SCI-TECH BRIEFING: Astronaut waits for her turn in space (05/25/03)

SCI-TECH BRIEFING

An occasional series on science and technology

Astronaut waits for her turn in space

by Andrij Wowk

As the world reacted to the tragic and unexpected loss of the space shuttle Columbia earlier this year, and mourned the death of its seven-person crew of NASA astronauts, Cmdr. Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper did so as well. Unlike most people, however, she had additional reasons to be shocked by the disaster: three of the Columbia astronauts were her former NASA classmates, whom she was scheduled to follow into space earlier this month as a fellow NASA astronaut. Her flight would have marked the first trip into space by an American astronaut of Ukrainian descent.

Like all other shuttle flights in the wake of the disaster, Cmdr. Stefanyshyn-Piper's flight - designated STS No. 115 - has been delayed indefinitely as NASA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) complete their investigation into the causes of Columbia's break-up during its fiery re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. But despite this tragedy and the current grounding of the shuttle fleet, Cmdr. Stefanyshyn-Piper is determined that her own venture into space, and NASA's manned space program, will go forward.

"It's not a question of if we will resume manned flight, but when," she said in a recent interview, during a break in her busy schedule at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "The situation is very different between now and in 1986," when the shuttle Challenger exploded only minutes after takeoff. After Challenger's loss, which shocked NASA's manned space program, space shuttle flights did not resume for 31 months.

Cmdr. Stefanyshyn-Piper, 40, a seven-year veteran of the NASA astronaut corps, was stationed in Hawaii at the time of the Challenger disaster with the U.S. Navy, and was not yet in the shuttle program. She noted that "this time, there is a greater urgency to get back on the flight schedule" because of the need for space shuttle flights to support the International Space Station. The Russian Soyuz spacecraft (pressed into duty to return the latest space station crew to earth in recent weeks), she said is severely limited in its ability to support the space station, since it fits only a three-person crew and far fewer supplies than the shuttle.

Asked about potential causes for Columbia's catastrophic break-up upon re-entry, Cmdr. Stefanyshyn-Piper, a mechanical engineer by training said the investigation is ongoing and that NASA is "looking at all the possibilities" for the disaster, although investigators are "narrowing in on a breach of insulation on the shuttle's wing" as the probable cause of the spacecraft's malfunction.

She noted that the accident was particularly unexpected at NASA, since in recent years the number of shuttle flights per year has decreased. In addition, "NASA has always been extremely conservative" with shuttle safety, she said.

Problems with the space shuttle's heat-resistant tiles, which cover the outer skin of the orbiter and which protect the shuttle and its crew from the heat of re-entry, first came up after the first space shuttle flight by the orbiter Enterprise, some 20 years ago. "We're going back to revisit that tile issue," she said, as well as also looking at "what is it that crew members can do to fix an in-flight problem if it happens again?"

Asked about why humans should continue to venture into space, despite the potential danger to astronauts, Cmdr. Stefanyshyn-Piper said that there will always be a role for manned spaceflight that even advanced robotic spacecraft cannot fulfill. Tasks such as planetary exploration cannot be done only by robots, she explained, because "a robot doesn't think for itself." In response to critics of the safety of human space flight, the astronaut noted that one could make the same conclusions about the safety of more mundane forms of transportation, such as automobiles and airplanes.

"It is part of human nature to go out and explore," she observed. Human exploration started with "what was beyond the next mountain, then the next ocean. The next logical step is to go into space."

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Other members of the Ukrainian American community interested in space travel tend to agree with Cmdr. Stefanyshyn-Piper. Pavlo Mulyk, 19, a sophomore at The Cooper Union in New York City majoring in mechanical engineering, said he, too, was shocked upon hearing news of the Columbia disaster. "At first I didn't believe it," he said. "I didn't think anything could happen [to the shuttle] upon re-entry, since at that point it is just gliding in."

Mr. Mulyk, a student member of the Ukrainian Engineers' Society of America (UESA), New York City chapter, said he has always been interested in space, through pursuit of hobbies such as model rocketry and seeing movies such as "Apollo 13." Asked about the future of manned space flight, Mr. Mulyk said that he feels NASA's plans should include finishing construction of the International Space Station, returning to the moon, and eventually traveling to Mars in order to explore the possibility of terraforming and colonizing that planet.

Manned space flight, he said, gives people "first-hand experience" and provides real-time feedback about conditions outside of the Earth, while minimizing the possibility of malfunctions which can be encountered by unmanned spacecraft. Since population growth and lack of resources may make our planet less habitable in several thousand years, he feels that humans may eventually need to look to the moon and other planets as a new frontier for colonization.

"This is a natural part of human exploration," he said.

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Cmdr. Stefanyshyn-Piper is an honorary member of UESA, and was the keynote speaker at the UESA's 50th anniversary banquet in 1998. She was active in the Ukrainian community in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, where she grew up, and was a member of Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization. Today she has ties to the Ukrainian American Cultural Club of Houston.

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