Michigan AF Reserve Doctor/Lt. Colonel -- Shuttle lift-off duty

from M-Live story posted online (www.mlive.com/ )

Freeland, Michigan citizen  Dr. Gregory Pinnell stood by for every minute of Friday's morning launch.

Pinnell, a U.S. Air Force Reserve lieutenant colonel, was a flight surgeon on standby at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., ready to react if the four astronauts confronted an emergency on the launch pad or in flight.  “It’s up,” Pinnell said Friday afternoon (July 8, 2011). “We’re relieved, very relieved, that it’s up safely. They’ve got a 12-day mission ahead of them now, and then it’s going to be the job to get them back down safely.
“I haven’t really even had time to think about it’s the last one,” he said. “... There’s too many things going on now to get too sanguine about it.”
The 135th shuttle mission, the 24th time Pinnell has gone to Florida to watch and wait as a doctor, will resupply the International Space Station and test a robotic refueling device.
“There’s a lot of good science that’s going to come out of this, but we also have a big future ahead, and it’s going to be cool to get to that once this is done,” he said.
The White House has called for commercial space flights to fill the void of the end of shuttle missions. NASA will focus on a new space capsule for trips to near-Earth orbit and possibly Mars.
“Hopefully, this will inspire some younger people who saw this who will be the next generation, the engineers, the astronauts, the planners who will take us to what is beyond the shuttle,” Pinnell said.
“And really, that’s the whole point of bringing your family down is to inspire the next generation.”
Still, the end of the era of the world’s first reusable space plane is “bittersweet,” Pinnell said.
He’s focused on returning to the space center in less than two weeks. He’ll standby in a HH-60 Pavehawk helicopter, ready to launch if needed to the astronauts’ aid when Atlantis lands.