Astronaut marvelled at glories of space

By RUPERT CORNWELL in Washington

"This was definitely one to beat all."

Laurel Clark was a woman who cherished adventure, who had travelled to the ocean depths as a submarine doctor and dived in Scotland with elite US Navy Seals. But as that line said from an e-mail to her friends and family a day before she died in the Columbia disaster, nothing could match the glory and majesty of space.

"I have seen some incredible sights: lightning spreading over the Pacific, the Aurora Australia lighting up the entire visible horizon with the cityglow of Australia below, the crescent moon setting over the limb of the Earth, the vast plains of Africa and the dunes on Cape Horn."

Mt Fuji in Japan looked like "a small bump from up here".

Clark even managed a fleeting glimpse of her native Wisconsin: "Magically, the very first day we flew over Lake Michigan and I saw Wind Point [near the lakeside town of Racine where she grew up]. The perspective is truly awe-inspiring.

"Every orbit we go over a slightly different part of the Earth ... Whenever I do get to look out, it is glorious. Even the stars have a special brightness."

Soon she would be reunited with her family. Clark, who had joined Nasa in 1996, had carried with her on board the shuttle a sheet of paper carrying the photographs and fingerprints of her 8-year old son, Ian, and his classmates at elementary school in Houston, where she lived.

In her last message she wanted to reassure them. "My near vision has gotten a little worse up here so you may have seen pics/video of me wearing glasses. I feel blessed to be here representing our country and carrying out the research of scientists around the world. All of the experiments have accomplished most of their goals despite the inevitable hiccups that occur when such a complicated undertaking is undertaken."

Nor were they to be concerned at the problems of a weightless world. "The food is great and I am feeling very comfortable in this new, totally different environment. It still takes a while to eat as gravity doesn't help pull food down your oesophagus. It is also a constant challenge to stay adequately hydrated. Since our body fluids are shifted toward our heads our sense of thirst is almost non-existent."

Martha Wilson, Clark's roommate at the University of Wisconsin, told the Washington Post afterwards: "I heard her speaking to mission control on the internet. There was a smile in her voice and I knew she was loving every minute of it."

Every minute indeed, as the email shows - until those last dreadful moments last Saturday morning (local time) in the skies over the western US.

- INDEPENDENT