Age is no barrier for astronaut Peggy Whitson

Mike Kilen | The Des Moines Register









DES MOINES, Iowa — Peggy Whitson turned 55 on Feb. 9, the same day NASA announced she would be one of six astronauts propelled 240 miles into space next year.

A journalist soon asked her if it was really true.

"I guess I never thought about it until then," said the Iowa native, "but I will be an old female astronaut."

Whitson has never buckled before stereotypical limitations based on her background, gender or age. She will be the oldest female astronaut in the world to fly into space.

• Although she grew up on a farm outside of Beaconsfield, a town of 15 people, she kept telling skeptics that she was going to be an astronaut.

• Although she was a woman in a male-dominated field, she was picked for missions to the International Space Station in 2002 and 2007, logging the most days in space (377) of any female in NASA history, and became its first female commander.

• Although she became the first woman Chief of the Astronaut Corps and was hurtling toward late-career middle age, she was determined that her best days were not behind her.

"Meetings just don't have the same feel," Whitson said. "It's a lot more exciting to get your hands on the experience and make things work. So three years ago, I decided if I ever wanted to fly again, I better get in line if I don't want to be too old to fly again."

Whitson endured several weeks of medical verification that included detailed body scans, colonoscopies and tests of her eyes, digestive system and bone density. She needs the physical strength to perform the space walks that she has done six times already, the most by any female astronaut.

"That is the most physically challenging," she said. "Every closure of the hands requires a lot of upper-body strength, so I do weight lifting almost every day in order to maintain my strength. To recover from a space flight also requires a lot of strength. When you get back home, it feels like you are carrying a 185-pound person on your back because you are not used to carrying around weight in space."

She passed the tests and was picked to join the November 2016 launch of Expedition 50. She was selected from a group of 43 active astronauts that included three men who are older and 10 women.

Astronaut and Iowa native Dr. Peggy Whitson at the Science Center of Iowa Astronaut and Iowa native Dr. Peggy Whitson at the Science Center of Iowa

Why not simply ease into supervisory roles?

She tries to explain it, but it's hard to fathom what she has seen up there.

SHE'S TAKEN IN VIEWS OF 'BEAUTIFUL SIGHTS'

While battling the constant feeling of falling in the weightlessness of the space station, she often looked out the window.

"What amazed me the first time in space (on Expedition 5) is, 'Oh my gosh, so much color and texture,' " she said. "I don't know if it has to do with the clarity because there are no particulates in the air, but you see so much.

"Outside on a spacewalk takes it up another notch. You are traveling 17,500 miles an hour across the planet. You are looking down with views going past you. It's like being a bird maybe, the perspective of flying over the Earth."

Visions come back to her, like the time she watched the sun rise as she was "swimming around the end of the planet," the sun slowly lighting up the space below her.

"One of the most beautiful sights is when the rim of the Earth is bright on one side, and you see this defined line of the atmosphere. You see how close and thin it is. We've got to be careful. We've got to take care of this planet."

This comes from a woman who grew up grounded, digging in the Iowa soil. Her mom, Beth Whitson, who still lives on the farm near Beaconsfield at age 75, said it best:

"Think about it. If you had been up there, wouldn't you want to go back?"

HARD WORKER BULLS FORWARD, BUCKS ODDS

She could not see anything well as a young girl, it can now be told. High school friend Mike Eason shared a story that Whitson once told him.

"She was in kindergarten or first grade and was having trouble in school. Finally, they gave her an eye test," Eason said. "Turns out, she couldn't see. She needed glasses. I asked her what the biggest difference was. She said, 'Leaves.' Her vision was so terrible she couldn't see leaves on a tree."

Whitson said she was a shy young woman who has worked hard all her life to better communicate the importance of her missions. But when she first looked at the television at age 9 and saw Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, it didn't take words. She knew she wanted to go up there.

By the time she graduated from high school in 1978, the year the first female astronauts were named, Whitson said "it became more than just a dream."

"She has a personality of someone who has a goal in mind and goes for it, no matter what it takes," said her sister Kathy Bretz of Des Moines, a year her elder. "And she will work her tail off to get there."

