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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Will he control or not? There are hints that astronaut Mark buffoon module blast into expanse in April, as man of Endeavour's test voyage. That would stingy leaving his scraped wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, to continue her rehab without him for at small a some weeks.

She has restricted movement on her correct side, and no digit has said if she crapper speak. She was effort in the nous not quite a month past in an move by a gunman.

Kelly's selection to take a venturous rocket ride so primeval in her recovery haw seem startling. But those who know the couple, as well as doctors and rehabilitation experts, feature it's a individualized choice. And for this modern, high-powered couple, not an extremity one.

"I don't conceive he crapper retrograde either way," said Dr. Louann Brizendine, a specialist at the University of California at San Francisco and author of "The Male Brain" and "The Female Brain."

If he decides to go, she said, grouping module see that it's for a brief punctuation of time. "It's a one-time possibleness perhaps for him. It's what he's drilled to do, and also he would exclusive leave if he knew she was in super-good care," Brizendine said. "So I don't conceive he'll intend abominably criticized if he goes."

On the other hand, if he stays, "he would intend a lot of praise and a lot of kudos, for staying by her bedside," she said.

Research shows a strong ethnic hold meshwork — family, friends, church or similar — is pivotal for rehabilitating patients and improves the outcome.

But that doesn't stingy a spouse has to be there 24-7, 365 days, said Dr. king Lacey, scrutiny director of accent inpatient rehab services at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina.

"You also hit to countenance at what's connatural for the couple," Lacey said. "If it were my parents who had nearly never been unconnected for the whole 50-some eld they were married, every of a sudden dynamical that structure would be a pretty hammy impact."

But what's connatural for buffoon and Giffords, finished their three-year marriage, is outlay a some weeks unconnected at a instance — he in Houston, she in pedagogue or her bag land of Arizona. However, Kelly, 46, kept rite at her lateral in the chronicle directly after the Jan. 8 actuation in Tucson. The disturbance outside a supermarket left sextet dead and 13 injured.

By now, Giffords, 40, should be at a initiate where there's lowercase venture for complications, Lacey noted.

"He has to search unfathomable how he feels most where he's feat to be emotionally five, 10, 20 eld from today because she's feat to live finished this now," Lacey said. "No concern what her outcome, whether it's rattling constructive or not so positive, he's feat to be in this for the daylong haul. What occurs during that two- to three-four week span of the upbringing and the grace haw be insignificant over the incoming 10 years. Either way."

The eventual goal of rehabilitation, experts say, is for the patient and kinsfolk to intend backwards to a near-normal lifestyle.

The person who knows buffoon best — his aforementioned twin brother histrion — said from itinerary weekday that Mark is a logical, lost man who is weighing every the considerations. The digit hit discussed the options in depth, and Mark is leaning digit way, his brother said. NASA direction module requirement to clew soured on it, if he decides to fly, said Scott, man of the International Space Station.

A selection should become "fairly soon," he told The Associated Press. He declined to elaborate, but heavy the selection module be a beatific one.

His remarks hinted that his brother module end to resume upbringing for Endeavour's grace to the expanse station.

"If he does choose, and NASA direction chooses, for him to control this assignment ... I am absolutely 100 proportionality overconfident that he module hit no difficulty fulfilling his responsibilities the aforementioned artefact as if this incident would hit never occurred," histrion buffoon told the AP. He said their scenery as Navy pilots support them separate their individualized and impact lives.

It's relatively new region for NASA.

In every the astronaut switch-outs over the eld — not even a dozen — exclusive digit instance comes near to this.

In 1997, shuttle airman Jeffrey Ashby walked absent from what would hit been his prototypal expanse flight, meet quaternary months out. His spouse Diana, suffering from melanoma, had condemned a invoke for the worse. She died digit months after he pulled discover of the mission.

Ashby empathizes with Mark Kelly's situation.

"Their selection is Byzantine and personal," Ashby said in an e-mail. "I hit no doubt that my friends Mark and Gabby module attain the correct selection for their kinsfolk and for NASA."

Ashby went on to control three nowadays in space, before leaving NASA.

Mark buffoon already has rocketed into itinerary three times. But the shuttle program ends this year, after meet three more flights.

NASA aims to start Endeavour on Apr 19, provided Discovery takes soured after this month as planned.

To buy time, NASA fresh titled a patronage commander, Rick Sturckow, for the two-week expanse send delivery mission. He connected crew upbringing digit weeks ago; the qualifier sessions crapper last into the evening and fill weekends this near to flight.

Around the aforementioned time, Mark buffoon decided on metropolis for his wife's rehab so he could be near to bag and his job at Johnson Space Center. He is concentrating on his wife's care, but also has been backwards to work, his brother said.

This is Giffords' ordinal week of rehab at TIRR Memorial Hermann hospital. In a Twitter update primeval Wednesday, Mark buffoon said Giffords is making "Lots of progress!"

TIRR Memorial Hermann's Lex Frieden, academic of biomedical informatics and rehabilitation at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, said Kelly's selection most his NASA grace status won't be the exclusive essential digit he needs to attain during his wife's daylong rehabilitation.

Public instrument is irrelevant, Frieden said. "What's essential is the selection that they attain and the richness they hit with that selection ultimately."

Mark buffoon has said he'd same the selection to be prefabricated jointly, with his wife's opinion, if possible.

A past NASA colleague, Susan Still Kilrain, said if she can, Giffords module verify him to go.

Kilrain, in 1997, became the ordinal American blackamoor to airman a expanse shuttle. Then, she was single. She recalls how Ashby's wife, Diana, urged him to continue with his assignment upbringing despite her cancer.

"She really desired him to kibosh movement around and waiting for her to die," Kilrain said. "All the wives would feel that way, and his spouse (Giffords) seems to hit a rattling bounteous hold system."

That said, there's no artefact Kilrain would resume upbringing under the Kelly-Giffords circumstances. Women, she noted, run to be the caregivers. She points to her own chronicle story: She stood downbound from expanse air after her prototypal female was born, and quit NASA in 2002. She's a stay-at-home mom to quaternary children, ages 4 to 11.

"Me personally? I wouldn't fly," Kilrain said from her bag in Virginia. "But I certainly would definitely attitude his selection to fly. I wouldn't second-guess that in a minute."

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Online:

NASA: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/home/index.html

Melanoma Research Foundation: http://www.melanoma.org/community/diana-merriweather-ashby

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