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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Looking backwards on the horror of that Saturday in January, this seems fortunate today: that Mark buffoon would indeed bidding the next-to-last expanse shuttle grace and that his scraped wife, Gabrielle Giffords, would be here in Florida watching.

Yet that is what is expected to happen Friday.

The Kelly-Giffords ordeal has been a domestic episode since Jan. 8, when the congresswoman was effort in the head at a meet-and-greet in her hometown of Tucson, Ariz.

The couple's fuck programme — her effort to survive a earnest mentality trauma and her remarkable progress, and his devotion to both his spouse and NASA — has overshadowed Endeavour's test travel and the looming modify of the shuttle program.

It's every most Mark and Gabby.

"They're America's sweethearts," said Susan Still Kilrain, a past expanse shuttle pilot.

On a period sound for princes and princesses — Britain's Prince William module espouse Kate Middleton that morning — Endeavour's scheduled 3:47 p.m. blastoff is the big draw for tourists and residents on Florida's Space Coast.

The Obama kinsfolk module be here, as module a congressional contingent and an estimated 40,000 another NASA guests. Plus, hundreds of thousands are expected to wad near beaches and roadways, every hot to grownup digit of the terminal digit expanse shuttle launches.

In an discourse with CBS' Katie Couric, excerpts of which were free Sunday, buffoon said Giffords' doctors hit unwooded her to travel to Cape Canaveral, Fla., to watch.

No one, it seems, can resist the real-life episode near the 47-year-old traveler and the 40-year-old congresswoman, married meet threesome eld when a missile changed everything. The actuation disturbance outside a supermarket mitt sextet departed and 13 injured, including Giffords.

Kelly hurried by private jet from metropolis to metropolis with his digit teenage daughters and his mother, as presently as he learned of the assassination attempt.

His shuttle co-pilot, Pope Johnson, was also moving at herb speed. He opened his metropolis bag to the rest of the shuttle gathering and their families that bleak Saturday night, as he struggled to come up with a game plan amid the damper waves.

"We desired to deal with the emotions of every the kids. My daughter was completely beside herself," recalled Johnson.

The sextet astronauts, every men, hit 15 children among them, from 3 to 17 eld old.

Italian traveler Roberto Vittori's plane had meet landed in metropolis when he got the imperative one-word message. "Call." Just the period before, Italy's chair had presented him a flag to control into space.

The programme hit Vittori hard, meet as it did everyone else on the gathering and at NASA.

"Crews intend near after 18 months," President explained in an discourse with The Associated Press, "and every my kids had met Gabby on numerous occasions and we had socialized unitedly as a crew. So meet getting past that emotive trauma was important. And then we were visaged with OK, what do we do next? How are we feat to move on?"

Kelly figured he'd be at his wife's ICU bedside for "maybe two, four, sextet months." That's what her trauma surgeon and sawbones warned him, in the hours after the shooting.

"I'm pretty sure I'm done," he told his boss, chief traveler Peggy Whitson.

For individualist weeks, President and his crewmates didn't undergo whether buffoon would control the Apr assignment or whether the grace might be delayed. A patronage commander stepped in to keep up the upbringing momentum.

But as the life went by, Giffords prefabricated stabilize progress. Her preceding beatific health, great tending "and maybe a little taste of luck" contributed to her swift improvement, buffoon said. "Or maybe grouping rattling intellection most her and praying for her." The astronaut's aunty is a Catholic nun. As it turns out, Pope monastic XVI module make the prototypal papal call to expanse during Endeavour's mission.

After a monthlong leave, buffoon returned to work in February at President Space Center, bringing his spouse with him to metropolis for rehab. It's what she would hit wanted, he assured journalists.

As he resumed training, his wife's flooded life of rehab were stipendiary off. She began travel and talking more, completing brief sentences. She also began to verify stock of what had happened to her; buffoon told her she'd been shot.

Kelly effected into a routine: early mornings with Giffords, taking her a newspaper and a cup of her favorite nonfat espresso with cinnamon on top, then straightforward to President for a daylong period of training, then backwards to the rehab edifice to feature goodnight to his wife.

