Preflight Interview: Rick Sturckow

The STS-105 Crew Interviews with Rick Sturckow, pilot.

Rick, tell me about the career path that got you to be an astronaut. Tell me about your education and every step along the way that got you here.

I joined the Marine Corps after I graduated from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. I had a degree in mechanical engineering, and I joined the Marine Corps and went through officer candidate school - the basic school - and then went to flight school. I was in a Marine Corps fighter squadron for 4 years. Then, I went to test pilot school. That was at Edwards Air Force Base in California. And, then, I went to Pax River, Maryland, to be a test pilot on Navy and Marine Corps aircraft. Then, I came down here to Houston to be an astronaut.

Were there any significant people along the way that helped you to get where you are - to being an astronaut?

There were. There were a lot of people that really helped me, going all the way back to my teachers in school and my Little League coaches, to the head of the pit crew that I was on when I was involved in off-road racing. Bosses I had in jobs that I worked at prior to going to college and military leaders once I joined the Marine Corps. I couldn't list all those people and all the different influences they had in my life, but I wouldn't be where I am right now without what they gave me.

[Right now,] you're headed toward the International Space Station on STS-105. What are the goals of this flight?

The main goals of this flight are to transfer a new crew up there - the [Expedition] 3 crew - and to bring back the [Expedition 2] crew. Additionally, we'll be taking some experiments and some materials and supplies up there.

Have you had much training with the Expedition Three crew?

We've had a good amount of training with them, probably not as much as we would have liked. Our flight is just a very small portion of their entire mission. So, even though we can't be with them all the time, we've tried to hit some of the key points [when] we will be together in our training so that we can know exactly what each person's role will be as we do the rendezvous, for example.

Talk me through that rendezvous. What's the process of docking to the station this time, and what's your role going to be?

Well, as the Pilot, I'm really kind of the copilot. The Commander will be doing most of the hands-on flying, and I will be monitoring all the procedures and the steps as we go through each of the burns. Then, later we get into the proximity operations phase of the rendezvous. I'll be monitoring them there, and, I'll do a couple of the burns myself as he moves to the aft station to get ready to do the hands-on flying. I will be doing the last four burns up to that point.

Once you successfully dock, you'll open up those hatches and go in and see the Expedition Two crew. What do you think that moment's going to be like for you?

Well, I think it's going to be a lot bigger moment for them than for us because it'll mean it's just about time for them to come home. Of course, we've still got a busy docked operations phase. But for us, it'll just be the time when we really start to get to the meat of our mission, which is to transfer the crew and the materials.

Do those transfers of the materials begin right after docking?

Some of them do. There [are] a few things that we want to get across the hatch immediately because that constitutes our mission success. For example, when we get the Soyuz seat-liners across the hatch and over into the space station, then, if something were to happen - it's not going to, but if something did - we would have a mission success where we could close the hatches and leave and still have the correct crews on the proper side of the hatches.

Other than those seat-liners, what kinds of things need to happen to exchange the crews from the shuttle to the station and vice versa?

Well, we kind of mentioned the materials already. There'll be obviously a lot of turnover time built into the timeline, where the crews will talk to each other about what's going to happen. While they're doing the turnover, we have things that we're going to be doing, preparing for our space walks and other transfer items which we can be taking care of during that timeframe.

What kinds of lessons were learned from the first crew exchange in STS-102?

Boy, there were a bunch of them. I think that what really surprised them was the amount of time it took to repack the MPLM to get ready to bring that stuff back to planet Earth. And, I think the Mission Control team has learned some lessons and will hopefully make it a lot smoother for our mission.

Are you taking any new science experiments to the station, and if so, are you helping to set them up?

I'm helping to transfer some powered science experiments from the middeck to the Lab, and we'll actually swap out some experiments. We have a 30-minute timeframe to do that.

There are two space walks during this flight. What are the goals of the first space walk?

The [prime goal of] first space walk will be installing the Early Ammonia Servicer. And, it's a task that I think we've trained very thoroughly, and we're ready to do that. Additionally, we will install the two MISSE experiments, and they're going to go on handrails that are on the outside of the joint airlock.

