Missions mark giant leaps for womankind

— -- As one female astronaut commands the shuttle Discovery, another will assume the leadership post on the space station

When space shuttle Discovery blasts off as early as Tuesday, the astronaut in the commander's seat will make history — and also represent the likely end of an era.

Commander Pamela Melroy, 46, will be second female shuttle commander. She'll also almost certainly be the last.

No other female astronaut is qualified to lead a shuttle flight, and NASA is unlikely to hire women to follow in Melroy's footsteps before the shuttle retires in 2010.

Still, Melroy's trip represents how far women have come in taking on leadership roles in space. Melroy's arrival in space will mark the first time that two female commanders will orbit the Earth. The other is astronaut Peggy Whitson, who today officially becomes the first female commander of the International Space Station.

The overlap "is just indicative that there are enough women in the program that coincidentally this can happen," Melroy says. "And that is a wonderful thing."

It may be a long time before it happens again. There is no one waiting to follow Melroy, though women account for 19, or 21%, of the 91 astronauts eligible to fly space missions. None of the 19 are pilot-astronauts, the group from which shuttle commanders are chosen.

The space agency plans to hire more astronauts in 2009, but they are unlikely to fly on the shuttle, which will be grounded long before the new recruits' training ends.

Melroy attributes the lack of women on the ladder toward a command to "statistics (that are) very tough." Those chosen by NASA as pilot-astronauts must have spent at least 1,000 hours flying jets, and military test pilots are strongly preferred.

Fewer than two dozen women in the world have those credentials, Melroy says. Fewer than five female pilots graduate each year from the military's test-pilot schools.

NASA officials don't dwell on the lack of women shuttle bosses. The agency prefers to focus on the future, which will offer more — though different — opportunities for female astronauts.

"It would be nice" to have more female shuttle chiefs, says NASA's chief of astronaut selection, Duane Ross, but few women with the right résumés have applied.

Melroy's experience as an Air Force test pilot will come in handy during her mission. The shuttle commander's job includes two of the flying world's most coveted and difficult tasks: landing the shuttle and docking it to the orbiting laboratory 200 miles above Earth.

Melroy jokes that making lunch in orbit for the other astronauts will be one of her main duties. As commander she also has the heavy responsibility of assuring her crew's safety and her mission's success.

Space station commanders don't have to be pilot-astronauts, opening the door to more women, Ross says. So does NASA's decision to focus less on test-pilot experience as it chooses the 2009 astronaut class.

While Melroy can't predict when she might have a successor, station chief Whitson says another woman could take the reins of the lab in two or three years. Whitson says she sought the challenge of directing a station mission but never aspired to be in the history books.

"Being the first female commander is one of those things where I feel lucky to be in the right place at the right time," she says. "It just happened that way."

The day before Whitson launched into space earlier this month aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, she was presented with a gift acknowledging her status: a horsewhip carried as a mark of authority by male Kazakh chieftains.

The whip is "for the men to remember that you are the boss," Sergei Shevchenko, who works with the crews of Russian spaceships, told Whitson.

"I'm hoping that I will not be needing this," said a laughing Whitson, who will oversee a crew of five men. "But just in case!"

Not all Russians are as respectful as Shevchenko. When a reporter asked Whitson a series of questions Tuesday after her arrival at the station, her Russian crewmate chimed in before she could.

"Peggy is a woman, and that's a lot of questions for a woman to answer right away," said cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, who then answered the questions himself. Yurchikhin, the station's outgoing commander, will depart the station Sunday.

The incident was reminiscent of a 1996 episode when U.S. astronaut Shannon Lucid prepared for a stay on the Russian space station Mir. The chief of cosmonaut training, Yuri Glazkov, said Lucid would improve Mir because all women like to clean.

Whitson, like all station residents, will do her share of cleaning, but she also has larger responsibilities. Next Thursday, Melroy is scheduled to link Discovery to the station so the station and shuttle crews can work together on a high-profile assignment: an ambitious effort to expand the orbiting lab, which is roughly half-done.

The two space commanders come from different worlds. Whitson, 47, grew up on a hog farm outside Beaconsfield, Iowa, population 32. She holds a doctorate in biochemistry and has published multiple scientific papers about her research.

Melroy was a military brat who moved constantly as a child and joined the Air Force, rising to colonel. She flew combat missions in Iraq and graduated from the Air Force's exclusive test-pilot school.

Despite their different paths, both were inspired by the Apollo missions as little girls. For a time, Melroy flirted with the idea of being a ballerina. Both women have husbands though no children.

Whitson served her first term on the station in 2002. She was the second of three women, in addition to 35 male residents, to live there, and can leg-press more weight than some of her male colleagues. Melroy, at 5 feet, 4 inches, is tough enough to be called "Pambo" by her NASA colleagues.

Both women have earned the respect of their crews. Melroy's pilot, George Zamka, recalled a crew-bonding exercise that required the astronauts to paddle kayaks. Zamka, a novice kayaker, was flailing in the water when his commander glided by him with perfect form.

"She does a lot of things with grace and elegance," he said.

Astronaut Daniel Tani, who will answer to Whitson on the station, said his station commander has keen engineering skills but is also known for running the margarita machine at NASA parties. Tani will ride to the station as part of Melroy's shuttle crew, making him the butt of jokes that he takes with good humor.

"I've got two women commanders at work, and my life is run by three women at home" said Tani, who is married and has two daughters. "So far I've survived all of it, so maybe I can get through the next couple months."