‘Girl Next Door’ Goes ‘Out Of This World’ On Russian Rocket

?She is excited!? exclaimed a very enthusiastic mother, Mary Ellen Cladwell. ?She’s looked forward to going to the space station.?

Most moms are a little nervous even seeing their kids off to college, but Mary Ellen Caldwell seems pretty calm considering her daughter is traveling 240 miles above the Earth’s surface.

?I think she’s more safe going up in the space station than she is going on the freeway in Houston,? she said. ?So it doesn’t bother me to watch her. I’m just excited for her achieving another goal in her life.?

This isn’t Tracy’s first dance with the stars. In August 2007, she visited the station as a STS-118 Endeavour mission specialist.

But this time her stay will be longer. She’ll have her work cut out for her for the next six months.

?She’s going to do a spacewalk on July 8th, and hook up a Russian segment to the station. That’s also one of her dreams, to be out there walking in space.?

She’ll also be perfoming experiments on herself. She?ll be studying the effects of potassium in weightlessness, and sending down her own biological data to NASA.

In between spacewalks and experiments, she’ll be able to “phone home” via cell phone, and her family will have a new way to keep track of Tracy.

?We have a new little device called closed circuit TV,? her mom said. ?We’ll be able to have scheduled interviews and family time with Tracy, that’s exclusive to us.?

Plus, her family will be able to beam up some care packages through NASA, and this time around Tracy has one special request.

?The major thing she requested in her package was Medjool dates from our area,? her mom said.

So sure enough, her mom made a special trip to Hadley’s that she’ll never forget.

?I said my daughter is an astronaut, and she’s ready to go up there,? her mom said. ?[The salesperson] gets on the loud speaker, we have the mother of an astronaut in here shopping!?

All jokes aside, Tracy’s Aunt Trish tells us one thing Tracy is most excited about is a new, clear, domelike structure called a Coupola that’s perfect for stargazing.

In her mom?s words, to say ?the sky is the limit? for Tracy is an understatement. The fact that a trip to the moon is even in the realm of possibility for this homegrown girl is amazing in itself!

?She can inspire you to do anything, and she’s living the dream,? her mom said proudly.