Five Americans, one Russian en route to space station

Five Americans and one Russian are flying on space shuttle Atlantis to the international space station. A brief look at each: <hr>Commander Jeffrey Ashby says it will be hard to beat ``the huge emotional

Monday, October 7th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Five Americans and one Russian are flying on space shuttle Atlantis to the international space station. A brief look at each:

Commander Jeffrey Ashby says it will be hard to beat ``the huge emotional rush'' of his first space flight three years ago. Nonetheless, the first-time skipper expects to be excited this time around, watching a crew he helped build perform space station construction.

The 48-year-old Navy captain from Evergreen, Colo., has the most carrier landings in the astronaut corps _ some 1,000. He flew 65 combat missions in the FA-18 in the Persian Gulf and Somalia before becoming an astronaut in 1995.

Ashby says the most meaningful thing he ever did in his life was to care for his first wife as she was dying from melanoma cancer in 1997.

``Now I hope that one day I'll look back on my little piece of helping to build the space station. In 20 years, I'd like to look back and see that it had been worth it, seen that it had benefited our lives here on Earth,'' he says. ``That ultimately will be my greatest reward.''

He and his second wife, Paige, share their Houston home with a 60-pound mutt named Murphy and a 3-pound teacup poodle, Kira.

Pilot Pamela Melroy is only the third woman to fly as a space shuttle pilot. Next time, she'll be the commander.

She says she'd feel comfortable flying with any of the men in the astronaut corps, no longer filled with chauvinistic types. But even if she got a macho co-pilot, she says it would be up to her to solve the problem.

``If you get put into a position of leadership, you better be ready to run with the big dogs,'' says the 41-year-old Air Force colonel, who's from Rochester, N.Y. An astronaut since 1995, she is on her second space shot.

With her husband a pilot for United Airlines, Melroy sometimes wonders who has the more dangerous job. The safety issue also came up when he told her he wanted a motorcycle.

``I thought to myself, the guy's an airline pilot flying international and I'm a shuttle pilot. Who am I to tell him it's not safe enough?'' she says with a laugh. ``To hold either of us back from doing something that we're really excited about, because the other person would be worried about you, would just be wrong. We just don't do it.''

David Wolf _ engineer, doctor and astronaut _ is back in top physical form after a weight-reducing stay aboard the Russian Mir space station.

He returned from the four-month mission 24 pounds thinner and with a 40 percent reduction in muscle mass. Why? He was an 11th-hour fill-in for an astronaut who was pulled because she was too small for the spacewalking suit, and he was stuck with all her vegetarian meals.

His Mir stint was grueling; it followed the near-catastrophic collision of 1997. But he notes: ``As I get older, I respect life, my own life, even more.''

``We all do think about what can happen in a major accident up there, but you've already put that away,'' says Wolf, 46, a newlywed of one year. ``You've evaluated the odds, you know a problem could occur and you know everybody's doing their best that it won't occur. And you sign on the dotted line and you go.''

Wolf says his strength is back and he can even play handball again. That's good because he has three spacewalks ahead of him to connect a 45-foot-long girder to the international space station.

This is Wolf's third space flight since becoming an astronaut in 1990. He's from Indianapolis.

Sandra Magnus has never been to the space station, but she feels like she already knows her way around the place.

That's because she worked in Mission Control for more than a year as the capcom or capsule communicator, voicing information up to the space station residents. On Atlantis' flight, she will use the station's robot arm to attach a new girder to the outpost.

Magnus, 37, an engineer and materials scientist from Belleville, Ill., worked for McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Co. and was assigned to the Navy's A-12 program, which ended up being canceled. She went on to complete her thesis work, supported by NASA's then-Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, and in 1996 achieved her girlhood dream of becoming an astronaut.

``It's just the whole idea of exploring and doing something on the edge like that and investigating new things,'' she says.

The first-time space traveler took up one of her brother's badges _ he's a policeman and fireman in a town near St. Louis _ and a watch for her husband, an engineer who's in veterinary school in the Caribbean.

When Piers Sellers moved from England to the United States 20 years ago as a researcher in climates, he hoped to become an astronaut and fly in space. He's finally getting his chance.

Sellers will conduct three spacewalks on this mission, helping connect a girder to the international space station.

``It's a big habitable volume and we're putting on this truss, so this is going to be quite a monster,'' he says of the outpost. ``Just the whole station. It's just going to be blotting out the sun. Floating up there is really going to be something.''

The 47-year-old biometeorologist, an astronaut since 1996, points out that he's now ``100 percent U.S., USDA-approved.'' His wife is still loyal to the queen, though, and their two teenagers have dual citizenship.

Sellers and his crewmates got a chance to chat with Queen Elizabeth earlier this year, via radio, as she opened a space museum in England. He also got to meet Prince Andrew at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The astronaut took into space a copy of his high school's charter, which was written by Elizabeth I some 450 years ago.

Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin says when he was about 7 years old, he wanted to become a professional soccer goalie.

He says his teacher told him, ``No, this is not profession.' I answered, 'OK. Cosmonaut. It's no problem.'''

Yurchikhin, 43, who has a Ph.D. in economics, was born in the then-Soviet republic of Georgia to a Russian father and a Greek mother. (His parents now live in Greece.) He worked at the Russian aerospace company Energia as an engineer from 1983 until his 1997 selection as a cosmonaut.

This is his first space mission; he will help stock the international space station with fresh supplies.

Yurchikhin is taking up the good-luck charm that travels with him everywhere: a small white toy dog that he calls My Little Friend. He collects space stamps and badges, but is taking up only one cosmonaut patch _ his own.