(NASA pictures)
Col. Pam Melroy, age 44, has been named as the commander of STS-120, a space shuttle mission that is planned to add two new components to the International Space Station.
Melroy is only the second woman to command a U.S. space mission. This ought not to be a landmark, but it is one of a sort. Men have done it 144 times, not counting the thirteen crews to occupy the station (where it gets complicated--one crew member, American or Russian, is the "Expedition Commander," while another (always Russian) is "Soyuz Commander"--it doesn't make much difference; they've all been male).
The larger question is how soon Melroy and her six crewmates will get to launch. Five shuttle flights are ahead of them in line, and the debate over launching the first of them, STS-121 on July 1, was described as "spirited." (The flight numbers may seem to make no sense, but a flight gets one when it's been put together, and that may be different from the order in which the missions fly. STS-121 will be followed by STS-115; STS-119 comes after STS-120, and--oh, I'll let it go.)
By : Ned Potter is the science correspondent for ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson." He has reported on such topics as space exploration, the human genome and climate change.
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