Oct 3, 2006 1:58 pm US/Central
No Gravity: Best Part For Minnesota Astronaut
St. Paul (AP) ―
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Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper plans to return to her hometown soon to talk about the shuttle mission that ended Sept. 2. (File)
Robert Sullivan/AFP/Getty Images
The best part of Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper's journey aboard the space shuttle Atlantis came on the first day of the flight.
"Definitely right after the ride up," she said in a telephone interview Monday from Houston, Texas with the St. Paul Pioneer Press. "From the minute I got out of my seat ... I just floated."
Stefanyshyn-Piper, 43, grew up in St. Paul and now lives outside Houston with her family. She plans to return to her hometown soon to talk about the shuttle mission that ended Sept. 21 with a landing at Johnson Space Center.
She said that during the flight, she and her crewmates were "very, very busy," but there was some time look around.
The view, during a space walk, of the shuttle docked to the international space station was incredible. On seeing the giant solar panels installed by the crew, she said, "You look and you think, 'Wow!'
Although equipment concerns and bad weather delayed Atlantis' launch by two weeks, and worries about debris spotted outside the spacecraft put off the landing, Stefanyshyn-Piper said she was never worried about her safety.
NASA had every reason to be apprehension, as the Atlantis mission came "on the heels of the Columbia accident," she said, referring to the 2003 burn-up during re-entry that killed seven astronauts.
"They want everything to be perfect. It's very difficult in life to have everything be perfect," she said.
Her training as an engineer helped keep things in perspective. She knew, for example, that the mission wasn't threatened when a motor failed. "I wasn't concerned about it," she said.
Stefanyshyn-Piper also made news when she got back to Earth. On the day after the landing, she collapsed twice during a welcome-home ceremony. NASA said it was a reaction to space flight they had seen before, and was not a cause for alarm.
Stefanyshyn-Piper said on Monday that, "I'm feeling pretty good." She attributed her fainting to returning from space, the heat in the building and the excitement of the occasion.
"When your body says it's time to sit down, you better listen to it," she said.
(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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