NASA briefed journalists yesterday, June 1, about both the activities of the Expedition 15 crew who are residents of the International Space Station and the schedule for space shuttle Atlantis' lift-off on June 8. In these days when shuttle missions are sort-of routine. "Beam me up Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin" says the Atlantis mission commander, Rick Sturckow, a Marine colonel to the ISS' Russian commander. It is pretty normal fare these days after Atlantis has flown 28 times out of 118 shuttle missions.

Somehow this press conference caught my imagination more than usual. Not as much as, back in the 1950s, a pal's father took us camping on Cocoa Beach to watch a long-ago lift-off before there was a race to the moon or giant Titan rockets. We had fun. It got to T minus 20 and stayed there. It didn't happen. Those were more primitive days. Today the shuttle is on its way out and it doesn't create the same rapt awe as once it did-- even for another night lift-off.

We also hadn't been entertained or, perhaps, saddened to find our astronaut's were not larger-than-life, the only remainders of the mythic heroes like Armstrong, Shackleton, Hillary or Lindbergh. They had jealousies and loves and even shared insanity with the rest of us. Welcome to the human race, guys and dolls.

So we now have a new situation, perhaps a new respect for the men and women who are launched (some have spoken of "riding the rocket") heavenward to face an immensity of space, a different level of reality where the face of the infinite must make even the most uptight and shipshape of them explode with wonder. They must come back changed at least a little.

The shuttle herself has taken on the mantle of the experienced old lady of space. Maybe a little ill-at-ease locked onto the Earth and immobile after the relative freedom of low-earth orbit. She was getting ready for her launch back in March when hail damaged her nose, tore away some heat shields and sent her scooting (2 mph, I believe) back to the NASA-sized hangar for her nose job.