Mariner grad calls shuttle shots

 

By CHARLES RUNNELLS

crunnells@news-press.com

 

The waffles were almost done when Stephanie Stilson's pager went off.

 

She looked at the readout.

 

NASA calling.

 

It was Dec. 26, and in Fort Myers, Stilson's father was scrambling eggs and trying out the new waffle iron he'd gotten for Christmas.

 

Instead of eating breakfast with her family, Stilson spent the next 90 minutes on her cell phone with Kennedy Space Center officials, trying to track down a NASA engineer for a technical problem with the Space Shuttle Discovery.

 

She has had a lot of cold breakfasts recently.

 

Stilson, 35, who grew up in Lee County, is managing the first shuttle launch since Columbia broke apart Feb. 1, 2003, as it re-entered the atmosphere.

 

All seven astronauts died.

 

Stilson said she knows her role is magnified by what happened two years ago Tuesday. The future of the space program rides on the launch and safe return of Discovery.

 

Stilson and everyone else who works for NASA is well aware of what they call "The Tragedy."

 

"Everything we're doing now, in the back of our minds, is related to the accident," Stilson said as she stood recently in the Discovery shuttle bay. "That's the reason behind all our work."

 

It also means lots of long work days and interrupted weekends and holidays between now and launch. That's scheduled for sometime between May 12 and June 3.

 

After Stilson finished checking on Discovery that Dec. 26 morning, her waffles and eggs were cold.

 

But her father gladly heated them up.

 

"I was so proud of her that day," said John Stilson, 55. "She had a job to do, and she did it."

 

For three days, her pager beeped incessantly. Each time, it was some new shuttle problem.

 

"It's her life now," her father said. "She's a 24-hour-a-day kind of gal."

 

When the Discovery lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Stilson will be sitting at a control bank inside Kennedy Space Center, eyeing her computer screen to make sure the launch goes without a hitch.

 

As vehicle manager for Discovery, Stilson diagnoses any problems that could occur during launch, orbit or re-entry.

 

Her Lee County family worries about the pressure Stilson faces.

 

"It's a very heavy responsibility sitting on her shoulders," said stepfather Bob Waite, 58, of Cape Coral. "But I don't think anything can overwhelm Steph.

 

"Steph is up to just about any challenge."

 

Stilson insists she doesn't feel much pressure. Just pride and a sobering accountability.

 

NASA's future and the lives of Discovery's astronauts are on the line.

 

"I feel a lot of responsibility," Stilson said solemnly. "Definitely."

 

Stilson has come a long way since her days of playing saxophone in the Mariner High School band and hanging out at Cape Coral's Pizza Hut.

 

After she graduated from Mariner in 1987, she got a double-degree in computer and electrical engineering from North Carolina State University.

 

She started at NASA in 1995 as an electrical and data systems engineer for Spacelab. And in 2001, she became vehicle manager for Discovery.

 

Since then, her shuttle has only flown twice.

 

Stilson said she's always wanted to be involved in the U.S. space program, as far back as she can remember.

 

As a child, she often gazed at the twinkling stars and dreamed of becoming an astronaut.

 

A cardboard solar system hung in her Sanibel bedroom. And after she moved to Cape Coral in the third grade, a neighbor gave her a three-dimensional model of the moon. It sits today, 27 years later, in her NASA office.

 

Then came the moment of truth. Stilson's father remembers taking her to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor's Center, where the awestruck 9-year-old stood in the Rocket Garden surrounded by towering Redstone, Atlas and Titan rockets.

 

"She said, 'Dad, I want to be an astronaut,' " he recalled. "She said, 'I could do that.' "

 

Now, years later, Stilson is well on her way to reaching that lofty goal.

 

But for now, the upcoming launch is more than enough.

 

These days, Stilson works out of a crowded office near the Discovery shuttle bay. She spends lots of time sitting in meetings, coordinating tests and taking flights to Houston's Johnson Space Center.

