STS-94 Commander Jim Halsell, right, speaks to the media with fellow crew members, from left, Greg Linteris, Roger Crouch, Michael Gernhardt, Don Thomas, Janice Voss, and Pilot Susan Still, after arriving Saturday at Kennedy Space Center. The crew member will be reflying mission STS-83 after it was cut short by a faulty fuel cell. Luanch is set for Tuesday afternoon. AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Still on track to become mission commander

Web posted June 30, 1997

By Amy Joyner
Staff Writer

One down and one to go before she's ready to make history.

When she returns from her second spaceflight in mid-July Lt. Cmdr. Susan Still will be qualified to become a space shuttle mission commander, a position closed to women in America for 36 years.

Until two years ago, female astronauts had been restricted to payload and mission specialist jobs. All NASA pilots and mission commanders must attend test-pilot school, and until 1993 the military's ban on female fighter pilots effectively closed those high-profile jobs to women astronauts.

Though the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has no set policy for picking mission commanders, most astronauts must make two flights in the pilot's seat before getting the top shuttle job.

Lt. Cmdr. Still is the pilot for mission STS-94, which launches Tuesday from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. She also piloted the shuttle Columbia in April, but the mission was cut short 12 days.

``I don't know what management will consider it, if they'll consider it as my second flight or if they'll consider it as the same mission flown twice,'' Lt. Cmdr. Still said of Tuesday's reflight. ``I don't know if it would put me in line (to become a commander), although I would hope so.''

Johnson Space Center spokeswoman Eileen Hawley said Lt. Cmdr. Still will be considered for other mission assignments after she returns to Earth July 17, but she wouldn't speculate on when the Augusta astronaut would become a mission commander. Mrs. Hawley also couldn't say which woman will get the important assignment first - Lt. Cmdr. Still or Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins, NASA's first female shuttle pilot.

Lt. Col. Collins piloted Discovery in 1995 and Atlantis two months ago for Russian Mir dockings.

As the senior female shuttle pilot, Lt. Col. Collins will likely get the chance to make history again as the first female mission commander, another NASA spokesman at Kennedy Space Center said.

Whether it's Lt. Cmdr. Still or Lt. Col. Collins in the commander's seat, the first shuttle flight with a woman in charge will mark an important moment in American history, women's studies experts said.

``Every first is a good first. This is a great big step, so it would be terrific,'' said Dr. Sallie Baliunas, chairwoman of the science advisory board at the George C. Marshall Institute.

``I would think it would be tremendously significant,'' said Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, founding director of Emory University's women's studies program. ``I've always felt that women could equal men.''

The space program is ``where skill, intelligence and self-discipline are what counts,'' she said. ``All that matters is that you have the stuff to be a key member.''

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