Patty Loew:
Our next report features a man who is well-grounded even though his job has him flying high. This week astronaut Jeffrey Williams blasted off from a desert base in Kazakhstan.

NASA:
Lift-off of the Soyuz rocket.

Patty Loew:
His third trip into space, his second on board a Russian Soyuz rocket. Art Hackett shows you how Williams became a hometown hero "In Wisconsin."  

Art Hackett:
During the Fourth of July weekend in the Chippewa County community of Bloomer the town gathered to dedicate a veteran's memorial.

Jeffrey Williams:
It's an honor to be here with you today.

Art Hackett:
A famous veteran, retired US army colonel Jeffrey Williams returned to the town in which he lived as a child.

Jeffrey Williams:
I also think of Bloomer every time I'm working on rehab or training with one of our trainers when he says go pick up that jump rope and do some jump rope. I think of Bloomer, the jump rope capital of the world.

Art Hackett:
An athlete? No, an astronaut. Jeffrey William’s journey from Bloomer to the blue yonder isn’t the one chronicled in The Right Stuff, though he was inspired by Tom Wolfe's book. Williams didn't fly fighter jets or experimental rocket planes. He was only the ninth US astronaut to start out in the US army.

Jeffrey Williams:
I started as a helicopter pilot. Got a fixed wing transition, flew a little bit of everything. All types of aircraft, through the experience at the naval test pilots school.

Art Hackett:
Williams' hometown is Winter in Sawyer County. His family moved there when Jeffrey was still in elementary school. He wound up living in the farmhouse built by his grandfather.

Jeffrey Williams:
Taught me carpentry since the age I was old enough to swing a hammer.

Art Hackett:
He also builds things in space and performed multiple space walks to assemble sections of the international space station.

Jeffrey Williams:
I said, Grandpa, NASA is looking for some construction workers on a space station and they're planning on building it. I thought I would try to apply for a job. He thought it was, you know, a neat thing but he could never understand why anybody would want to climb on top of a rocket.
                
Art Hackett:
Williams has climbed on top of a rocket twice. In March of 2000 Williams was flight engineer on the 101st shuttle mission. The flight hauled 2 1/2 tons of equipment and supplies to the space station.

Jeffrey Williams:
When the actual lift-off occurs, we jokingly like to say you know something significant just happened in your life. Of course, that's an understatement. To lift off the pad, to get that kick in the rear end. We have mirrors on our wrists that you can look out an overhead window over my head in that seat and watch the beach drop away below the shuttle, feel all the vibration and the sound and the energy is just an incredible experience.

Art Hackett:
NASA and the manned space program just turned 50. More than 300 people are or have held the title of astronaut. The gee whiz factor is fading.

Art Hackett:
Do you still get that?

Jeffrey Williams:
You still get that if we're recognized as an astronaut. Fortunately for us we're not typically recognized in a public setting unless we're there for that purpose and dressed in the blue flight suit.

Art Hackett:
The original Mercury 7 astronauts were so popular life magazine signed them to personal promotional contracts. Astronaut Jeffrey Williams has a smaller, but no less intense fan club, namely the 400 or so people who live in Winter, Wisconsin. They include, quite naturally William's parents, Lloyd Williams is Jeffrey's father.

Lloyd Williams:
He was a good student. And a very early interest in science. He used to go down in the basement and make rockets. That type of thing. Bring them on the concrete and they would all blow up. He got appointed to West Point. He met astronauts, listened to them and one day he said, I think I can do that.

Art Hackett:
What did you say then?

Lloyd Williams:
Great.
Art Hackett:
But watching her son lift off into space has been more difficult for Jeffrey's mother, Eunice.

Lloyd Williams:
Actually when those rockets went off her head went right here.

Eunice Williams:
Right. I never have seen him actually go up.

Art Hackett:
You couldn't look at it.

Eunice Williams:
Right. Because there is fire under there and whatever you call it.

Art Hackett:
Williams goes places but comes back to Winter. He's made numerous visits to the local school. Remember how Williams said people don't recognize astronauts unless they're wearing jump-suits? He was greeted by multiple visions of himself when he was in elementary school. When Williams talks about his missions, he brings something other astronauts may not have. A huge collection of personal photographs taken from space.

Jeffrey Williams:
I think everybody gets a different hobby of what they enjoy. For me it was photography. It is what consumed any free time I had. I squeezed photography in and between the work that I was assigned to do on a daily basis when I knew I was passing over a place of interest.

Art Hackett:
Did you ever try and pick out Winter?

Jeffrey Williams:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I took some great shots of Winter that I showed here when I came back to Winter a little over a year ago in a community presentation. I met my objective even to get a shot where you could pick out the farm buildings right here where we're sitting and I was able to do that. You can see the shed and the barn in the photography. This is hand held photography.

Art Hackett:
If your job title is astronaut and you work in space for a six-month stretch, you really need a hobby.

Jeffrey Williams:
I say it's a long time to be stuck in a tin can. I say it a little bit jokingly but there is some truth in that. Boring is not in the vocabulary. I found that I could not count the days to go or the days I had been there because there were too many of them and they went too slowly so I counted months or I didn't count at all. It is one of those environments that we have in life's experience where I think it's important just to take it one day at a time. Both for you on board the spacecraft as well as the family back home on earth.

Art Hackett:
The journey to the international space station will take two days. Williams will be in space the next six months and will see the completion of the international space station. Wisconsin Public Radio's Mike Simonson is at the cosmodrome in Kazakhstan providing updates on Wisconsin's astronaut. For more information and pictures, just go to wpt.org/inwisconsin.