With feet grounded firmly in his Winter, Wis., childhood, a Northland astronaut is getting ready to blast off into space for the third time.
Jeff Williams credits that background for his success as a NASA astronaut.
"Growing up on a farm -- Winter specifically, on a farm -- it just gave me a great foundation that I could build on later in life," Williams said from Houston during a break from training for Expeditions 21 and 22.
"I'm obviously excited to continue to be a part of what we are doing with the Space Station. ... Hopefully, I'll be able to apply some of my previous long duration experience to this mission."
Williams' next trip is scheduled to be a six-month journey into space aboard the International Space Station. Williams will be the flight engineer and commander of the Space Station.
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"This is one of the current frontiers of exploration and it represents both literally and figuratively our future, the future of humankind, certainly the future of our country," he said.
He and his crew, which includes Russian cosmonauts and astronauts from Japan, Canada and Holland, will help finish the final phase of work at the Space Station. The International Space Station is due to be complete in 2010. From there, missions to the moon will be launched, he said.
"We've got a lot on our plate; we've got the continuing assembly of one other major module -- we call it Node 3," Williams said. "And that will be the final main module in the U.S. segment. We also are adding modules to the Russian segment."
They will also install a unique set of windows they call "the cupola," which will be used for Earth observation.
And from space, Williams said, there is nothing quite like it.
"It's everything you might imagine, plus more," he said "It's a very humbling experience; it's an experience that makes you aware just how small and perhaps fragile we are in the infinite vastness of the universe."
Williams is set to blast off in the Russian Soyuz rocket Oct. 1.
When he returns to Earth six months later, he plans to share once again his inspiring story with school children in northern Wisconsin.
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"They are the ones that are going to grow up to be the next generation of scientists and explorers. I remember ... when I was a child in northern Wisconsin and later years, it was examples like astronauts and other folks that did unique things that really inspired me to look beyond my boundaries at the time and consider other opportunities out there."
