First Space Station Crew Packs for Home

Astronaut William Shepherd, commander of the first crew to live aboard the International Space Station, was ambivalent when asked Friday whether he wants to return to his orbiting home away from home after a stress-filled tour of duty.

“I miss Earth,” said Shepherd, whose Expedition One team is to leave the station Sunday and return to Earth early Wednesday.

During a press conference with reporters on the ground, Shepherd said, “I do think I’d like to fly in space again, but I’d like to do it on a vehicle that’s going somewhere.”

In the past, he’s joked about strapping a rocket to the station big enough to send it to Mars. He’s also talked candidly about the demands of station life, especially the workload, the expectations of ground controllers and periodic feelings of depression.

On Friday, he said he’s had trouble “trying to kind of throttle the ground’s expectations of what’s going to get done.”

He said the highlight of his mission was the day he and his two fellow crew members arrived, Nov 2. Otherwise what stands out in his mind are the struggles.

“We had some days when we’ve wrestled with hardware and struggled to finish procedures and fix something,” he said. “There have been two or three days when we’ve had substantial success when we’ve thought we were going to fail.”

The crew has often worked 20-hour days, well into their sleep period, to activate some systems and repair others in what Shepherd has referred to as the station’s “shakedown cruise.”

The station’s living space has roughly doubled during his stay, as modules have arrived and been activated. The station has grown into the largest spacecraft ever flown under Shepherd’s command.

Like most American astronauts, Shepherd’s spaceflight experience before this mission was limited to space shuttle missions of one or two weeks. This is his first long-duration spaceflight.

His Russian crewmen, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalyov, are both veterans of long-term missions aboard the Russian space station Mir.

Another Mir veteran is Australian-born NASA astronaut Andrew Thomas, now a member of the space shuttle Discovery crew that brought three Expedition Two astronauts to the station and will ferry the Expedition One team home.

Asked what he would save from Mir, Thomas referred to a picture of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, that hung in the ship’s galley. Mir is scheduled to be brought down March 22. Most of it will burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere before the remainder crashes into the Pacific Ocean. “I did lose a few items while I was there,” Thomas said. “If anyone finds any of my things, be sure to turn them back to me.”

While most of Discovery’s crew will reenter Earth’s atmosphere in the same seats they used during liftoff, Shepherd, Gidzenko and Krikalyov will be strapped to special reclining couches--essentially stretchers--and will be carried off the orbiter.