
DATE: Monday, August 4, 1997                TAG: 9708020051

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Profile 

SOURCE: BY PHILIP CHIEN, CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:  170 lines

FROM LANGLEY TO OUTER SPACE ASTRONAUT STEPHEN ROBINSON'S DREAM TOOK HIM FROM AN ENGINEERING ROLE WITH NASA TO A SPOT ON THE SHUTTLE MISSION BLASTING OFF THURSDAY

IF ALL GOES according to plan, former NASA Langley employee Stephen Robinson will fulfill his childhood dream on Thursday - flying into space.

The aerodynamics engineer-turned-astronaut will be aboard the space shuttle Discovery. The 41-year-old engineer is the first civilian employee from Langley to make a trip into space.

Flying was in Robinson's blood even as a teen-ager, the astronaut says.

``I grew up flying homemade hang-gliders off hills in California, and I don't know how I ever survived that,'' he said. ``It was questionable engineering, no safety systems, and absolutely no training or knowledge on the part of the pilot. . . .

``When you're a kid that's really fascinated with flight, you'll do almost anything to fly. And if you don't have any money, you go for the cheapest possible way to get off the ground.''

He did survive that experience, and he set his goals even higher - to fly in space.

Robinson started his NASA career at the Ames Research Center near San Francisco, then transferred to the Langley Research Center on the Peninsula.

From 1990 to 1994, he worked at Langley as a lead engineer, responsible for eight of the center's major wind tunnels and other research activities. He lived in York County at the time.

``Langley's a great place,'' he said. ``I ran a group of 35 people in the experimental flow physics division, studying the aerodynamics of aircraft.

``We had a big array of really spectacular one-of-a-kind wind tunnels that are still in operation. Many of them are left over from World War II, but they're still involved in finding new and exciting aspects of aeronautical science.''

Some of Robinson's research eventually led to the design of the heat shield that enabled Mars Pathfinder to land safely on Mars. He also worked on improving airliner performance.

``We were working on improving the flaps on aircraft, in particular airliners,'' he said. ``We were trying to make simple flaps which worked as good or better than existing designs. We were able to make rapid process.''

Those flap designs will be appearing in the next generation of airliners.

While he was happy with his job as an engineer, Robinson still wanted to fly in space. He had applied six times over 12 years and been rejected each time.

Then in December 1994, while on a business trip in Kansas, he got several messages to call David Leestma, the manager who notifies each successful astronaut candidate.

Robinson thought, ``They're going to break it to me gently and have the `big guy' let me down easy.'' But this time it was good news.

``I'll always remember what he said: `This is Dave Leestma, and I'd like to know if you'd like to come down to Houston to fly space shuttles for us.' ''

While working at NASA, Robinson had continued to fly as a hobby. He began with antique aircraft, he says, for the same reason he took to the air in homemade hang-gliders: ``It was the cheapest way to get into flying.

``I now own a 1939 Taylorcraft, a 1948 Piper Vagabond and also a 1956 Cessna 180,'' he said. ``The Taylorcraft . . . was my first airplane. I brought it for $3,200. It looked like it had been abandoned - but it flew.''

But the only NASA aircraft he'd flown before becoming an astronaut was a King Air commuter plane used to ferry officials between NASA centers. Since then he's flown on high performance T-38 jets and the Shuttle Training Aircraft, a modified Gulfstream business jet that simulates a shuttle coming in for landing.

Robinson's fellow crew members on the upcoming mission are NASA astronauts Curt Brown, Kent Rominger, Jan Davis and Robert Curbeam and Canadian astronaut Bjarni Tryggvason.

Robinson said he was anxious but not nervous while preparing to fly aboard the shuttle.

``I've been waiting most of my life for this flight,'' he said. ``The only thing that would make me nervous is if the flight gets delayed because of weather or another problem.''

For a first-time astronaut, Robinson's going to have an extremely busy flight. He will assist Davis in operating the shuttle's robot arm and a prototype Japanese arm planned for use on the future International Space Station.

He enjoyed learning how to operate both mechanical arms. He said: ``It is very fun. Imagine having an arm that is 50 feet long and what you can do with it.

Unfortunately, he won't have a window seat for the launch. The shuttle's flight deck has four seats, so Robinson has to sit on the middeck without a view. At the end of the mission, however, he will exchange seats with Davis and get a much better view of the re-entry and landing.

Robinson's other responsibilities on the flight include the mission's primary payload, a telescope that will monitor the Earth's upper atmosphere. The telescope will be deployed by the shuttle's robot arm a couple of hours after the shuttle reaches orbit.

Davis will operate the arm with Robinson's assistance. The telescope will fly on its own for nine days before the shuttle comes back to pick it up for the trip home.

The telescope will monitor chemicals in a narrow range of the Earth's atmosphere, the ``mesosphere,'' which reaches from 10 to 70 miles altitude. Some of the key chemicals scientists hope to monitor are ozone, a natural substance that protects the Earth from ultraviolet radiation, and chlorofluorocarbons, manmade chemicals such as Freon that deplete ozone.

``There's evidence that human presence has eroded the ozone in the middle atmosphere,'' Robinson said. The telescope should give results for policy planners to determine how chlorofluorocarbons should be regulated.

In addition, Robinson will use a small telescope, similar to high-quality backyard telescopes, to view Comet Hale-Bopp.

``Without the Earth's atmosphere, we'll be able to see it quite brightly,'' he said. ``We will mount the telescope to the side hatch to look at Hale-Bopp with this very sensitive high-resolution telescope in ways we can't on Earth because ultraviolet radiation doesn't reach the Earth.

``This is very exciting. We don't get to look at a comet from space very often.''

Robinson's also responsible for all of the shuttle's cameras and notebook computers. Eleven notebook computers will be used to control the various experiments, calculate the shuttle's location over the Earth and send e-mail to mission control.

The computers will also serve as color video monitors. The shuttle has several built-in cameras that are used to help guide the robot arm and watch payloads within the shuttle cargo bay. In addition, the crew will use four off-the-shelf consumer camcorders and eight still cameras, including a large-format camera.

``I think we're going to be a very well documented flight,'' Robinson said.

Although a spacewalk isn't planned, Robinson is trained to do one. If there's a problem securing a payload in the cargo bay, he and astronaut Bob Curbeam would do a spacewalk to correct the problem.

In his spare time, Robinson plays guitar, which qualifies him for membership in one of the most unusual rock 'n' roll bands, Max Q, whose members are all astronauts.

``It's best to attend Max Q concerts wearing ear plugs,'' Robinson joked, ``because I'm the lead guitarist.'' MEMO: Background information on Stephen Robinson

From Stephen K. Robinson's official NASA biography.

Personal data:

Born Oct. 26, 1955, in Sacramento, Calif. Unmarried. Enjoys flying,

antique aircraft, swimming, canoeing, hiking, music, art, computer

graphics and stereo photography.

Education:

Graduated from Campolindo High School, Moraga, Calif., 1973.

Bachelor of science degree in mechanical/aeronautical engineering

from University of California at Davis, 1978.

Master of science degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford

University, 1985.

Doctorate in mechanical engineering from Stanford University, 1990.