Florida Today(26-06-2006)
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060626/NEWS02/606260333/1007
Discovery is in Fossum's genes
Astronaut set for adventure
BY TODD HALVORSON
CAPE CANAVERAL - NASA astronaut Mike Fossum is the descendant of pioneering
Norwegians who arrived in the Dakota Territory in the mid-1800s, lived in
sod huts and survived harsh winters around fires built from buffalo bones.
A Texan born in South Dakota, Fossum feels an affinity with his ancestors,
hardy immigrants who endured the isolation of the prairie, crop-killing droughts,
deadly blizzards and the threat of Indian attacks.
All for the chance to open up a new frontier, to homestead on land that offered
vast opportunity. They were explorers, people who took great risks in the
pursuit of great rewards.
Their sense of adventure and pioneering spirit was "part of what made them
who they were, and it's part of what, in my mind, made our nation great and
continues to make our nation great," Fossum said.
"And the romantic in me likes to think that I'm living just a little fraction
of the kind of life they had," he said.
A first-time shuttle flier, Fossum will embark on a 21st century adventure
July 1, launching with six other astronauts on NASA's second post-Columbia
test flight.
The mission is full of risk.
NASA is not certain that modifications to the shuttle's 15-story external
tank will prevent the shedding of foam insulation chunks large enough to
cause the type of damage that downed Columbia in February 2003, killing seven
astronauts.
The crew is headed into an airless frontier high above the atmosphere, where
temperatures fluctuate between 250 degrees Fahrenheit and minus-250 degrees
Fahrenheit. Their specific destination: a 206-ton outpost dubbed International
Space Station.
Fossum's main job will be carrying out two dangerous spacewalks. One is critical
to NASA plans to resume assembly of the half-built station in late August.
The stakes are high. The schedule to pull it off is tight. But Fossum already
is eyeing an opportunity to soak up the sensations he'll encounter circling
Earth at a speed of 5 miles per second and an altitude of more than 200 miles.
It'll come during the first 45 minutes of his first spacewalk. Crewmate Piers
Sellers will be working on the end of an extension boom attached to the shuttle's
robot arm, and Fossum will have a few moments to take in the view.
"I'll almost certainly . . . have the chance just to hang there, and look
down at the Earth, and up at the station, and just experience the 'Wow,'
" Fossum said. "Just to let it really sink and just imagine what it was like
as a 12-year-old kid dreaming about being in space some day.
"Here I am, 48 years old and enjoying it for the first time. What a rare
and unbelievable opportunity and privilege it is to take part in this."
He plans to share his orbital experience with a new generation of explorers.
An Eagle Scout-turned-assistant scoutmaster, Fossum during past summers led
Boy Scouts on canoeing trips in the Canadian wilderness and backpacking expeditions
in the Rocky Mountains. This year, he has another commitment.
"I tell the boys in the troop now that . . . I won't be around for the next
couple of weeks because I'm getting ready for my next high adventure trip,"
Fossum said.
Flying along with him: firmly embedded family memories -- the feel of his
great-grandfather's rifle; a photo of his grandfather, with two brothers,
inside a sod hut that once stood on a prairie.
"It's just one of those rare pictures -- a sod hut, in South Dakota. It was
winter, late winter, and they just looked miserable," Fossum said.
Sort of like the occasional candid shot of astronauts on the space station.