Three days into her first space mission, physicist-astronaut Linda Godwin faces the daunting task of using the shuttle Atlantis's fragile robot arm to launch a 35,000-pound space telescope, a shuttle record.
She has spent countless hours training for the slow-motion operation and she is confident it will go smoothly. Nonetheless, she'll be pleased when it is over.
'It's berthed in the orbiter so that's where our tightest tolerances are, it's where our greatest lack of visiblity is, and we're very dependent on camera views,' she said of the delicate launch procedure. 'After the deploy will be my big sigh of relief.'
Godwin, 38, and her four crewmates -- commander Steven Nagel, 44, co- pilot Kenneth Cameron, 41, Jerry Ross, 43, and Jay Apt, 41 -- are scheduled for blastoff late this week to carry the Gamma Ray Observatory into orbit.
The big telescope, the heaviest satellite ever launched from a shuttle, was built to study extremely high-energy radiation from objects such as black holes, neutron stars and energetic quasars.
'From everything I've read, I think it is going to re-write some of the textbooks,' she said.
With GRO out of the way, Godwin plans to use Atlantis's robot arm during a planned six-hour spacewalk on flight day four to move Ross and Apt about the payload bay to test space station construction techniques.
'I'm starting to get excited,' she said. 'My parents plan to go see the launch and they're pretty excited. I have one twin sister and she and her family will be there. Everyone's pretty interested in it and I just hope that all the people who travel to the cape to see this get to see the launch.'
Like two of her crewmates -- Ross and Apt -- Godwin got her start with NASA in mission control at the Johnson Space Center as a flight controller.
'In 1980, I interviewed for the astronaut job and I didn't make it,' she said. 'That's when I was offered the job to come down here and work in flight control. So I definitely came down here with that goal. So I'm a multiple interviewee for the program and I got in in 1985.'
Godwin was born in Cape Girardeau, Mo., and attended Jackson High School in Jackson, Mo., graduating in 1970. She went on to earn a bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics from Southeast Missouri State in 1974, a master's degree and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Missouri in 1976 and 1980.
During her graduate studies, Godwin concentrated on low-temperature solid-state physics with research results published in several journals.
But flying in space was her long-term goal and she went to work for NASA in 1980, serving as a flight controller and payloads officer for several shuttle missions before her selection as an astronaut in 1985.
As might be expected, Godwin is a strong supporter of manned space flight, citing the usefulness of astronauts in conducting scientific experiments.
'I really believe that is why you have people in space, because these are the kinds of experiments you can't program into a computer, or you can't send a black box up and hope you thought of all the contingencies,' she said. 'You have people up there to do experiments like you do in a lab.
'My experience in the laboratory is it never goes the way you think it will. You have to be able to change your procedures and adapt. I think having science astronauts in an orbiting vehicle is just the perfect combination for that to work.'
In a brief NASA biography, Godwin, who is single, listed her hobbies as music, running, reading and flying. She is an instrument-rated private pilot.
She also plays saxophone in a local band, but unlike fallen Challenger astronaut Ronald McNair, she does not plan to take her horn into orbit.
'Ron McNair did that on one of his flights and I think that was his unique thing to do and I wouldn't want to copy that,' she said. 'He was a much better saxophone player.'
And as for Challenger and its impact on NASA, Godwin said it is time to look ahead and not to dwell on the past.
'I'll never forget that it happened or the people who were on it, but remembering that specific day as a commemoration, I think, is starting to fade a bit,' she said. 'Their memory is still here, but five years is a long time and we've had a lot of successful flights since then.
'So we've replaced the memory of that flight with a lot of good memories. Hopefully, we will not lose the lessons that we learned. I hope so much we don't ever have a tragedy like Challenger again, but all these are the risks of the job.'
Godwin is a member of the American Physical Society and is a recipient of NASA's Outstanding Performance Rating and Sustained Superior Performances Award.
