The Crew of STS-123

The seven men who make up the crew of the shuttle Endeavour's mission to the International Space Station have formed a tight team that will take on a busy 16 days of spacewalks and robotics work. They will attach the first part of a large Japanese science laboratory to the station, assemble a two-armed robotic helper that will do some of the outdoor maintenance aboard the station, and test a method for repairing the shuttle's delicate heat shield on orbit. Four of them are making their first trip to orbit.

Capt. Dominic L. Pudwill Gorie, the commander of this mission, is a retired captain in the Navy and a naval aviator who flew 38 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm. He is 50.

He was born in Lake Charles, La., and his family moved around during his childhood, with stays in Minnesota, Illinois and Florida. He calls Miami, where he went to high school, his hometown. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and a Master of Science degree in aviation from the University of Tennessee.

This will be his fourth spaceflight, beginning with a mission to the Russian Mir space station in 1998.

He is married to the former Wendy Lu Williams, a Texan, and they have two children: a daughter who is 20 and an 18-year-old son.

In a recent interview, he said that he has made no secret of the risks of spaceflight with his children over the years. But the loss of the shuttle Columbia and its crew of seven in 2003 shook them: "They were very close to the accident," he said. And so on his first flight since the Columbia disaster, this the discussion of risk "was on a different, a higher level than it was when they were kids." And, he said, "this mission was viewed with a little bit more concern."

Still, he said, "They realized that this is what I was in the business for -- they knew I was excited about it, and supported me very, very well."

"I think if they had to make the choice themselves, it would be a tough one -- but I asked them, and they said 'go for it.'"

What are his plans for after the mission, almost certainly his last? "Disney World," he joked.

Colonel Gregory H. Johnson is the pilot on this mission, and a first-time space flier. Like many military fliers, he has a call sign: "Box." A fighter pilot with an explosive laugh and 61 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm and Operation Southern Watch, he declined to explain its origins in detail. "The real story is a little bit classified -- and I'd tell you but I'd have to kill you."

Prompted to give just enough of an explanation to merely require him to cause physical pain, he explained that although all fighter pilots would love to be named something like "Maverick" or"Trigger," in fact, "most of our call signs that we get come from stupid things that we've done or things that are kind of embarrassingly funny."

In his case, his nickname "could have something to do with lines that are drawn on maps. If there was a box drawn on a map that was a prohibited area," he said, "it might not be advisable to fly your airplane into that prohibited area."

He is married to the former Cari M. Harbaugh of Lubbock, Tex., and they have three children, ages 10, 13 and 14.

He is 45, and was born in England but grew up in the United States in a military family that moved frequently. He earned an aerospace engineering degree from the U.S. Air Force Academy and a master's in flight structure engineering from Columbia University. He also earned a master's in business administration from the University of Texas at Austin on weekends during the lull in flights after the Columbia disaster. After astronauts finish their flying days, he said, many move into management, and "I wanted to make sure that if that happened to me that I had the training."

NASA kept him busy during the Columbia accident investigation. He worked with the team that studied whether the insulating foam that had regularly been falling off of the shuttle's external tank during ascent could actually damage the hard leading-edge tiles of the wing. In early tests, he noted, "it didn't seem that the foam was going to break through." The group staged a dramatic demonstration in which a cannon shot a chunk of foam at a mock-up of a wing. The lightweight foam punched through the panel.

"That was an incredible, almost horrifying moment," he said. "Jaws dropped when it made such a huge hole in the panel," he recalled. NASA has worked hard to reduce the amount of foam that the tank sheds, and in-flight inspections are now part of every mission.

"We learn from these accidents and get smarter," he said. "Then we look back and wonder what we were thinking."

Dr. Richard M. Linnehan, who peppers his conversation with references to 1960s monster movies, science fiction and other bits of popular culture, is a doctor of veterinary medicine.

Born in Lowell, Mass. he was raised in New York state by his grandparents. He attended Colby College in Maine and the University of New Hampshire, and received his doctor of veterinary medicine degree from Ohio State University.

Dr. Linnehan has flown on three previous science-oriented missions, in 1996, 1998 and 2002. In the most recent flight, he took part in three spacewalks to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.

He will be the lead spacewalker on this mission as well, conducting the first three spacewalks of the flight and helping to coordinate the other two.

If anything, he said, this mission will be more challenging than the Hubble work. Working on the space telescope, he said, "it's a very fine kind of surgical sort of thing," he said. "It's like playing 'Operation' on a large scale," he said, referring to the classic Milton Bradley game. "There's much more going on in terms of exertion," he said. "This is more being a longshoreman."

Spacewalks, while "a privilege," are "a lot of hard work," he said, and the space suits are a big part of the difficulty. "You're always fighting against the suit," he said.

What is it like? "Picture yourself in a suit of armor on roller skates, with a fishbowl over your head, wearing boxing globes and holding on to a pair of lobster tongs, and trying to change spark plugs in your car in the dark."

Though several members of the crew have not yet been to space, he said, "I can honestly tell you, these guys are probably the most motivated, best crew I've ever gotten a chance to fly with." In training and in space, he said. "you've got to help each other out, look out for one another. This crew does it better than any crew I've been on."

He is 50 years old, and is not married.

Maj. Robert L. Behnken of the Air Force is, at 37, the youngest member of the crew. He grew up in St. Ann, Mo., in the St. Louis metropolitan area. His father is a construction worker who now teaches at a construction training school. Major Behnken earned his undergraduate and master's degrees from Washington University in St. Louis. He earned a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology.

He is single, and this is his first flight. He will conduct three spacewalks, and will operate the space station's robotic arm during the other spacewalks.

His path to the astronaut corps was not based on a lifelong desire to go to space, he said. "When I was a little boy, I guess, eight, 10 years old, I wanted to be everything -- you know, a fireman, a rock star an astronaut -- I wanted to be all those things." In the Air Force, at test pilot school, he recalled, "All my classmates were applying to be astronauts. I figured I was at least as qualified as those guys were, so I applied."

He was accepted for the class of 2000, gaining admission on his first application. "I guess it's better to be lucky than good," he joked. ...

•	The Crew of STS-123 The New York Times, Monday, March 10, 2008 Byline: John Schwartz