Polish Times - Czas Polski - tygodnik polski w Detroit, USA

A CD containing works by Chopin appeared on board the US space shuttle Endeavour, which blasted off on February 8 from Cape Canaveral.  The Chopin CD and a copy of the composer’s manuscript to the prelude in A minor have been provided by the Polish embassy in Washington to the Endeavour crew, headed by Captain George Zamka (pictured), a NASA astronaut of Polish ancestry.

Chopin’s manuscript will then be given to the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, during the Endeavour’s crew visit to Poland in May this year.  The space flight of the Polish composer’s works is part of the celebrations of the Chopin Year honoring the bicentennial of Chopin’s birth.

Built as a replacement after the shuttle Challenger was lost on launch in 1986, NASA’s Endeavour arched into space through breaks in the predawn cloud cover over Kennedy Space Center that forced a 24-hour delay Saturday night. 
Liftoff for the STS-130 mission came at 4:14 a.m. EST, and Endeavour’s six-member crew reached space a little more than eight minutes later after an ascent up the East Coast of the U.S. as it streaked north toward the station’s high-inclination orbit.
“We’ll see you in a couple of weeks; it’s time to go fly,” radioed mission Commander George Zamka.

Over the next two weeks Endeavour’s crew - Commander George Zamka; pilot Terry Virts, and mission specialists Kay Hire, Steve Robinson, Nicholas Patrick and Bob Behnken - will join the five-man ISS crew in installing and outfitting the Italian-built Tranquility pressurized node.

Once it is berthed on one side of the Unity node that links the station’s Russian elements to the rest of the station, Tranquility will house life support and exercise equipment, a toilet and the long-awaited station cupola.  Also built by Thales Alenia in Turin, Italy, the cupola will give station crew members a 360-degree view of the surrounding heavens through seven windows - six on the sides and one on top.

If all goes as planned, Endeavour is scheduled to return to Kennedy on Saturday night, Feb. 20.

George “Zambo” Zamka is an American NASA astronaut of Polish ancestry who piloted the Space Shuttle Discovery in its October 2007 mission to the International Space Station.

He was born in Jersey City in 1962.  He was raised in New York City and Rochester Hills, Michigan.  He graduated from Rochester Adams High School in 1980.

Zamka graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from the United States Naval Academy in 1984.  He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps after graduating from the United States Naval Academy in May 1984.  He received A-6E Intruder training at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington in 1985-1987.  In 1990, he trained as an F/A-18D Hornet pilot and was then assigned to VMFA(AW)-121.  Zamka flew 66 combat missions during Operation Desert Storm.  In 1993, he was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California as a forward air controller.  In December 1994, he graduated from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, following which, he served as an F/A-18 Hornet test pilot and operations officer.

In 1997, he earned a Masters of Science degree in Engineering Management from the Florida Institute of Technology.  In 1998, he returned to VMFA(AW)-121 and deployed to MCAS Iwakuni, Japan.

In June 1998, Zamka was selected for the NASA astronaut program, and reported for training in August.  He served as lead for the shuttle training and procedures division and as supervisor for the astronaut candidate class of 2004.  Zamka made his first spaceflight as the pilot of mission STS-120.