SHOOTING FOR THE STARS; OAK RIDGE ASTRONAUT COUNTING DOWN TO HER FIRST SHUTTLE FLIGHT

Countless hours of training and dreaming will pay off this week for Oak Ridge native and astronaut Linda M. Godwin as she heads for the stars.

If all goes well, Godwin, 38, and commander Steven Nagel, 44, co-pilot Kenneth Cameron, 41, Jerry Ross, 43, and Jay Apt, 41, will blast off on the year's first shuttle mission Friday at 8:18 a.m. local time.

As the mission specialist trained to operate the shuttle Atlantis' robot arm, Godwin plays an integral role in deployment of a 35,000-pound space telescope and the first U.S. space walk in more than five years.

Three days into the space mission Godwin's first she will maneuver the $617 million Gamma Ray Observatory out of the shuttle in a slow-motion operation she has trained countless hours to complete.

"I will feel really good to get the Gamma Ray Observatory deployed," Godwin said, in a telephone interview. "That's what my training has emphasized.

"It's berthed in the orbiter so that's where our tightest tolerances are. It's where our greatest lack of visibility is, and we're very dependent on camera views," she said of the delicate launch procedure. "After the deploy, will be my big sigh of relief."

The "GRO" satellite is the heaviest payload ever carried into space aboard a shuttle. She said deploying the satellite will be an "all-day affair."

"We will do a thorough checkout of the observatory before we release it," Godwin said. "We'll be looking at the telemetry even after we get it lifted above the craft to make sure everything looks good before we let it go."

The big telescope was built to study extremely high-energy radiation from objects such as black holes, neutron stars and energetic quasars.

"From everything I've read, I think it is going to re-write some of the textbooks," she said.

Once the "GRO" is out of the way, Godwin will concentrate on the space walk, known in the trade as an extra-vehicular activity or EVA.

On the fourth day of the mission, astronauts Ross and Apt plan to don spacesuits and carry out a six-hour space walk to evaluate various space station construction techniques. It will be the first space walk by American astronauts since the Challenger disaster.

"I will be using the arm again while they're out," Godwin said. "First I will position it so the television camera gets a good view."

She then will attach a foot restraint to the mechanical arm. "I'll give each of the crew members a ride in it," she added.

Godwin said the ride on the mechanical arm will test it's usefulness for work outside the shuttle.

"We need to see how stiff or limp it is," she said. "If we were trying to make repairs on the space station, for example, would it work?"

While the scientific nature of the voyage will dominate the astronauts' time, Godwin said the view is what she looks most forward to.

"We will be 243 nautical miles above earth," Godwin said. "We should be able to see pretty far. I think just looking out will be incredible.

"And I can't imagine what it will be like to be weightless for five days. We really can't simulate that."

She said weightlessness must be considered for most activities aboard Atlantis.

"It makes a lot of tasks a lot harder," she said. "Things won't stay where you set them down. They have to be tethered or `Velcroed.'

"You have a lot more planning-out of your actions. You have to know how you are going to position yourself."

Space flight has long been Godwin's goal. "It's almost here," she said. "We've been waiting for a long time."

A graduate of Jackson High School and Southeast Missouri State University, Godwin also earned a doctorate in physics at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

In 1980, she applied for the astronaut program and was not selected. But she went to work for NASA that year.

She has served as a flight controller and payloads officer for several shuttle missions before her selection as an astronaut in 1985.

Godwin, an instrument-rated pilot, said she feels confident the craft is safe and ready to fly.

Engineers discovered cracks in the Atlantis ship but determined the orbiter was safe. "We have very, very tiny ones," she said. "I think they made the right decision to go ahead with the flight."

But she admitted sometimes the crew may not be the best judges of the shuttle's safety. "After so long and so many delays, you get `launchitis.' But we're not trying to override safety."

Safety has become more of a concern at NASA following the Challenger disaster. But Godwin said it is time to look ahead and not dwell on the past.

"I'll never forget that it happened or the people who were on it," she said. "Their memory is still here.

"But five years is a long time, and we've had a lot of successful flights since then. So we've replaced the memory of that flight with a lot of good memories.

"Hopefully, we will not lose the lessons that we learned. I hope so much (that) we don't ever have a tragedy like Challenger again, but all these are the risks of the job."

Many friends and relatives of Godwin plan to watch the launch, including her parents, James and Maxine Godwin, of Jackson.

"It feels good that all these people will be there," she said. "But I just hope we don't have any last minute slips. I told them all to plan some fun things while they were here.

"I hope it all goes pretty smooth and they get to see the launch.

"I'm looking forward to a good trip," Godwin said. "I just really hope the launch goes well. So many people are making an effort to come down."

After slightly more than five days in space, the Atlantis is scheduled to land at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

She said the crew will undergo several hours of medical testing after they land. "Some are standard tests. They will also assess the affects of zero gravity. We're like guinea pigs."

She said they will return to Houston six or seven hours after landing.

After a couple weeks of "debriefing," the astronauts will travel across the country talking about the flight. "We'll be doing P.R." she said.

(Some information for this story was provided by United Press International.)