Astronauts pack Buzz Lightyear for ride home

By MARCIA DUNN (AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The astronauts aboard the orbiting shuttle and station packed up Buzz Lightyear on Monday for the ride home from "infinity and beyond."

The 12-inch action figure has been at the international space station for more than a year.

Mission Control asked Discovery's crew to do a final check to make certain Buzz was safely stowed on the shuttle, before the hatches between the linked spacecraft were sealed late Monday night. The shuttle will depart Tuesday.

NASA also was tracking another threatening piece of space junk, but did not think the orbiting outpost would have to steer clear.

The Buzz Lightyear toy kept a relatively low profile at the space station following its June 2008 arrival, but was pulled out for extensive filming over the past week. Some of the movie scenes: Buzz going to sleep with an astronaut who lets go, causing the doll to float away and hit a wall, and Buzz flying through a chamber followed by a real spaceman.

NASA said the video will be used in an educational outreach effort for children and have a "Toy Story" movie spin.

As for Buzz, a Walt Disney World spokesman said the toy will take part in "several debriefing sessions" and then a ticker tape parade with Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin at the beginning of October. The spokesman said Buzz has become "the longest serving astronaut in space."

Late Monday, the 13 human astronauts accomplished one last major job together before parting company.

A moving van holding a ton of trash and discarded equipment was moved back aboard Discovery, with the use of a hefty robot arm. The van was delivered by the shuttle, fully loaded with supplies, and moved onto the international space station one week ago.

The two crews — seven on the shuttle and six on the station — hugged and shook hands as they said goodbye. "Have a safe trip and have a safe landing, guys," said the station's skipper, Russian Gennady Padalka.

Meanwhile, the latest piece of menacing space debris is from a Chinese satellite blasted by a missile in a 2007 test. It was expected to fly near the space station early Wednesday.

Flight director Tony Ceccacci did not know the size of the fragment, but he noted that early projections put the closest approach at 15 miles. A massive piece of an old rocket passed less than a mile from the shuttle-station complex Friday, but required no dodging.

In a series of Labor Day interviews, shuttle astronaut Jose Hernandez said his presence in space "means hope for all our people that speak Spanish." He grew up in a migrant worker family from Mexico.

"If you work hard and study hard, any dream can be achieved," Hernandez said in Spanish, "and I am the proof of that because I started (with) very little means."

The space station's new resident, Nicole Stott, said she's looking forward to gazing down at her home state of Florida and the rest of the planet over the next three months. She took up a watercolor kit to paint what she sees.

She said the artwork might not be that good, "but it will certainly be fun for me to try."

Stott flew up on Discovery as the replacement for Timothy Kopra, who has been in orbit since mid-July. Kopra will return to Earth on Thursday, along with the six other shuttle astronauts and, of course, Buzz.