What are you doing to support those space walks?

I'll be the IVA crewmember, so I will be in charge of reading out the checklist to the EV crewmembers. Even prior to them going out the hatch, I will be putting them into their suits and making sure that their suits are safe and ready, that they have all the equipment they need inside the airlock to conduct the space walks. And then, once they're out there, I will be calling out each step and verifying that they've completed each action that they were instructed to. I'll also be monitoring the overall progress of the space walk to make sure that we are accomplishing the mission we have in the allotted timeframe. I'll be working with MCC-Houston to discuss any changes that may come up during the space walk. For example, if we get ahead, we have some get-ahead tasks and we will try and look and have a plan to get those tasks knocked out if we think we're going to have the time to do that.

By the end of your stay up there, it'll be time to finally say goodbye to the Expedition Three crew and bring the Expedition Two crew home with you. Is there going to be any sort of formal change of command ceremony?

I'm sure there'll be some sort of a ceremony. We haven't been briefed on what the exact nature of that ceremony will be.

Do you think it's going to be difficult to leave the Expedition Three crew behind?

Well, I don't think so. I think they're up there for their mission. If we've done a good job in getting their mission off to a good start, I think we'll be proud of the work we've done, and we'll just say our goodbyes and go.

Talk me through the process of undocking and leaving those guys behind and tell me about what all you'll be doing as the Pilot.

As the Pilot, I'll be flying the Space Shuttle Discovery as we back away from the space station. We'll move out to about 400 feet, and then we will fly around it and attempt to photograph - in daylight - all sides of the space station. These photographs are very important for not only general publicity purposes, but we've actually used similar photographs. During our training, we'll pull out fly-around photos and see the exact configuration of different cables, for example.

You flew on the first assembly mission of the International Space Station. How rewarding do you think it's going to be for you to see the progress firsthand that's occurred since you were there?

I'll be very interested to see the inside of the space station. You know, it was a very small baby space station when we left it on STS-88. So, I'm looking forward to see what's now just a really first-class facility that's going to get even better in the future.

Tell me about that first time you floated into Unity. What were you thinking?

You know, I was the only rookie on that crew, and I remember the first thing I had to do was go in there and get the tools out and begin to do several tasks that we had timelined for that day. I don't think it was really until the end of that first day inside the Node and the FGB that I started to appreciate what a neat place that is going to be someday - and already is. So the first experience was just, "I've got to go over there to that locker, and I've got to do this job." And so, this time when I go up there, I won't be so focused. I'll take a minute to look around before I get to work.

You've had some firsthand experience watching the evolution of the relationships between the partners. Do you have any examples of some of the positive changes you've seen in the relationships between the international partners?

I think the international partners have been working very well together. Even from the first assembly flight on STS-88, we had Sergei Krikalev on there, who later was also on the Expedition One crew. I think we established a good working relationship with our international partners. There [are] always things we can do better, and hopefully - again not my job to figure these things out but - there [are] ways that management is working to improve our relationships and make them even better.

What have we learned from the space station so far and what do you think we'll learn in the years to come?

I think that we've really begun to understand what a huge challenge it is just to operate the space station. And, as we get ready to go back to the moon and on to Mars and interplanetary exploration, I think we've learned a lot of operational considerations that people knew they were out there but maybe didn't realize how difficult they were. And, hopefully, we've learned some things that we thought maybe were going to be hard that already we've found out, "Hey, that's not as bad as we thought it was going to be. It's not that big of an issue when you get to this place." There's still a lot more we're going to learn. Not everything's going to go nominal, as we saw on STS-100. The crew was trained to handle it, and they did a great job with the situation.

What's the importance of the International Space Station to the future of human spaceflight? What does it mean?

Well, there's going to be a lot of scientific development on the space station, and we know we're going to learn something. We just don't know what we're going to learn. And so, that'll be a very interesting aspect of it. We already kind of mentioned the operational aspects for doing bigger and better things. We will take the building blocks that we've learned on the ISS and apply those to future missions.