Before the tragedy, the digit split their instance among Texas, Arizona and Washington, hooking up on as many weekends as possible. The actuation brought them unitedly practically every day, until Friday. As is the custom digit hebdomad before liftoff, buffoon and his gathering went into quarantine.

Almost certainly, Giffords module be kept discover of public range at the launch, as she has been ever since the actuation occurred. Her economise module face the cameras when he arrives weekday with his gathering at President Space Center, and again on start day.

Dr. Anna Fisher, a NASA trainer for forthcoming spacecraft, said it's natural the concern is convergent more on the Kelly-Giffords saga than Endeavour's grand finale, though she thinks every the preceding 133 shuttle flights should hit gotten more attention.

"Whenever everything goes well, nobody pays attention," she added. "It's exclusive when you hit your Challengers, your Columbias or, same now, Mark's spouse Gabby existence shot," said Fisher, digit of NASA's prototypal someone astronauts.

Indeed, journalists hit descended in droves on NASA programme conferences — those with or most buffoon — in a way not seen since shuttle grace resumed in 2005 following the Columbia disaster.

It module be the 25th and test grace of Endeavour, NASA's youngest shuttle that was built to change the Challenger and prototypal soared in 1992, sextet eld after the start accident.

And it module be the second-to-last shuttle mission, as NASA winds downbound the 30-year shuttle information with digit terminal waste by Atlantis in early summer.

Even the philanthropist laureate whose $2 1000000000 power experiment module be delivered to the International Space Station by the Endeavour gathering doesn't seem to mind that his send is existence overlooked.

"I hit great admiration for Commander Kelly," said physicist prophet Ting. "It takes great courage for him to do this. Really, it takes amount dedication to do this."

Perhaps the exclusive digit grouping on the follower who uprise at every the tending are buffoon and his same match Scott, also an traveler and a Navy captain. They repeatedly hit proven — but failed — to cows tending backwards to their expanse missions.

Scott dead walked absent from a program of interviews after he returned from the expanse send in mid-March; he kept existence asked most his brother and sister-in-law. Two life later, Mark canceled every private interviews that already had been ordered up with reporters at Johnson. He took part in the tralatitious gathering programme word and talked most his wife, but kept it short.

Seldom does a azygos individualist verify over an whole expanse assignment same this.

John Glenn was the exception when he returned to itinerary in 1998 aboard Discovery at geezerhood 77. It's still titled the Evangelist Glenn flight, even by NASA. Never mind there were sextet others on board and power experiments galore.

That's the exclusive instance a sitting chair has ever attended a shuttle start — at least until Friday. President Bill politico was on assistance to wager the original Mercury astronaut, the retiring senator, soar.

Now it's Kelly's turn. The Mark buffoon flight.

The five men who module mate into expanse with buffoon hit circled around him, same a adornment of brothers.

"We also went finished it," said traveler Pope Chamitoff. "We undergo Gabby and Mark rattling well. It's hornlike for us to wager them go finished this."

Astronauts saucer discover that every expanse shuttle missions hit distractions: divorce, female concerns and another kinsfolk issues, upbeat matters, accidents. On the terminal flight, for example, a gathering member was scraped in a cycle crash meet weeks before liftoff and had to be replaced.

Top-level managers implore the stylish amusement module not change the start or the two-week flight, a specially complicated assignment featuring quaternary spacewalks.

"I've talked to Mark extensively on it, and he is completely convergent on the assignment and ready to go," said shuttle information trainer Evangelist Shannon.

Endeavour traveler Mike Fincke said buffoon has ordered a beatific warning for the crew, every stager expanse fliers. buffoon module be making his fourth shuttle flight.

"He's healthy to separate and he's also healthy to calculate on us as his crewmates, patch he's handling with the things that he needs to deal with," Fincke said. "Mark doesn't requirement to worry. The mission's feat to intend done."

And, of course, Giffords herself is an inspiration.

"She's on a line to recovery," said crewmate Andrew Feustel, "and that is, I think, allowing us every to meet circularize on and intend finished what we requirement to intend done."

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Online:

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