Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger’s two-week space adventure figures to end today, with the Discovery space shuttle scheduled to land at 5:48 a.m. (PDT) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The process that started six years ago, when NASA tabbed the Hudson’s Bay teacher for its astronaut program, has been heavy on science and engineering. Blasting people off the planet is serious business.
But there have been some light moments, too. A few days ago, NASA offered a moment of true levity — as in “weightless” — when all 13 people on the International Space Station lined up for a group photo.
The nine men posed in typical fashion, rooted to what passes for the floor in zero gravity. The four women — the most ever in space at one time — appeared to be kneeling on the ceiling, upside down at the top of the frame.
Another NASA image, taken in the final stages of training, shows the smiling Metcalf-Lindenburger posed in the hatch of an armored vehicle as “Tank Driver Dottie.”
It’s actually a pretty serious issue. It’s part of the emergency plan if the astronauts must escape from the shuttle while it’s sitting on the launch pad. Members of the shuttle crew were trained how to use an escape basket 195 feet up the launch structure, then zip down a wire to a bunker about 1,160 feet away.
That’s where the tank is waiting to serve as their getaway vehicle. It’s actually an M-113 armored personnel carrier, but whatever you want to call it, Dottie now can drive it.
A few weeks ago, during a phone interview with reporters, that was one of the experiences Metcalf-Lindenburger recalled as an unexpected treat.
“I got to drive a tank,” she said in her pre-launch press conference. “I’d never driven a tank. That was very cool.”
Beam her up
And speaking of cool, how’d you like to have Capt. Kirk as part of your crew during a space milestone?
Metcalf-Lindenburger had that experience in 2007, when she was part of the inaugural class of the Space Camp Hall of Fame. Metcalf-Lindenburger attended Space Camp as a 14-year-old.
Master of ceremonies for the event was William Shatner.
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