Chicago native calls trip on space shuttle indescribable

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By The Associated Press | Friday, January 26, 2007 2:12 AM CST | () comments

Since tapped for NASA’s astronaut program more than a decade ago, Chicago native Joan Higginbotham privately questioned whether she’d ever get one of those space shuttle seats also coveted by peers she considered the cream of the crop.

“It seemed pretty much impossible,” Higginbotham, a 42-year-old graduate of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, recalled Thursday. “I really didn’t know if I would be selected. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t, actually.”

She worried for naught and last month finally got a 5.3 million-mile experience truly out of this world.

The die-hard Chicago Bears fan joined six other astronauts on a 13-day flight of the shuttle Discovery, rewiring the international space station and delivering U.S. astronaut Sunita “Suni” Williams to the orbiting outpost for a six-month stay. Higginbotham spent part of her first mission in space being the chief operator of the space station’s robotic arm.

Now five weeks since returning safely to Earth, Higginbotham was a star for at least a couple hours Thursday, grinning and gracious during a litany of media interviews from Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“If you give me all the time in the world, I can’t describe how incredible that journey was,” she said. “We are among a very small group of people blessed to do this.”

As a crew, they also were among the most culturally diverse of any shuttle flight — Higginbotham and another black astronaut, an astronaut of Indian descent, the first Swede in space, a British-born mission specialist, an Alaskan and a Jersey boy.

Those space travelers also were the greenest in eight years in terms of spaceflight experience: Higginbotham and four others never had flown in a shuttle before — the first time since April 1998 a shuttle mission had five rookies.

Still, Higginbotham waved off questions about whether she considered herself a role model, saying “I think I’m just an average adult who has an incredible job.”

“In my mind, if I can do this, anybody can do this,” she said, smiling.

Getting into space was a long time coming for Higginbotham, who is unmarried and has no children. She worked as Kennedy Space Center engineer for several years, participating in 53 shuttle launches and worked her way up to lead project engineer on the shuttle Columbia.

Butterflies came naturally, certainly during the speed and rattle of launch and the trip back to Earth — each process proving disastrous at least once during the past two decades.

“It’s absolutely nothing to be taken lightly,” she said. “We’re taking some risks.”

Still, Higginbotham worked flawlessly in orbit with the robotic arm she called “a billion-dollar piece of equipment,” never mind that “my heart was pounding all the time I touched the control.” Used on most of the four space walks, the high-tech contraption helped install a two-ton segment to the space station and transported a crewmate.

With the mechanized arm, “I was basically his ride,” she said.

“It was just an incredible journey, from ascent to entry,” Higginbotham said, suspecting there’s at least one truism to her time in space. “We are all just a small part of this entire universe.”

A look at astronaut Joan Higginbotham

A look at Joan Higginbotham, an Illinoisan who flew last month on the space shuttle Discovery:

AGE: 42

HOMETOWN: Chicago

EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale; master’s degrees in management and space systems from Florida Institute of Technology.

EXPERIENCE: Part of 1996 astronaut class. During nine years at the Kennedy Space Center, she participated in 53 shuttle launches and worked her way up to lead project engineer on the shuttle Columbia.

HER TREK: Last month’s space mission was Higginbotham’s first. She was the primary operator of the space station’s robotic arm.

MARITAL STATUS: Single.

CHILDREN: None.

QUOTE: “If you give me all the time in the world, I can’t describe how incredible that journey was.”