 

Stilson has many issues to deal with in the coming months, including double-checking the hundreds of miles of shuttle wiring and testing and retesting its 42,000 Reinforced Carbon Carbon tiles, the lightweight black squares that keep the shuttle from burning up on re-entry.

 

In May 2003, Columbia accident investigators concluded that damaged tiles caused the accident. Super-heated gases got inside the shuttle's left wing as it re-entered the atmosphere.

 

On a recent work day, Stilson took a tour of the shuttle complex. Her first stop was Launch Control Center 1, otherwise called "The Firing Room."

 

This is where Stilson and the top brass oversee the upcoming, all-important launch.

 

Inside, row after row of computer banks huddled on the tile floor. Digital wall clocks were labeled "Universal Time" and "Shuttle Count."

 

Stilson climbed stairs to reach a third tier of control banks the command tier. From here, she and the other launch leaders overlook everyone and make sure all goes as planned.

 

Behind Stilson, a set of windows overlooked the two shuttle launching pads which, from three miles away, appeared like miniatures for a model railroad.

 

A shuttle launch is an impressive thing to experience, Stilson said. She's watched two so far.

 

First you see a balloon of smoke, she said. Then the tower of flames as the shuttle lifts off.

 

"You feel the rumble, definitely," Stilson said. "You see the glass quivering."

 

It's awe-inspiring, she said.

 

As her tour of NASA's facilities continued, Stilson went from the Firing Room to the Discovery hangar bay a nondescript block of a building.

 

At first glance, the shuttle didn't appear to be anywhere in sight in the five-story building. All that was visible were scaffolding, ladders and machinery everywhere. Equipment hummed, and hydrogen and helium hissed softly through a series of pipes.

 

Then Stilson walked under a 12-foot-high black ceiling and pointed up. She started talking about missing tiles in the bottom of the shuttle orbiter, and sure enough there were the tiles right above.

 

The ceiling, it turned out, was actually the bottom of the shuttle. Discovery was so big, and so crowded with scaffolding and machines, it hid in plain sight.

 

Through the cracks in the scaffolding, the swoop of one wing was visible. And the black cone of a thruster.

 

Workers busily scraped and hovered over machinery all around the orbiter.

 

"Are we doing OK?" Stilson asked one worker.

 

The woman smiled back.

 

"Twenty nine so far this week," she said, referring to 29 of the shuttles 24,000 RCC thermal tiles, all which have to be tested and modified.

 

Each black tile many streaked gray and discolored from re-entry has its own serial number and has to go in the exact same place, Stilson said.

 

Stilson has gotten to know the Discovery well in the last three years, and it's a vehicle she has enormous faith in.

 

"I feel confident that we'll be ready," she said as she surveyed the busy shuttle work. "Not right now, obviously.

 

"We still have a lot of work to do."

 

Her Lee County family can't wait for the big launch.

 

"I get goose bumps just thinking about it," said John Stilson, who plans to watch the launch in Cape Canaveral. "I can't wait to see it happen."

 

Her Cape Coral mother has equal faith in Stilson.

 

"It's so exciting," said Cathy Waite, 55. "Steph has always been the kind of person who, when she tries something, she's going to succeed."

 

Stephanie Stilson isn't really sure what's going to happen after the launch.

 

She hopes one day to become launch director.

 

Or, better yet, an astronaut.

 

"That's why I'm doing what I'm doing right now," Stilson said.

 

But even if she doesn't make that lofty goal, Stilson still counts her lucky stars.

 

It's been nine years, but she's still amazed to find herself working at NASA.

 

NASA.

 

The sheer coolness hasn't worn off yet, she said.

 

"I get to look at the shuttle every day," she said and grinned. "And that's a pretty neat thing."

 

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1 Super Bowl Ring: Check

2-time State Band Champs (in their class): Check

2004-2005 Lee County District Champs (Girls Soccer): Check

1 Space Shuttle Launch: sometime between May 12 and June 3

 

Mariner High School in Cape Coral, Florida:

Established 1986