Countdown continues

Amarillo High grad training for shuttle launch

Posted: Thursday, May 06, 1999

T minus two weeks and counting.

Amarillo's Rick Husband is making final preparations for his first spaceflight. His crew has been in training for nine months and is finally ready to fly.

Originally the mission was to take place after the first three space station components were put together - the Russian-built "Functional Cargo Block," the U.S. node, and the Russian service module. But funding problems in Russia delayed the service module, so the partially assembled space station Husband will visit only has the first two pieces, according to NASA.

The objective of the STS-96 flight is logistics - a space traveler's equivalent of a trip to the grocery, hardware and clothing store put together.

The shuttle Discovery will transfer 3,600 pounds of cargo, including spares in case critical parts break down in the future; clothing, nonperishable food and water for the future astronauts who will live for months in space; and components that will be used to put future space station pieces together.

The rest of the shuttle crew consists of commander Kent Rominger and mission specialist astronauts Tammy Jernigan, Ellen Ochoa, Dan Barry, Julie Payette, and Valeri Tokarev. Payette is Canadian, and Tokarev is Russian. They and Husband are the only rookies on the crew.

During the next week, the crew will perform final refresher simulations to stay at peak performance.

Husband, along with Rominger and Ochoa, will fly simulated launches and landings with instructors tossing problems at them left and right. Husband and Rominger also will fly the shuttle training aircraft, a business jet that has been modified to fly like the shuttle. To avoid accidentally catching a cold, the crew will enter medical isolation and only be in contact with people who have been screened medically.

Husband is the mission's pilot, but "pilot" is a bit of a misnomer. The commander actually does almost all of the flying and the pilot is his "right hand man." Astronauts kid that a pilot only has two responsibilities - turning on the shuttle's auxiliary power units before launch and lowering the landing gear just before the shuttle lands. In practice, the pilot is usually the busiest person on the crew, supporting everybody else.

For launch and landing, Husband will sit in the shuttle's right seat monitoring the shuttle's critical systems. He has been trained as a backup spacewalker in case a medical or other problem makes it impossible for Barry or Jernigan to make their scheduled spacewalk. He will also help them put on and take off their cumbersome spacesuits.

Husband is also responsible for performing repairs on the shuttle or the U.S.-built space station components. One critical task already planned is to check out the space station's radio, which isn't working properly and replace failed components.

While the shuttle is docked to the space station, Husband will perform his least-glamorous job.

"During the docked periods, I'll be kind of a runner with the supplies we're transferring between the shuttle and the space station," he said.

Ochoa will be stationed in the shuttle selecting each bag that needs to be transferred. Husband will carry bags over to the space station where Payette will store the bags in their assigned locations.

When the shuttle approaches the space station, Husband will sit in the commander's seat, monitoring the shuttle's systems while Rominger flies the shuttle from the back of the flight deck. Ochoa will operate a microcomputer program, which will predict the shuttle's path and when thrusters have to be fired. Jernigan will assist with a laser rangefinder, similar to the ones used by police to catch speeders.

The only time Husband will actually get to fly the shuttle is when it undocks from the space station. He'll fly the shuttle around the space station twice while other crewmembers take photos.

Launch of space shuttle Discovery is scheduled for 8:34 a.m. May 20.

Philip Chien is a freelance writer from Florida who covered a pre-flight news conference at Cape Canaveral this week.

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