Story Courtesy Of The Canadian Press; Photo Courtesy Of Spaceports.Blogspot.Com; Video Courtesy Of Nasa, via Youtube.

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Peter Rakobowchuk, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Published Wednesday May 27th, 2009

MONTREAL – The man who already holds the Canadian record for time spent in space blasted off again Wednesday on an ambitious bid to set a new mark – one Bob Thirsk’s would-be successors, including his 13-year-old son Aidan, will find a lot harder to beat.

“He’s a budding engineer, so we’ll see,” Thirsk, 55, said of his youngest, who was no doubt watching in wonder – much the way Thirsk himself did as a boy – as his father’s Russian Soyuz space capsule slipped the surly bonds of Earth.

His two other children – an 18-year-old son Elliott and 22-year-old daughter Lisane – prefer the arts, much like his wife, Brenda Biasutti, Thirsk admitted in a recent pre-launch interview with The Canadian Press.

An aspiring astronaut since the night he watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon, Thirsk – a medical doctor from New Westminster, B.C. – will spend six months aboard the International Space Station, shattering his 1996 mark of 16 days, 21 hours, 48 minutes and 30 seconds.

The mission, he said, could prove to be an early stepping stone to the goal of one day seeing a Canadian astronaut follow in the fabled footsteps Armstrong left in the dusty moonscape half a century ago in 1969.

“I do not think that I will personally be the person that goes to the moon for Canada,” he said from a tiny Moscow apartment just days before liftoff.

“But I do think that the work I’ll be doing during the six-month expedition aboard the space station is pioneering work. I think that, in a sense, I’ll be contributing and paving the way for newer astronauts to make that voyage.”

That expedition, which roared to life shortly after 6:30 a.m. EDT on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, was also notable for the fact that it made Thirsk the first Canuck to hitch a ride aboard both a Russian and an American spacecraft.

In his only other space mission in 1996, Thirsk flew as a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Columbia – the ill-fated vessel that nine years later broke apart over Texas on re-entry, killing all seven crew members.

Once he arrives Friday at the International Space Station, Thirsk – one of the first six original astronauts to be chosen for the fledgling Canadian Astronaut Program in 1983 – will begin a mission that includes a half-dozen experiments and helping to maintain and repair the aging facility.

He’s scheduled to return home in November in the Soyuz, which will be parked outside during his stay.

“We’re going up and down with the same vehicle and the same crew,” he said. “The vehicle will function as our lifeboat for six months if there’s any problem aboard the space station.”

Earlier this month, Jeremy Hansen and David St-Jacques were welcomed into the exclusive club of Canadian astronauts, becoming the agency’s first new recruits since Thirsk himself joined their ranks more than 25 years ago.

Thirsk hinted strongly that his latest mission will likely be the last time he suits up for space travel.

“I think it’s time for all us current astronauts to step aside and let the new blood, the new ideas and these new astronauts get some experience now.”

Thirsk, who was certified as a flight engineer for the Soyuz spacecraft, is travelling with Roman Romanenko, a 37-year-old Russian, and Frank De Winne, a 48-year-old Belgian astronaut with the European Space Agency.

When he arrives with his two crew mates, the space station will be expanded to a six-person permanent crew.

One of the goals of his mission is to prove the orbiting space lab can support six people for a long duration.

Thirsk said he’s looking forward to a visit by fellow Canadian astronaut Julie Payette, whose own 16-day mission aboard the U.S. space shuttle Endeavour will get underway June 13.

Her arrival at the ISS will herald yet another first: two Canadian astronauts aboard the space station at the same time.

Thirsk, born in New Westminster, B.C., will celebrate his 56th birthday in space on Aug. 17.

He’s crossing his fingers that ginger snaps and doughnut holes will be among the occasional care-package goodies arriving from his family by way of the several visiting missions scheduled to take place over the next six months.