[FPSPACE] Leroy Chiao set to take long journey into space

[Jim Oberg]

Monday, August 02, 2004 - 3:34:41 AM PST  //  Danville astronaut prepares for flight 

http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86~10669~2309232,00.html

Philip Chien:                                          Leroy Chiao set to take long journey into space 

    Danville astronaut Leroy Chiao is spending his final month in the U-S before traveling to Russia at the end of August and being launched to the International Space Station in October.

    Chiao, 43, moved to Danville with his family when he was 7 and considers it his hometown. He graduated from Monte Vista High School in 1978, and with bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from the U' of California, Berkeley, and UC-Santa Barbara.

    He worked for the Livermore lab from 1989 through 1990 before being selected to be an astronaut by NASA. He has flown on several space missions.

    One of the more unusual items Chiao has to take care of before he leaves is his personal airplane, a four-seat Grumman Tiger. Chiao actually lives on an airport runway in Houston. His house has its own hangar, and he can taxi his plane right onto the runway.

    One of Chiao's neighbors was astronaut Dave Brown, who died in the Columbia accident on Feb. 1, 2003. "Dave was the one who tipped me off this guy across the runway was thinking about selling his house," Chiao remembered. "So I was able to talk to him before he actually put the house on the market."

    Chiao loves to fly his plane, but notes "I haven't been able to fly it nearly as much (as I'd like), especially this year not being in the states as much (because of his busy training schedule in Russia)."

    Chiao's wife, Karen, isn't interested in flying his plane while he's gone, so Chiao is preparing the aircraft for long-term storage, similar to how one would take care of a valuable antique car that won't be driven for a while. "My mechanics going to come over in the next few weeks and 'pickle' the engine -- so it's going to be in mothballs while I'm gone," Chiao said. "We've got to drain the oil out, fill it with some special fluids, put some desiccant plugs in and put it away -- Get it ready for sitting around without being used."

    Chiao is also celebrating his first wedding anniversary. He's already made preparations to take his wife out to a nice dinner and got her a present. Chiao noted that her birthday in October occurs just before his planned launch, and he will be in health isolation and unable to take her out then. "We started dating just a few weeks before I started this back and forth to Russia thing back in August 2001," Chiao said. He has spent half of his time living and working in Russia for the past three years, learning how to live and work in the Russian-built portions of the space station.

    In the October launch, Chiao and his Russian crewmate Salizhan Sharipov will replace cosmo-naut Gennady Padaka and astronaut Mike Fincke, who have been living there since April. Still to be determined is the third space traveler who will join Chiao and Sharipov for their launch.

    Whoever flies in the third seat will not have any responsibilities during the launch and will just spend a week on the space station and return to Earth with Padaka and Fincke. Russia originally hoped to fly American businessman Gregory Olsen as a space tourist. But Olsen couldn't meet the medical qualifications, leaving the seat open.

    Russia needs to sell the third seat on its Soyuz spacecraft to either another country or a space tourist as often as possible to bring in badly needed funding for its space program. So far two seats have been sold to tourists -- American businessman, DTito and S-African, Mark Sh'worth.

    Chiao said: "The third crewmember in the Soyuz has not yet been officially decided. We've got a couple of people training. As of right now, I don't believe a official determination has been made. One of the candidates is a Russian businessman -- he'll basically be flying as a tourist on the flight. I don't know him very well. I just met him very briefly. The other fellow is a cosmonaut; this would be his first mission.

    "This question will be settled in the middle of August," Sharipov said.

    Said Chiao: "Both of these guys are really enthusiastic. I think Salizhan (Sharipov) and I would be happy to fly with either one."
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