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USC Teacher-in-Space Finalist Attends Endeavour's Last Launch

Upper St. Clair's connection to astronaut Mike Fincke.

On an overcast June day in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Upper St. Clair High School and Fort Couch Middle School gifted education coordinator Pat Palazzolo got to watch the last launch of the space shuttle Endeavour.

Palazzolo was the Pennsylvania Teacher-in Space winner who nearly had to ride in the Challenger—the ill-fated shuttle that broke apart minutes after liftoff, killing all seven crew members in 1986. She received a VIP invitation to attend the Endeavour launch from a former student, who is currently the senior policy advisor to NASA’s chief scientist.

During middle school, the former student and her peers entered a competition to name the Endeavour, the Challenger’s replacement at that time. Palazzolo explained that “each of the orbiters is named after existing or historical ships.” She said they chose the name because Captain Cook’s ship Endeavour had been the “first seagoing vessel to go for research instead of just for gold.” Although they did not win, since others also chose Endeavour, they still felt a connection to it.

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Thanks to Palazzolo and an Upper St. Clair alumnus, who works at Mission Control, I got the opportunity to talk to Mike Fincke, while he was aboard the International Space Station. I was one of fifteen students from Upper St. Clair known as the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) ambassadors, who had the opportunity to ask Fincke questions about space.

Fincke was also one of the mission specialists on the Endeavour’s last mission, along with Roberto Vittori, Drew J. Feustel and Gregory E. Chamitoff. Mark E. Kelly, the husband of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was the mission’s commander.

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Palazzolo sent collector’s cachet envelopes with the Endeavour mission’s logo on it to some of the ARISS ambassadors, including myself. There was a card inside explaining the mission’s objectives of delivering the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 and the Express Logistics Carrier-3 to the International Space Station.

Although this was Sewickley Academy alumnus Fincke’s first time in the space shuttle, Palazzolo states that he is “now the American astronaut who has logged the most hours in space.” On previous missions, he traveled in the Russian Soyuz. En route to the Endeavour’s launch, Palazzolo rode on the same plane with Fincke’s father and aunt. Although she did not get a chance to speak to him directly, his father relayed how “very excited” Fincke was about his first mission in the space shuttle.

Fincke said, “The reality is even better than the dream.”

As for Palazzolo’s feelings witnessing the Endeavour’s last launch she said, “It was bittersweet because I had been fortunate enough to be at the last launch of Discovery. So because I was with students, it was exciting, watching it through their eyes.”

Attending the Endeavour launch alone, she said, “It hit home even more that this is almost the end. This will probably be the last time I’m at Kennedy Space Center…The launch itself was very different, you didn’t see it for a long time. It did not lift off into a clear blue sky; it was very, very overcast. And it was a wonderful lift-off but it looked as if it burned a hole into the heavens and disappeared within twenty seconds of lift-off. So you could hear it, but you couldn’t see it for very long.”

Palazzolo explained that originally Endeavour was supposed to be the last space shuttle launched, and that Atlantis was to be its back up in case there was a problem. However, since Atlantis was ready to go, the decision was made to send it up with a four-person crew, and its current launch date is July 8, 2011.

As a Teacher-in-Space finalist for the Challenger, Palazzolo said, "It's really hard to believe to after all these years that Atlantis will be the absolute last space shuttle launch ever and then they’re all going to museums.”

After their final missions, Endeavour will be housed at the California Science Center, and Atlantis will remain at the Kennedy Space Center.   

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