Astronaut: ‘Vining’s still home’

Nyberg presents flag that flew on Space Shuttle Discovery to hometown

By Jeff Hage (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Monday, August 18, 2008

VINING — Karen Nyberg has been all over the world.

Nyberg has been out of this world, too.

But there’s only one home for the NASA astronaut — little Vining, Minnesota. Population 68.

On Saturday, Nyberg returned home for the community’s annual Watermelon Day. She was the grand marshal in the Watermelon Day parade, autographed photographs for well-wishers who stood in line for well over an hour, and presented two personal keepsakes to the people of her hometown.

“It’s good to be here back in Vining,” Nyberg said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been here for Watermelon Day.”

As a youngster, the mid-August festival served as familiar stomping grounds for Nyberg.

“I grew up coming here every year,” she said.

“I roamed the streets of Vining all the time as a kid,” Nyberg said. “I would enjoy going to see my grandma, swimming in East Battle Lake, and hanging out here on Watermelon Day. This is definitely the place I will always call home.”

Because of that, Nyberg wanted to do something special for the people of her hometown.

“Because of that I wanted to do something special so I have a couple things to present to the people of Vining — past, current and future,” she said.

So she brought with her from space an American flag that flew over the Nation’s Capitol on Dec. 5, 2007, and a montage of photos of Nyberg and her crew featuring a Minnesota flag. Both items flew nearly six million miles above earth on the Space Shuttle Discovery, she said.

The flag presented to Vining had a very special meaning, Nyberg said.

The flag was flown over the United States Capitol on Dec. 5, 2007, at the request Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, she said. Giffords is married to Nyberg’s commander, Mark Kelly.

“She had this flag flown over the Capitol for me and then we took it on Discovery,” she said. The flag traveled almost six million miles at an altitude of 222 miles above the earth, Nyberg said.

A certificate accompanying the flag read: “This flag was flown for Karen Nyberg in honor of a space flight on Space Shuttle Discovery. A second certificate read: This flag was flown for the city of Vining, Minnesota on United States Space Shuttle Discovery which launched at 5:02 p.m. EDT on May 31, 2008.

She also shared the story of her space mission.

“A couple months ago I was fortunate enough to have an experience very few people have. It was an amazing, unforgettable, very unique experience,” Nyberg said.

“As you know I launched on Space Shuttle Discovery on May 31st and my six crew mates and I accelerated from zero to over 17,000 miles per hour in less than eight and a half minutes.It was quite an exhilarating ride as you can imagine.”

Nyberg and her crew then spent the next 14 days living and working in a micro-gravity environment.

“That was so much fun. It was very amazing floating around,” she said. “It sounds very childish, but it’s a blast and it was an experience I will never forget.”

A couple days after the Shuttle launched Nyberg and her crew rendezvoused with the international space station.

“I believe it’s one of the most magnificent feats of humanity to date. It’s orbiting above our earth about 220 miles and every 90 minutes it orbits the earth. It’s absolutely amazing,” Nyberg said.

The Space Station is a huge international effort and the crew delivered to it a Japanese module.

“It is the largest and most capable science laboratory that the international space station has and we brought it up in Discovery, got it installed and activated it on the Space Station,” she said.

“Living and working upon the International Space Station was absolutely incredible,” Nyberg said. “We were very very busy, obviously. It’s expensive to go up there and work so we worked hard every day.”

The crew did get some time to play around and to look out the window of the orbiter, she said.

“And I have to tell you looking out the window is amazing,” Nyberg said.

It’s neat to see the form of a continent but not seeing the lines dividing the countries, she said.

“It’s quite beautiful.”

The whole crew spent one night — or one night pass which is about 45 minutes — up in the flight deck of the orbiter looking out the window.

“We saw the Southern Lghts as we passed over Australia. We saw the Milky Way as bright as I’ve ever seen it. We saw shooting stars below us. The sunrises and sunsets are absolutely incredible and it happens every 45 minutes,” Nyberg said.

“Somebody said once — and it’s true — that you measure sunrises and sunsets in distance rather than time because you’re looking out the window and the very, very, stark blackness just creeps across the Earth until there’s nothing left but a very thin blue and orange line,” she said.

“It’s complete darkness and then you start to see the city lights and that is a true sign of civilization. You can definitely see the cities and see coastlines and all of that,” she said.

Judging from her view from Space, Nyberg said that most of the cities and lights are in the United States and Japan.

Afterwards the crew spent nine days docked to the Space Station and inspected its orbiter before it headed back to Earth and landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 14.

It was difficult for Nyberg getting her “Earth” legs back after her space flight was completed.

The hardest part about getting used to life back on Earth was coping with gravity, she said with a big smile.

“After living two weeks without gravity its very, very hard. Everything seems very heavy. I had a little video camera I was using and it seemed to weigh about 50 pounds when it really weighed about two,” she said.

“It took be about a day to get my land legs back but the next day I was feeling pretty good. “It took me a few days to get back to running like I like to do. Basically, the lack of gravity takes a toll on your body,” Nyberg said.

Nyberg considers herself fortunate to have flown on a space flight. She hopes she fortunate to make the trip one more time, too.

“I would like to fly in space again and eventually do a longer-duration flight aboard the space station,” she said. That’s what I’d like to do, but I’m kind of at the end of the line again as far as astronauts that get to fly on the space shuttle.”

She’s been doing much more than getting her “land-legs” back since returning to Earth in mid-June.

“I’m still working for NASA, doing some post-flight appearances. I went to Japan to brief the Japanese because we took up their laboratory and have a few more appearances to make around the world,” Nyberg said.

When done, she’ll get back to work at her home base in Houston supporting future space missions.

Nyberg had quite a time Saturday visiting old friends and new admirers. The line for a Karen Nyberg autographed photo stretched through a city park, across a street and down a good city block. Nyberg was signing for a good hour. She topped the day off serving as the grand marshal of the Watermelon Day Parade.

But there was more important business on her agenda, too. Her parents Ken and Phyllis Nyberg celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary over the weekend, too.

“We tried very hard to surprise them but it turned out we couldn’t surprise them for too long. But we did surprise them by having the entire family — all the kids and all the grandkids — here,” Nyberg said.

Why was it hard to keep the surprise?

“I had a request a couple months ago asking if I’d come back and be grand marshal of the parade and I was actually going to try and surprise my parents and comer back without them knowing,” she said.

But Vining is a small town and rumors circulate quickly — especially when Mom works at the town post office.

“People kept asking my sister and my Mom and Dad if I was going to be here so finally I had to let people know that yes, indeed, I was coming,” she said.

And she’s glad she did.

“I’ve had an amazing and an incredible experience. It’s been quite a journey, but after all that I must say there’s only one place on this beautiful blue Earth that will always be my home and that’s right here in Vining,” Nyberg said.