Astronaut Oefelein Addresses Altar Servers
at 2003 Picnic in Friendswood

By Tim Healy

         Astronaut and Navy Lt. Commander William Oefelein, who will be the pilot on STS 116, spoke at the tenth annual Altar Servers Picnic in Friendswood on Saturday, April 12th. Many games were played, and a delicious lunch was served. The picnic is sponsored each year by the Bay Area Serra Club. Commander Oefelein’s presentation was enthusiastically received by his young audience. As part of his presentation, Commander Oefelein showed items on the freeze-dried menu and explained how they are reconstituted, demonstrated how the sleeping restraint works, and how eating utensils are held to the meal tray with magnets. Each astronaut selects the menu items he or she likes best, and that’s what they eat in space. Astronaut Oefelein’s favorite dish is shrimp cocktail. The young audience also participated in a demonstration of the mechanics of space flight and several videos on the space program were shown. In the videos the astronauts said, after they returned to earth, that they had no doubt that God truly exists.

          Commander Oefelein grew up in Alaska and learned to fly there. Flying was his major passion, along with his love for exploration and camping. After high school he entered Morgan State College and graduated with an engineering degree. He joined the Navy in 1988, and for three years he flew F-118s on the Carrier USS Nimitz. His engineering degree qualified him to become a test pilot to help make airplanes fly better, faster, and farther. This experience qualified him for the space program. He interviewed with NASA in 1997 and was assigned to NASA as a shuttle pilot in 1998.

Commander Oefelein explained that NASA’s space program is one of the few programs America has that is an investment in our future. NASA’s mission is one of looking toward the future, and how we can improve our lives here on earth through science and research, to extend life here, and to find life beyond. By sending humans into earth orbit we envision humans living in space, and hopefully in the future we will be going again to the Moon and later to Mars. Commander Oefelein feels that there is a good possibility of other life forms in space, either as microbes, plants, or higher life forms.

          STS 116, a space station assembly mission, is scheduled to launch on the orbiter Atlantis sometime in March of 2004. The orbiter will have a crew of four, plus three expedition crewmembers. STS 116 will take up a truss that is needed for mounting additional solar arrays that will generate additional electrical power. Electrical and thermal reconfiguration will also be performed, which will activate the thermal control system and allow the reconfigured power system to route the additional electrical power where needed.