Mom Will Be Away For A While

By Cathy Booth Thomas

She grew up in a housing project in Elmira, N.Y., lived on food stamps for a time and thought about being a math teacher after seeing her father, a surveyor, lay out streets. But Eileen Collins went into the Air Force instead and in 1999 became the first woman to command a shuttle mission--on the Columbia, which broke apart in midair less than four years later, killing its crew of seven. As soon as next month, Collins, 48, will command the shuttle Discovery in the first U.S. manned space flight since the Columbia disaster brought such missions to a halt.

Is she apprehensive? "I have a faith in God. I don't talk about it a lot," she says. Her husband and two kids gave their O.K. "My family all wanted me to continue flying. My 9-year-old daughter, believe it or not, is not worried about my safety. She just doesn't want me to be away for 13 days."

Safety, however, will be paramount in the minds of the crew. Collins will be commanding the shuttle's first ever nose-over-tail spin, so the tiled underbelly can be photographed by the International Space Station and checked for problems. After docking with the station, her team will conduct experimental repairs on tile samples during space walks, using a caulk gun to fill gouges with high-tech goo and sponge brushes to add heat-resistant coating. Collins sees the mission as an important step in getting the U.S. space program back on track--and headed toward manned trips to the moon and Mars. "We've got to constantly remind the generation that follows about the lessons we've learned," she says. But now "it's time to go back and fly." --By Cathy Booth Thomas