Wolf Still Eager For Mission Astronaut Reassures Mom, Nation About Trip To Space Station

With only days remaining until he flies to Russia’s rickety Mir, astronaut David Wolf finds himself reassuring family, friends and even his boss that he’ll be just fine on his four-month mission.

No, it’s not the worst job in America, as one TV show voted.

No, it’s not a suicide mission.

And no, “I’m not playing Russian roulette or spinning dice to see how many times I can do it before something bad happens.”

The hardest sell is to his mom.

“I wouldn’t mind if they canceled the whole thing,” Dottie Wolf said.

Despite her fears, Dottie Wolf didn’t try to talk her firstborn out of going to the ruptured, accident-prone space station when he visited her in Indianapolis last weekend.

She trusts her son and she trusts NASA.

“When a fellow’s mother looks you in the eye and asks if everything will be OK for her son, you know the answer had better be the honest truth,” shuttle-Mir program director Frank Culbertson told the House Science Committee on Thursday. “I told her everything will be OK, and if I ever discover that it’s not, he won’t go.”

The 41-year-old Wolf, a doctor and engineer, is scheduled to leave Thursday night aboard space shuttle Atlantis, barring another Mir catastrophe or a change of heart by NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin.

On Tuesday, nine days before flight, Goldin called Wolf and demanded that he be honest.

“I want to hear from you, unpressured, how you feel about the safety, whether you really want to do this or not,” Wolf said Goldin told him.

Wolf assured Goldin that he was willing - and eager - to replace colleague Michael Foale and become the sixth American to live on Mir.

Two days later, testifying before the House Science Committee, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Inspector General Roberta Gross expressed concern about the safety of the aging Mir in the wake of a February fire, June collision, repeated computer breakdowns and other “serious problems.”

Committee leaders recommended that no more Americans live on Mir, although space shuttles could continue to ferry supplies. They left the final decision up to Goldin.

That evening, Wolf spent more than an hour answering TV reporters’ questions about Mir safety - an unprecedented use of astronaut time one week before launch.

It was clearly NASA damage control, as was this full-speed-ahead message from Foale on Mir: “I believe out of this cooperation of America with Russia, which is not always easy, we are achieving some extremely great things.”

Wolf said he has Goldin’s blessing to return immediately on Atlantis if he changes his mind once he reaches Mir. Shuttle commander James Wetherbee said he, too, will speak out if Mir turns out to be worse than expected. In fact, Wetherbee said he’d bring all three Mir men back - in addition to the seven people on Atlantis - if necessary.

“I think we have a calculated situation, an understood situation, a reasonable situation,” Wolf said. “It’s not an easy situation. I don’t expect a pleasure cruise out of this whatsoever. But I like adventure. I like operating in critical situations. I understand the problem. I’m sure I can do it.”

His mother agrees with that last part, at least.

“He’s very levelheaded, very intelligent,” she said. “He does not do stupid things. NASA does not do stupid things. There’s too much at stake.”

No doubt about it: There’s a lot more riding on this mission than Wolf and some 7,000 pounds of supplies and equipment that need to be swapped.

Foreign policy is a big factor, as is the future of the international space station, already delayed and plagued by severe cost overruns. Russia is supposed to haul up the first piece of the station in June, seven months late.

Russia’s Mir-shuttle program director, Valery Ryumin, said he believes the station would be delayed even more if NASA curtailed its Mir involvement.

What’s more, Ryumin said, Americans would look like “sunshine space explorers” who “as soon as something goes a little bit wrong, they decide to head for the hills.”

Wolf acknowledges there would be widespread ramifications if he bailed out. Besides, he says, the program is almost over; only one more American after Wolf is scheduled to live on Mir.

If he doesn’t come back, Wolf hopes the cooperation continues.

“We’ve had Challenger which killed seven astronauts and we moved on in the shuttle program, we identified the issues and we fixed them, and I think we’d respond similarly,” he said. “That’s how exploration is.”