Astronauts Get Surprise Visit From Clinton

Astronauts who ended a nine-day mission aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on Saturday got a surprise greeting from President Clinton on their return to Houston from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Clinton spotted the crowd at the airport welcoming ceremony for the astronauts from the window of his limousine as he headed back to Air Force One to fly home from the funeral of former Rep. Barbara Jordan.

Greeting the six astronauts as they stepped on the tarmac after flying home, Clinton accompanied them onto a podium decked with a U.S. and a Japanese flag and told a crowd of about 100 people he was glad to stop by.

“I am so glad I happened to be in Houston and happened to be here at the right time,” he said as the crowd roared.

He thanked the astronauts for what he called their successful mission and got in a plug for the U.S. space program, urging those present to “remain steadfast in your support for America’s investment in space.”

He also said the presence of Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata showed the impact of “our partnership for world peace.”

The six astronauts said they were elated by their triumphs: capturing a Japanese satellite that had been in orbit for nearly one year, releasing and retrieving a U.S. science satellite and performing two spacewalks to help space station designers.

“We feel like we got 1996 off to a great start,” Brian Duffy, shuttle commander, said.

The No. 1 objective of Endeavour’s nine-day, 3.7-million-mile voyage was snaring the Japanese satellite. The spacecraft was launched from Japan last March with an infrared telescope, crystal-growth furnaces, female newts and newt eggs aboard. (The newts died as planned after 1 1/2 months in orbit.)

Before Wakata could snare the satellite with the shuttle robot arm, ground controllers had to sever its two folded solar panels, which would not latch into place.

The final hurdle was the touchdown at 2:42 a.m. EST Saturday on a floodlit runway at Kennedy. It was the eighth time in 74 missions that NASA shuttles landed in the dark.