CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — With her husband in command of space shuttle Discovery and on the verge of launching, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords wanted to set the record straight.
She wasn’t there as a member of Congress. She was there “strictly as the spouse” — the new wife of commander Mark Kelly — and just as excited and nervous as any of the other astronauts’ family members.
“We’ve been married six months, and the space program is relatively new to me,” she said Saturday. “I mean, I grew up in Arizona, I’m a third-generation Arizonan, have no connections at all to NASA.
“I couldn’t be prouder.”
She’d just received an e-mail from Kelly — the last one before he suited up for liftoff with six other astronauts.
“I love him so much. He’s excited. He said, ‘I’ll see you in two weeks,’ ” Giffords told The Associated Press, her voice breaking as the countdown entered the final few hours.
Giffords acknowledged being nervous, far more so than the day she was elected to Congress in 2006. She gripped her mother-in-law with her right arm and held her own mother’s hand in her left as she watched Discovery soar.
“It was pretty exciting, pretty exciting,” Giffords told AP.
Although it was a smooth launch — the only problem was the failure of a backup set of electronics for swiveling engines — she said she wouldn’t relax until the shuttle is back from its two-week mission.
This will be her third shuttle launch in attendance: She was at Kelly’s last liftoff, in 2006, and at her brother-in-law Scott Kelly’s launch in August.
Mark and Scott Kelly, by the way, are identical twins. Both are shuttle commanders and Navy officers.
Giffords is making space history in her own way: She’s the first member of Congress to be married to an astronaut bound for space.
“I guess there’s always a first for everything,” Giffords, 37, said. “But I’m here strictly as the spouse today. I’m not here as a member of Congress. I’m here to make sure that I’m, like, heading up the ground support team.”
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Special delivery: Shuttle carrying toilet pump to station
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Discovery and a crew of seven blasted into orbit Saturday, carrying a giant Japanese lab addition to the international space station and something more mundanea toilet pump.
Discovery roared into a brilliantly blue sky dotted with a few clouds at 5:02 p.m., right on time. The shuttle’s trip to the space station should take two days.
Once there, Discovery’s crew will unload and install the $1 billion lab and hand-deliver a specially made pump for the outpost’s finicky toilet.
The school-bus-size lab, named Kibo, Japanese for hope, will be the biggest room by far at the space station and bring the orbiting outpost to three-quarters of completion.
“It’s a gorgeous day to launch,” NASA’s launch director, Mike Leinbach, told the astronauts just before liftoff.
Debris — likely ice or foam insulation — could be seen falling from the fuel tank during liftoff, but it did not appear to occur during the crucial first two minutes. The Associated Press
