Shuttle delay means Williams could set space record

Astronaut Sunita Williams is stuck in spaceas repairs are being made to the space shuttle, but the extended stay could net her a place in the record books.

She flew up to the international space station last December planning to come home in early July after a seven-month stay.But a hail storm that damaged the fuel tank of the space shuttle Atlantis has knocked NASA's flight schedule for the year out of whack.

Her ticket home, space shuttle Endeavour, will now get off the ground several weeks later than its originally scheduled June 28 launch.

During her longer stay in space, Williams is expected to break the U.S. record for continuous time in space. Her current crew mate, Michael Lopez-Alegria, will set that record when he returns to Earth on April 20 in a Russian Soyuz vehicle with 214 days in space. The longest stay in space was 437 days by Russian Valeri Polyakov.

So Williams who got a bit of attention for her accident with wasabi which wound up on the walls of the space station will have to wait a little longer to go to her favorite sushi restaurant in Houston.

"We're doing things we can as best we can to make her happy, and perhaps launch some special items that will make her more comfortable for that extended period of time," said Kirk Shireman, NASA's deputy manager of the space station program. "Aside from that, there's not a whole lot that one can do."

Flight surgeon Dave Alexander said Williams's physical fitness, mental well-being and radiation exposure would be monitored carefully, but "right now, the predictions are Suni can stay up for an extended period of time."

Shuttle repairs underway

The shuttle had been scheduled to launch on March 15 on a mission to the International Space Station. But athunderstormonFeb. 26pelted the shuttle with golf-ball-sized hail, causing 1,000 to 2,000 divots in the giant tank's foam insulation and minor damage to about 26 heat shield tiles on the shuttle's left wing, NASA said.

"This constitutes the worst damage from hail that we have seen on external tank foam," Wayne Hale, the manager of the space shuttle program, said in a written statement after the storm damage was assessed.

He said the damage was concentrated on the upper third of the enormous external tank, a section that holds liquid oxygen propellant. The shuttle had to be removed from the launch pad so that technicians could make the necessary repairs.