First Nebraskan in Space

via Omaha's KETV, the shuttle is carrying the first Nebraskan in to space as well. Pretty cool.

The shuttle Atlantis will also carry the first Nebraskan in space, Clay Anderson of Ashland, NE to the ISS where he will take over mission specialist duties from fellow astronaut Sunita Williams. The weather report in Florida indicates a 70% chance of a launch on June 8, although there is a possibility weather could delay it. The current launch window expires June 12th. If the shuttle launches successfully tomorrow, it will return on June 19th.

Alot more on our Mr. Anderson at Sapce.com here. Apparently, he was a late add to the crew in order to bring Williams home at a regular ISS mission interval of about six months. He was orignally scheduled to go to the orbiting station in August on the STS-118 mission. He 's been workign with NASA since 1983 and joined the astronaut corps in 1998. He'll serve as flight engineer and science officer while aboard the ISS.

"Anderson holds a bachelor's of science degree in physics from Nebraska's Hastings College and a master's of science degree in aerospace engineering. He joined NASA full-time in 1983 to help design shuttle and ISS rendezvous and docking operations within the Mission and Planning and Analysis Division at JSC. Anderson joined NASA's astronaut ranks in 1998, where he has trained for a long-duration spaceflight from the start. He served as a crew support astronaut for the station's Expedition 4 mission, and later as a backup crewmember for Expeditions 12, 13 and 14 for the orbital laboratory."