Shuttle Cleared for Liftoff Today on Research Mission

Space officials kept a wary eye on nearby thunderstorms Friday as they cleared the aging space shuttle Columbia for a blastoff at 5 a.m. PDT today on a nine-day medical research flight.

The Columbia has a crew of seven, and there are 30 doomed rats and 2,700 jellyfish aboard for a mission designed to help scientists understand what happens to the human body during the first stage of weightlessness.

The Columbia commander is Bryan D. O’Connor, 44, of Twentynine Palms, Calif. The crew includes three women--the largest number ever to fly on a shuttle mission--and there are enough advanced degrees among the seven members to staff a small college.

There are three medical doctors aboard: James P. Bagian, 39, of Philadelphia; Margaret Rhea Seddon, 43, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Francis Andrew Gaffney, 44, of Carlsbad, N.M.

Two other crew members are scientists: Tamara E. Jernigan, 32, of Santa Fe Springs, Calif., a physicist and astronomer, and Millie Hughes-Fulford, 46, of Mineral Wells, Tex., a chemist. The pilot is Sidney M. Gutierrez, 39, of Albuquerque.

During the long mission, they will conduct a series of experiments on themselves to study how the heart, blood vessels, lungs, kidneys and hormone-secreting glands respond to weightlessness.

After the mission, the rats will be killed and dissected to see how the journey affected them. The jellyfish will also be studied.

This is the 11th mission for the Columbia, and officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration were struggling to understand how a series of mistakes might have resulted in disaster had the the oldest shuttle in the fleet been launched 10 days ago.

The launching was delayed when faulty welds were discovered in temperature sensors in the super-cooled fuel lines of the Columbia.

Officials have admitted that the sensors might have broken free during launching and been pulled into one of the main engines, possibly causing a catastrophic explosion. The seriousness of the problem was not detected until the last minute, partly because parts used for testing had been sent to the wrong company.

An investigation is under way.

The Columbia is scheduled to land at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California nine days after the launching.