Tech student Colin Ake captured the launch of the space shuttle Discovery, with alumnus Doug Wheelock aboard, at Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Oct. 23.

Doug Wheelock, MS AE 92, conducted a spacewalk Oct. 30 as part of the current mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

Wheelock, a mission specialist, and his fellow crew members blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Oct. 23 for an expected 13-day journey during which they delivered the Node 2 to the International Space Station.

"I went to graduate school at Georgia Tech, just a wonderful point in my life," Wheelock said in a prelaunch NASA interview. "I just had such a passion for figuring out how all this stuff worked and how I can play a role in making it work better or finding something else to be just a little bit better.

"Georgia Tech ... laid the foundation for me to be able to go back to be a test pilot because now I could take this operational experience that I had ... combined with the engineering knowledge that Georgia Tech had given me," said Wheelock, also a West Point graduate.

Up-to-the-minute reports on STS-120 are available at www.nasa.gov. The transcript from Wheelock's interview is available at www.nasa.gov.