 people in the class of 1996, earning the group the nickname "The Sardines."

"We knew not everyone would go right away," she says. "But I guess I kind of thought it would be five years."

Every year, she and her family sent out an upbeat Christmas letter saying, "Okay, we're going to fly this year," Nowak recalls. "Then the next year, you're like, 'Okay, this sounds like last year, but we're going to try again.'"

Like Nowak, Wilson came to NASA in 1996 and watched with growing unease as others in her class got assigned to their first and even their second flights.

"The last couple years prior to Columbia ... I started to have this feeling, wondering, well, will this happen for me or not?" she says. To watch classmates train for their second flight while she waited was like being a runner getting "lapped" on the track, she says.

Wilson gets rattled when asked whether she would join the astronaut corps again, knowing what she knows now about the wait.

"Oooo, it's a tough question," she says, then pauses a long time. "Today, I would have to say I would make the same decision. ... When I was back in some of those other (years), I would've said no."

All three know that with more than 50 other rookies cooling their heels on Earth, this flight may be their last.

"If you ask me if I'm going to get a second flight, I don't know," Nowak says. "There's a good chance I won't."

(c) Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

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