Shuttle final 4 prepare for flight to end an era

Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

America’s longest space-flying streak ends this week with the smallest crew in decades — three men and a woman who were in high school and college when the first space shuttle soared 30 years ago.

History will remember these final four as bookending an era that began with two pilots who boldly took a shuttle for a two-day spin in 1981 without even a test flight. That adventure blasted space wide open for women, minorities, scientists, schoolteachers, politicians, even a prince.

On Friday aboard Atlantis, this last crew will make NASA’s 135th and final shuttle flight. It will be years before the United States sends its own spacecraft up again.

Commander Christopher Ferguson, co-pilot Douglas Hurley, Rex Walheim and Sandra Magnus are delighting in their good luck.

“We’re very honored to be in this position. There are many people who could be here,” said Ferguson, a retired Navy captain. “When the dice fell, our names were facing up.”

NASA managers were looking for space vets when they cobbled together this minimalist crew with seven spaceflights among them, to deliver one last shuttle load of supplies to the International Space Station.

They are an eloquent, colorful bunch in their 40s, accepting if not embracing the spotlight.

Ferguson is a drummer for an astronaut rock ’n’ roll band. Hurley is nuts about NASCAR; his cousin is married to crew chief Greg Zipadelli. Walheim is a former shuttle flight controller; his graphic-designer wife creates the mission patch every time he flies, always on Atlantis. Magnus arguably is the first out-of-this-world chef: She whipped up Christmas cookies and Super Bowl salsa aboard the space station in late 2008 and early 2009, using — as do all good chefs — ingredients on hand.

They originally were recruited to be a rescue team. The idea was that back in May, if anything seriously damaged Endeavour during its final flight, Ferguson and his team would have rushed to the space station and brought those astronauts home.

If no rescue was needed, the original plan went, Ferguson’s crew simply wouldn’t fly. And Atlantis would be sent to a museum along with the two other retired shuttles.

But early this year, NASA decided to add one more flight. Since Atlantis was being groomed for a potential rescue anyway, NASA reasoned, why not make a cargo run with a year’s worth of food and other provisions to keep the space station well-stocked.

That added a new wrinkle: What if Atlantis were damaged? There are no more shuttles to rescue them.

The only viable option is the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The capsules can carry a maximum three people at a time, and at least one must be Russian. That’s why Atlantis’ crew was capped at four, instead of the usual six or seven.

It will be NASA’s first four-person shuttle crew since 1983.