Giffords' Husband Faces Shuttle Decision
The New York Times reports:
As Representative Gabrielle Giffords settles into a rehabilitation hospital in Houston, a major question remains for her husband, the astronaut Mark E. Kelly: Will he fly or not?
Captain Kelly, a Navy officer who flew 39 combat missions in the Persian Gulf war, is scheduled to fly the shuttle Endeavour on a two-week mission to the International Space Station in April.
With his wife at the beginning of a long and arduous rehabilitation program to recover from a gunshot wound to the head, Captain Kelly and his bosses at NASA will have to determine whether he can maintain the training regimen in the weeks leading up to the launching and command the mission.
It would be Captain Kelly’s fourth trip to space, but with the shuttle program winding down, giving up this flight would almost certainly mean also giving up his last chance to command a shuttle mission. No shuttle commander has ever been removed so close to a launching.
“We’re not there yet,” Stephanie Schierholz, a NASA spokeswoman, said of when Captain Kelly and NASA’s leadership would decide.
While working through the decision, NASA has kept its options open by naming a backup commander for the mission, Frederick W. Sturckow.
“Mark is still the commander,” said Peggy A. Whitson, the chief astronaut, but she said that having a backup commander would allow the crew to continue training and Captain Kelly to “focus on his wife’s care.”
Captain Kelly, who is on leave, said in the NASA announcement of a backup commander that he had recommended the step “to prepare to complete the mission in my absence, if necessary.” But he added that he was “very hopeful that I will be in a position to rejoin” the crew.
John M. Logsdon, an emeritus professor of political science and international affairs at the Space Policy Institute of George Washington University, said, “I don’t envy them the choice.”
“Mark is not irreplaceable for this mission,” Professor Logsdon said, “and naming a backup is the prudent thing for NASA to do. There are many highly qualified shuttle commanders. But to lose this opportunity would be personally very hard for him, since it would most likely be his last chance to go to space.”
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