Word: astronaut
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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There is no easy way to fix the gouge in the Shuttle Endeavour. In-orbit repair options are limited and, since any fix would have to be made by robotic arms and astronauts in awkward space suits, the process would be fraught with the potential to make the problem worse. Still, Mission team chairman John Shannon said that, according to his team's analysis, the damage should pose no risk to the astronaut crew on the return home. There is, however, potential for more damage to the shuttle itself on re-entry into Earth's atmosphere when temperatures...
...ships came home with scarred, pitted and missing tiles. Indeed, the early shuttles often shed tiles like dead leaves and landed safely all the same. Endeavour will almost surely do so too. But the anxiety this mission is causing is one more reason that so many NASA employees and astronaut families are simply marking time until shuttles' scheduled retirement in 2010, when the snakebit ships will fly no more...
Think Americans stuck in airports have to wait a long time for a flight? Try 22 years. That's how long astronaut Barbara Morgan, 55 - who blasted off Wednesday aboard the shuttle Endeavour for a planned 11-day mission - had to cool her heels before she got her first chance...
...roving ambassador for space flight and remaining, in name at least, a Teacher in Space designee. Under NASA's newer, stricter flight eligibility rules, however, the only way she could ever get her chance to fly would be to quit the teaching profession and become a professional astronaut, relegating kids' education from space to a much more incidental part of her responsibilities. She applied for a slot and in 1998 was selected; she is now flying as a mission specialist, responsible for operating the robotic arm of both the shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS), with which the crew...
Morgan, meantime, will fulfill McAuliffe's legacy, if in a slightly new capacity. No longer a Teacher in Space, but now an "Educator Astronaut," she will teach at least one live lesson from orbit, and up to two more if the mission is extended from 11 to 14 days, as it might be. She is also carrying a cargo of 10 million cinnamon basil seeds (a figure she playfully rounds up to "a kazillion,"), which will be distributed to schoolchildren to grow post-flight, so that they can observe any anomalies that might be attributable to the stint in weightlessness...