Endeavour crew mixes experience, excitement

By Tariq Malik

updated 2:16 p.m. ET March 7, 2008

The seven astronauts set to rocket spaceward aboard NASA's shuttle Endeavour next week are a varied crew of experienced veterans and first-time fliers.

Commanded by three-time spaceflier Dominic Gorie, Endeavour's STS-123 crew is gearing up for a predawn launch toward the international space station on March 11 to deliver a new Japanese storage room and Canadian robot to the orbiting laboratory. There are four rookies on the flight, though Gorie and two veteran spacefliers have seven spaceflights under their collective belt.

"I would say it's like a winning athletic team," Gorie said. "They mix together well, they know their roles and we win."

Endeavour's astronauts will set a new record for the longest construction mission ever launched to the ISS during their planned 16-day spaceflight. No less than five spacewalks are scheduled to install the first module of Japan's massive Kibo station lab, deliver Canada's two-armed maintenance robot Dextre and test a shuttle heat shield repair method among other tasks.

Gorie said his crew is up to the challenge of what promises to be an exciting, yet busy, two weeks at the ISS.

"I'm really looking forward to working with these guys for a great bunch of days," Gorie said.

Here's a brief look at Endeavour's seven-astronaut crew:

The commander
Hailing from Lake Charles, La., Gorie is a retired U.S. Navy captain who was selected for NASA's astronaut corps in 1994 and first launched into space aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1998. He is making his fourth spaceflight on STS-123.

But the goals of his upcoming fourth spaceflight aim even higher, he said.

"The complexity ... is unprecedented," Gorie, 50, said of the upcoming mission. "I haven't seen anything like this before and haven't been part of anything like it, for sure."

With STS-123, Gorie will make his third consecutive launch aboard the space shuttle Endeavour.

NASA/Kim Shiflett STS-123 mission specialists Mike Foreman, Takao Doi and Garrett Reisman aboard space shuttle Endeavour participating in a simulated launch countdown.

"If I could pick a shuttle, it would have to be Endeavour," Gorie said, lauding the work of shuttle workers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "It's a great space ship and I've never had any issue with it. It would be my shuttle of choice."

A seasoned Navy aviator and test pilot, Gorie flew 38 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s. He and wife, Wendy Lu, have a daughter, 18, and a son, 20.

The pilot
Riding in Endeavour's pilot seat on launch day will be U.S. Air Force Col. Gregory H. Johnson, a first-time flier who happens to be one of two Greg Johnsons in NASA's astronaut corps.

"It's been funny. I've gotten his boarding pass before and he's gotten my hotel reservation," Johnson said of himself and fellow shuttle pilot Gregory C. Johnson, who happened to be in the same astronaut class when they joined NASA in 1998. "He gets my e-mails, I get his. That's part of life."

Johnson, 45, goes by the call sign "Box" and remembers watching Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong walk on the moon from his grandparents' home in Cairo, Mich. He joined NASA's astronaut ranks in 1998 and participated in the agency's investigation into the 2003 Columbia tragedy.

"I don't think we forget risk anymore, or at least it's certainly in the forefront of our minds," said Johnson, adding that there will always be risks to shuttle flights. "Everything that has value has some risk, but I think that we're really confident that we've uncovered most of the hazards and have controls for them."

Johnson is a veteran F-15E Eagle fighter pilot and flew 61 combat missions during two deployments to Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s. He and his wife, Cari, have one daughter, 10, and two sons, ages 13 and 14.

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