Kennedy Space Center, Florida (CNN) -- For Space Shuttle Endeavour Commander Mark Kelly,
dr dre headphones, there was excellent news guiding up to the launch. His wife, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, is there to watch the heave off.
A bullet tore through the Arizona congresswoman's brain, nearly taking her life,
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After the shooting at Giffords' town auditorium meeting,
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A few months ago, before his wife's shooting, Kelly talked almost his upcoming mission.
"Flying in space is a quite complicated entity to give up," Kelly said. "I remember afterward my last flight meditative 'Well, possibly this is the last time I'm gonna do this.' And, you understand, you go a couple of months out and you're favor, 'Oh, I really wish this is not the end of my flying career.'"
Kelly said that when STS 134, the Endeavour's last flight, is over, "I'll be thinking the same thing,
Body of missin marketing handlebagsale deduct hand, I can't really give this up. I've got to figure out a way to get back into space."
As the space shuttle procedure winds down with the final launch, the Atlantis, set because this summer, numerous in the astronaut regiment are wrestling with what they'll do next. Russian rockets ambition be the only access as American astronauts to get to space for the foreseeable hereafter.
Endeavour mission specialist Mike Fincke spent a total of a annual in space on the multinational space station,
Astronauts ponder future as shuttle program winds down - CNN.com, getting there and behind double on Russian rockets, but this will be is his first shuttle flight.
"I calculate always of us, with all the changes that are going on with our country's space program and NASA, all of us vocational astronauts are looking into our hearts to look what we're going to do next," Fincke said.
Fincke doesn't ambition to leave NASA.
"I believe in what we are act," he said. "It's pretty extraordinary, taking human off the planet Earth and hopefully exploring the solar system."
When mission expert Drew Feustel goes into space on the Endeavour, it will be his second shuttle flight. He assisted mend the Hubble Space Telescope on his premier trip into orbit.
Growing up in Detroit with a father and uncle who were technicians served him well, Feustel said.
"I started at an early age with motorcycles and bicycles and then eventually bought my first car before I was antique ample to pedal it, and took it separately in my garage,
Lawyer fo dr dre beatsdr dre headphonesbeats by dr," he said. "There's at fewest an or two projects in the garage."
He was hoping apt obtain them done before this flight, but after all retard there was still work apt do.
He'll have a lot of work to do on this mission, with 4 spacewalks intended. These hikes will get the space station ready for the time when shuttle crews can't get there. The spacewalkers will retrieve experiments,
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Endeavour's shipment bay will carry the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. At a cost of $1.5 billion, it is the maximum priceless chip of equipment a space shuttle has ever carried.
The AMS is devised to occupy space motes, like anti-matter and dingy matter, which scientists know very tiny about. The AMS will be mounted appearance the space station. Scientists hope it will lead to a better understanding of how the universe began and evolved.
The two-week mission will be the end of the space road for Endeavour, built to replace the shuttle Challenger, which was lost with its troop in an burst during ascent in 1986.
Since Endeavour's first mission in 1992, it has flown numerous space-station construction missions and the first Hubble servicing mission.
Endeavour and the other orbiters have been remarkable flying machines, pilot Gregory Johnson said.
"We have put satellites up into orbit," Johnson said. "We have done mapping of the whole topography of the Earth. We have taken up the Hubble Telescope and serviced it several times. And we've built this big space station. The vehicle has done its job."
NASA recently announced namely while Endeavour returns it will be made ready for its last junket to a permanent home, on exhibit at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.