Still to get hero's welcome from Augusta

Web posted July 18, 1997

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By Amy Joyner
Staff Writer

After she's finished floating through the stars, Lt. Cmdr. Susan Still will get the star treatment from her hometown.

The Augusta astronaut ended her second spaceflight Thursday with a 6:46 a.m. landing at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The former Navy fighter pilot is the second woman to fly the space shuttle.

Space Shuttle Columbia pilot Susan Still and Mission Specialist Don Thomas wave to the media following the shuttle landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida Thursday morning.Michael Holahan/Staff

In the fall, Augusta will celebrate ``Susan Still Day'' and honor the astronaut with a parade through downtown. The date of the festivities will be set later, a spokeswoman in the mayor's office said.

Lt. Cmdr. Still was raised in Augusta. She attended the Academy of Richmond County for a year before transferring to a boarding school in Natick, Mass. When she 16, Lt. Cmdr. Still learned to fly airplanes at Augusta's Daniel Field.

During her first shuttle flight in April, Lt. Cmdr. Still took an arrowhead to space for the Augusta-Richmond County Museum.

The next time the astronaut returns home, she will dedicate the well-traveled artifact to the museum, executive director Scott Loehr said. Officials don't know yet when the dedication will be.

Lt. Cmdr. Still, whose picture is on display in the museum's space exhibit, also may donate some other photographs and items from her space travels, said Bob Young, a museum board member.

The astronaut had to cancel several public appearances in Augusta after her first spaceflight. The mission was cut short 12 days by a faulty fuel cell, butçNASA officials decided to send the same crew back to space together this summer.

After a two-week vacation, the astronauts began training for their second mission.

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