Meet astronaut Robert L. Crippen: Space Shuttle pilot

Space shuttle pilot Robert L. Crippen, 44, was obviously excited about his first venture into space Sunday as he laughed and joked with the waiters serving him his pre-launch breakfast.

And he was not disappointed.

'What a view, what a view,' he said excitely seconds after launch as the space shuttle Columbia was speeding away from Earth.

It's been a long wait for Crippen, who was first an Air Force astronaut with the Manned Obriting Laboratory program in 1966, but joined NASA in 1969 when the Air Force space station was canceled.

'Even though I was told when I came here (to Houston) that I wouldn't get a chance to fly until we got the shuttle built, that was perfectly acceptable to me and I've enjoyed working in the space program,' he said before the flight.

Crippen, who grew up near Houston in a town called Porter, holds a degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas. He earned a commission at Navy Officer School at Pensacola, Fla., and spent 2 years as an attack pilot aboard the aircraft carrier Independence.

From 1964 to 1966, he was assigned to Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., where the shuttle is scheduled to land on Sunday. While there he was a student, a teacher, and then became an astronaut.

He was a crew member on the Skylab Medical Experiments Altitude Test, a 56-day simulation of the Skylab mission, and was a member of the astronaut support crew for two Skylab missions and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

Crippen will fly with veteran astronaut John W. Young, the shuttle commander.

'Really, he's the pilot and I'm the co-pilot because none of us macho, hot test pilots want to be called a co-pilot, I guess,' Crippen said in a pre-launch interview.

They have been working together on the shuttle for years.

'John and I have a lot of ourselves invested in the vehicle. He and I've been working on the space shuttle for a long time and have had an opportunity to bring it from some of its conceptions on pieces of paper right through the final stages of tests.'

Unlike Young, who at 50 might retire from flying after the shuttle mission, Crippen hopes to fly 'as many as they'll let me.' But he emphasized waiting to fly -- or holding some other job -- usually is not passive inactivity.

'Most of my weeks are at least something around 60- or 70-hour weeks,' he said. 'When I wasn't assigned as a flight crew member, there was plenty of good engineering work to do and that's my basic trade besides being a pilot.

'So I would imagine that there's probably going to be enough business here at Johnson Space Center to keep me off the street.'

Crippen is married to the former Virginia Hill of Corpus Christi and has three daughters, Ellen Marie, 18, Susan Lynn, 16, and Linda Ruth, 13.

'My kids have sort of grown up with me here in the space program and I really think that even after I was named to the crew, they didn't fully appreciate it until very recently since we are getting close enough to flight,' he said.

'You can't be a hero to your kids. But if they read about you in the paper, they say, 'Well, maybe he IS doing something.' And I think maybe they are getting a little bit of enthusiasm now about what's going on.'

Crippen keeps his 5-foot-10 frame at a trim 160 pounds but admits to few outside activities.

'John and I are both workaholics to some extent, mainly because we enjoy what we're doing. Work is getting to fly airplanes. That is enjoyment itself,' Crippen said.

'I haven't got that many activities I participate in. I run, mainly for exercise. I'm not sure I do it for pleasure. I like to do a little boating for pleasure. Sailing. That kind of thing.'