Aug 4, 2006 12:10 pm US/Central
Local Woman Prepares For First Space Flight
(AP)
Years of training are nearly over for St. Paul-native Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper, who is scheduled to blast into space aboard the space shuttle Atlantis in late August or early September.
Her job will be to help install a 17-ton segment of the international space station's truss backbone, which will allow more science labs to be added to the station.
She said it's similar to the work she originally trained for, fixing ships as a diver. The similarities struck her when she learned about the underwater training that NASA puts potential astronauts through for construction missions.
"That looks more like diving than it looks like flying," said Stefanyshyn-Piper, 43.
Ever since she was a child in St. Paul, Stefanyshyn-Piper said she was intrigued with flying. However, her career as a pilot ended before it began because she failed an eye exam to qualify for Navy pilot training.
So she became a diver after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985 with a master's degree in mechanical engineering. She started working for NASA in 1996.
"I remember when I was 4 years old going and flying in an airplane, and I thought that that was the neatest thing," she said. "So I've always had this bug in the back of me that says 'I really want to fly, I really want to fly."'
Stefanyshyn-Piper said she believes she will be the first woman from Minnesota to go into space. The launch is scheduled for sometime between Aug. 27 through Sept. 13.
Atlantis has not flown since October 2002, and there has been no construction on the international space station since December 2002. The deadly Columbia accident in early 2003 halted all expansion of the orbiting space lab.
Stefanyshyn-Piper spoke to reporters Thursday during a live satellite interview broadcast from Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Back in St. Paul, her mother, Adelheid Stefanyshyn, said she was proud of her daughter when she was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1996. On the other hand, Stefanyshyn has concerns about her daughter actually going into space.
"It's dangerous. You never know. We hope everything will be OK," she said.
Students at Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul will be learning about Stefanyshyn-Piper -- class of 1980 -- this month, said Mary Jo Groeller, administrator of admissions and public relations.
"This is our first astronaut," said Groeller, who has been invited to watch the launch from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Stefanyshyn's brother, Paul Stefanyshyn of St. Paul, said he'll be watching, too. "It's not everyday that someone is going up into space," he said.
(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
