Joan Goodwin gets to the Johnson Space Center well before nine, and Houston is already airless and muggy. Joan can feel the sweat collecting along her hairline as she walks across the campus to the Mission Control building. She knows it’s the heat. But she also knows that’s not all it is. Her job today is one of her favorite parts of being an astronaut. She is CAPCOM on the Orion Flight Team for STS-LR9, the third flight of the shuttle Navigator. The role of CAPCOM—the only person in Mission Control who speaks directly to the crew on the shuttle—is one of many that astronauts fill when they
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