Shuttle hail damage may help set space records

The damage from a late February hail storm that is playing havoc with NASA's shuttle mission plans this year may affect some records in the making by a pair of U.S. astronauts, space agency officials said Tuesday.

The current record for the longest American spaceflight is 196 days, set in 2001 and 2002 by astronauts Dan Bursch and Carl Walz on a mission to the international space station.

That record will fall soon to American Mike Lopez-Alegria , the station's current commander. Lopez-Alegria is scheduled to return to Earth aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule on April 20, after 214 days in space.

His new record, though, could be short lived.

Astronaut Sunita Williams , who lifted off for the station on Dec. 9 aboard the shuttle Discovery, will have flown just as many days by mid-July, when she was scheduled to return to Earth aboard the shuttle Endeavour.

Until the hail storm at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida damaged the fuel tank of the shuttle Atlantis, Endeavour was headed toward a June 28 launching on an 11 to 14-day mission.

Repairs under way to the fuel tank of Atlantis have delayed that mission, which before the hail storm was headed toward a March 15 launching.

Atlantis will not be ready to fly until mid-May, or mid June, depending on whether the fuel tank can be repaired or must be replaced. Shuttle managers intend to decide between the two options early next month, and what NASA does with Atlantis will affect plans to launch Endeavour.

However, on Tuesday space agency officials said they are assessing a remote possiblity of bringing Williams back to Earth aboard Atlantis.

"That is something we are looking at as we learn more about what will go on with the shuttle schedule," NASA's Kirk Shireman , the space station program manager told a Johnson Space Center news briefing. "That is an option to get her home, but programmatically we would prefer not to do that. So, I would say it's unlikely at this point, but not out of the realm of possibility."

Atlantis and Endeavour will deliver new components to the space station that cannot be launched out of sequence. So, a delay of Atlantis until mid-June means an unspecified delay for Endeavour. If Endeavour remains Williams' transportation back to Earth, she could top Lopez-Alegria's 214 day mark.

The world's record of 188 days for the longest spacefight by a woman was set by U.S. astronaut Shannon Lucid during a 1996 mission to Russia's former Mir space station. The world's record for the longest spaceflight by man or woman is 438 days, set by Russian Valery Polyakov aboard Mir in 1994-95.

Williams, who marked her 108th day in space on Tuesday,

has been kept up to date on the developments since the Feb. 26 hail storm and is taking the uncertainty over her return to Earth in stride, said Shireman and NASA's Ginger Kerrick , the station's lead flight director.

"She's been, well fine," said Kerrick, who has spoken with Williams over a private communications channel about the situation. "She's always been -- whatever the program needs, I'm ready to do it."

Most of all, Williams seems to miss her dog, Gorby, whose pictures adorn her living quarters on the station, Williams said.

Meanwhile, Dr. Dave Alexander , the lead NASA flight surgeon for the station's current crew, said Tuesday that both Lopez-Alegria and Williams are in good health. Both astronauts workout about two hours a day with exercise equipment to help stay fit.

"We have a healthy crew on orbit," said Alexander. "They are fantastic to work with, and they have met or exceeded all of our expectations with their periodic fitness evaluations and health surveys."

When he lands on April 20, Lopez Alegria will begin a physical rehabilitation program designed to help him recover strength in bones and muscles that have been weakened by months of weightlessness.

He will spend the first three weeks of the 30-45 day rehab program at Star City, Russia, the cosmonaut training center. He will reunite with his family at Star City after the landing.

There is no specific limit on how long an NASA astronaut can spend in space, and experts are weighing several factors in Williams' case, according to Alexander.

"We look at the entire environment they are in. That takes into account their physical fitness, their mental well being as well as the radiation they have accumulated," Alexander said. "So, It's a dynamic process. Right now, the predictions are that Williams can stay for an extended period of time."