THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 22, 1995 TAG: 9509200211
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
Lt. Cmdr. Wendy Lawrence was just 10 years old when she sat in front of a black and white television, mesmerized by the sight of astronaut Neil Armstrong walking on the moon.
``I knew then that I wanted to do that,'' she said remembering the birth of her childhood dream to become an astronaut.
Last Friday Lawrence, now 36, visited the aerospace magnet program at Hunt-Mapp Middle School to share her 25-year quest to become an astronaut and her experiences as a mission specialist aboard a space shuttle flight in March.
The record-setting 16-day mission was the second flight of the ASTRO observatory and logged a total of 6.9 million miles around the earth.
Dressed in a blue flight suit, Lawrence, a petite blue-eyed brunette, strode into the auditorium and captivated an audience of several hundred eighth-graders with her stories of astronaut training and space flight, liberally illustrated with slides and a video shot aboard the space shuttle.
After graduation from the Naval Academy in 1981, Lawrence logged 10 years as a Navy helicopter pilot and was one of the first two female helicopter pilots to make a long deployment to the Indian Ocean as part of a carrier battle group.
``The Norfolk area is near and dear to me because my two operational tours at NAS gave me the background and experience that NASA was looking for,'' Lawrence said.
In 1992 she was accepted into the NASA astronaut program and began more intensive and highly diversified training. Not only do astronauts need to know how to eject from a plane and parachute safely to the ground, they need to know what to do when they land, Lawrence told the youngsters.
``We went through land and water survival training and learned how to build fires, catch small animals, and how to create a tent from our parachutes,'' Lawrence said.
As she clicked to a slide of several astronaut trainees roasting a rabbit over a campfire her audience responded with awed ``oohs'' and a few squeamish ``yucks.''
More intriguing were the slides of Lawrence's crew floating around the cabin of what the astronauts call the ``Vomit Comet,'' the military aircraft that is used to give astronaut trainees 30-second doses of weightlessness.
``There is nothing like being weightless,'' she said. ``It is so neat to be able to float around with very little effort.''
All the training did not prepare Lawrence for the emotional impact of her first space flight, however.
``Very early in the morning on March 2 I got the ride of my life,'' she said. ``The simulators are very good but there is nothing in the world that can simulate the experience when all the engines light off and you are suddenly experiencing close to seven million pounds of thrust.
``The vibration level was incredible and there was a sensation of absolute power and I was strapped to it,'' she added. ``I have never experienced anything like my ride on a rocket and I can't wait to experience my next ride. It was a real kick.''
A video shot during Lawrence's mission showed the astronauts at work setting up and using three sophisticated telescopes to observe the stars, performing experiments to measure crystal growth in space, riding an exercise bike to preserve the muscle tone that deteriorated in a weightless atmosphere, and even struggling to recapture food items that had escaped from a storage drawer and were floating freely around the shuttle cabin.
Lawrence is one of about 20 female astronauts in the NASA program that includes a total of 100 astronauts at any one time.
``The atmosphere is that we are all on the same team with a mission to accomplish,'' Lawrence said. ``I consider myself a NASA astronaut, not a female astronaut, and that distinction has never really come up.''
Lawrence used her own career story to emphasize one important point to the Hunt-Mapp audience. ``Dreams can come true,'' she told them. ``It may take you a lot of time; it may take a lot of work; you may have to make sacrifices along the way; you may fall flat on your face and have to pick yourself up again but they can come true.''
Astronaut appearances are relatively rare because each astronaut makes only about two appearances a month and only when they are not in flight training.
``I love speaking to schools,'' Lawrence said. ``To me it is the most rewarding part of the job.''
Her school appearances will be curtailed soon however, as Lawrence's next assignment is to flight training in Star City, Russia, where she will begin training for a possible flight on the Russian space station.
The three-year-old aerospace magnet program at Hunt-Mapp now includes over 400 students with an interest in space studies. Learning activities using space exploration studies and research are integrated into the program's core curriculum. Instruction, field trips, and classroom decor all reflect the aerospace theme.
Through a partnership with NASA magnet students also participate in above curricular activities including hands on space-related and aeronautical projects. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MARK MITCHELL
NASA astronaut Wendy Lawrence tells aerospace magnet students all
about her space shuttle flight.
by CNB