GODWIN WILL EMBARK ON SECOND SHUTTLE FLIGHT

OAK RIDGE -- Maxine and James Godwin look up to their daughter, sometimes quite literally.

Three years ago April, the Godwins watched their astronaut daughter Linda blast off from Cape Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the shuttle Atlantis.

They are planning a return trip now to watch their daughter's second shuttle flight -- scheduled for April 7 aboard the Endeavour, NASA's newest shuttle. It will be Endeavor's sixth mission.

A number of local dignitaries, including Southeast Missouri State University officials, have been invited to witness the launch.

"It's getting so we just take it in stride," Maxine Godwin said Thursday. "We are proud of her."

Linda Godwin's thoughts are certainly not up in the clouds. "She doesn't seem to think it is anything out of the ordinary. To her, it is another job," said Maxine Godwin.

Linda Godwin is one of six crew members and will serve as payload commander on the nine-day shuttle flight, said Kyle Herring, NASA spokesman with the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"They will be working around the clock in two, 12-hour shifts," he said.

Her previous space flight lasted seven days -- April 5-12, 1991 -- and involved the deployment of the Gamma Ray Observatory.

The primary payload on the upcoming shuttle voyage is the Space Radar Laboratory. Herring said the lab and supporting equipment weigh about 24,000 pounds.

"It looks like just a flat piece of equipment," said Herring.

The radar laboratory, which will be housed in the cargo bay, will study Earth's environment and how it's changing, he said. "It will collect and give highly detailed data on the Earth's environment," Herring said.

The sophisticated equipment will measure global distribution of carbon monoxide in the lower atmosphere. The goal is to determine how well the atmosphere "can basically clean itself" of those gasses that lead to the greenhouse effect.

From an ecology standpoint, said Herring, the radar images can be used to study vegetation, effects of fires, floods and the clearing of land.

"It's got so many applications for people on the ground. The Earth environment affects everyone, so everybody obviously is interested in it," said Herring.

The laboratory will be used on several shuttle flights; the next one is scheduled for mid-August.

A native of Oak Ridge, Godwin graduated from Jackson High School in 1970. She graduated from Southeast Missouri State University in 1974 with a degree in physics.