She carried on the Iowa work ethic, watching parents Keith and Beth Whitson work from sunup to sunset on the farm and learning to help out. "She did what she was asked to do," Beth Whitson said.

By the time she got to Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, she was locked in on the goal, despite continued doubts. Her college adviser even tried to convince her to go to medical school.

She set up a meeting with James Van Allen, the famed University of Iowa physicist who was a pioneer in the space program and designed the instrumentation for the Explorer 1, the first successful U.S. satellite, in 1958. Van Allen told her manned space flight was a thing of the past, that it would be relegated to robots.

Whitson bulled forward anyway, earning a doctorate in biochemistry from Rice University in 1985. It would take 10 more years of applying to be an astronaut before she was selected.

"It wasn't until I was on the selection board that I realized how lucky I was. We had 8,400, and we picked eight," she said.





Peggy Whitson gives tour of Columbus module in space In this video provided by NASA, Peggy Whitson and the crew give a brief tour of the Columbus module.

2ND MISSION HAS 'APOLLO 13 MOMENT'

Whitson and her family knew it came with risks. She was doing postdoctoral work at Rice when the Challenger exploded, and was in the astronaut program when the Columbia accident killed her colleagues and friends.

It wasn't easy for her parents to watch her propel into space the first time. Back then, she tried to explain the feeling in e-mails to Iowa.

"At launch minus 6.5 seconds, the main engines were ignited and the vibrations increased dramatically; however, these vibrations were a drop in the bucket compared to the vibrations that started at T-0 seconds when the solid rocket boosters ignited."

It also wasn't easy when they heard news of a hairy re-entry during her second mission in 2008. The spacecraft took a steep trajectory, and the crew was subjected to eight times Earth's gravity, or 8 Gs, for up to two minutes. It's usually no more than 5 Gs. The landing was rough, which she compared to a "car crash," the ship rolling and rolling.

Yet her most intense moment happened in space. The International Space Station is the size of a football field. During a six-month stint on her last mission, the crew was rearranging solar arrays when one tore.

It was a complex problem. If they jettisoned the ripped array they wouldn't have enough power to continue the next mission. "It was our Apollo 13 moment," she said. "It was intense up there."

They had to work with the materials at hand, a makeshift bit of sheet metal found aboard, and cut precise pieces of metal to make "cuff links" to attach it and repair the rip. Her dad taught her well on the farm, she said. There is nothing No. 2 wire and pliers couldn't repair.

"That was the most harrowing time. Would we be able to pull it off? It was not quite as dramatic as Sandra Bullock in Gravity, but we did it."

SHE HOPES SHE CAN INSPIRE IOWA KIDS

Whitson knows it is important to tell people what all this effort and expense accomplishes. The space program is at the mercy of funding, which can wax and wane because of competing priorities or politics, and is shifting to a time of private endeavors, just as the beginning of airline travel once did.

During her first mission, she grew soybeans, which led to a new water filtration system used in hospitals, and did medical experiments on drug delivery to cancer cells that are now going through their first trials on Earth.

During the second mission, the crew explored different solutions of iron in a magnetic field, which could be used on suspension bridges and earthquake-resistant structures one day.

They spent hours taking things apart, making sure items didn't float away as they worked. The amiable Whitson provided levity, giving fellow astronauts haircuts or painting faces red, white and blue on the Fourth of July. With her short-cropped hair and a small, fit frame, she has the look of a high school gym teacher, with a reserved but easy laugh.

On the upcoming mission, astronauts will conduct more medical experiments and work on station maintenance.

Iowans take pride in Whitson. She has been honored by numerous organizations, including entry into the Aviation Hall of Fame and a Hero of Valor designation by the Iowa Transportation Museum. She has appeared statewide to tell of her adventures.

Whitson hopes that will be her lasting influence, showing the young people of Iowa that no matter how little the place where you grew up, you can do big things with hard work. You can even become an astronaut.

Her training begins officially next month. But she is already busy working out on weights and an elliptical trainer at the gym in a home near Houston that she shares with her husband and fellow NASA employee, Clarence Sams.

The countdown begins, and not to retirement.

"She believes in the program very much, for one thing," Beth Whitson said. "She doesn't know she is old, for another."