Spacewalker Seems to Be Right Man for Job

Nov. 3, 2007 — -- Scott Parazynski is the right man in the right place, by all accounts.

Flight Director Derek Hassman says having Parazynski perform today's most challenging of spacewalks solved one problem for him.

"The beauty of having Scott available to us is that it is one piece that you don't worry about," Hassman said. "I cannot overstate the significance of his experience and just his approach to the job."

It also helps that Parazynski is 6-foot-2 and has a longer reach, very important when he will be on the end of a 90-foot station arm/boom trying to reach a damaged solar array to repair it.

Parazynski woke up today to the music from the movie "Star Wars," dedicated to him by his son Luke.

"That was a great great way to wake up", said Parazynski, before he gave his best impression of Darth Vader "I just have to say, 'Luke, I'm your father. Use the force Luke.'"

His background is eclectic: He is an emergency medical doctor and a mountaineer who once coached the luge team from the Philippines for the 1988 Olympics. He volunteered his services as a doctor after Hurricane Katrina, helping treat the thousands of evacuees who flooded into the Astrodome in Houston.

This is Parazynski's fourth shuttle mission and his seventh spacewalk. He sat down with ABC News for an interview before the STS 120 mission launched.

ABC News: How lucky do you feel to be assigned to this mission?

Scott Parazynski: I am just so thrilled. This mission, from a personal perspective, is just beyond my wildest imagination. I looked at this flight several years ago, and I said several years ago out of all the flights I would like to be associated with it is the P6 relocation flight, because that is the most dramatic, complex thing I could possibly imagine. I did not have any glimmer of a hope that I would one day be assigned to it.

ABC News: What is scary about that first step out into space?

.Parazynski: On the space station, you drop open the thermal cover and there it is, you are traveling over the world at 17,500 miles an hour. And it is a huge glass-bottom boat, and people have described at as a real eye-opening experience.