She is an astronaut. Her frontier, space.

Helms was the first U.S. military woman in space in 1993, the first woman to inhabit the International Space Station in 2001 and she holds the world record, along with her crewmate Army Col. Jim Voss, for the longest space walk of eight hours and 56 minutes also in 2001.

She is now the chief of the Space Control Division at Air Force Space Command.

After graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colo., in 1980, Helms was commissioned into the Air Force as an engineer. She completed the test engineer course at the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB, Calif., in 1987, with high marks as a distinguished graduate and was the recipient of the R. L. Jones Award for Outstanding Flight Test Engineer.

It was during that course when someone first mentioned that she would be competitive for the astronaut program after graduation. Throughout the course, she also met with several astronauts to talk about the U.S. space program.

The defining moment for Helms was during the test pilot school graduation, when guest speaker Col. Dick Covey, an astronaut, approached her and said, "I hope we see you in Houston some time." He was referring to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, the home of astronaut training.

"I took that as the final sign that I should probably apply for the astronaut program," Helms said, "So [Covey] was a big motivator in getting me to fill out the application and send it in."

Helms was selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the astronaut program in January 1990, and became an astronaut in July 1991. Her first mission, on board Space Shuttle Endeavor, was in January 1993. She flew three more shuttle missions in 1994, 1996 and 2000.

It wasn't until she became the first woman to live on the International Space Station in 2001, that she said she felt like a pioneer. Helms and her ISS crewmates, Voss and Russian cosmonaut Yury Usachev, were the first mixed-gender crew to live together for six months.

Helms' entire life was up in space. She didn't have an earth address anymore, as she had packed up and stored all of her possessions. "I was very disconnected from Earth," she said.

"When we had to go fly for six months, I effectively just closed down my earth life. I acted like it was a military deployment," said Helms. "I lived in space, it was my home."

Her life in space did not exempt her from home improvement chores or having guests drop by to visit.

Helms and Voss performed their world record space walk while installing hardware to the external body of the laboratory module of the space station. Her crew also welcomed a visiting Russian space crew, which included the first space tourist.

After nearly six months aboard the ISS, it was time to return to Earth. She was a veteran of five space flights, totaling 211 days in space during her 12-year NASA career, and she realized it was time to step aside and give others the opportunity to fly in space.

It was her last space flight.

With 22 years of military service, Helms could have retired after her astronaut career, as most military astronauts do. Instead, she chose to return to the active-duty Air Force.

"The Air Force has always been so supportive of the things I wanted to do and I guess I felt the time had come to come back and help with the military space program," she said.

Although Helms has traded in her space suit for her Air Force uniform again, she will always feel deep ties to her NASA family. When she was asked about the Space Shuttle Columbia accident, those ties became evident.

"It's a devastating event for the entire NASA family," Helms said. "The focus is on the astronauts but the truth of the matter is that there are thousands of others who are equally devastated. The ground crew that works with the Columbia vehicle; I can't even imagine how they feel. "The people in mission control who work the missions hour by hour, looking at the data, wondering if they missed something. The folks who trained the crew; they worked with them for three years. They were like family. The whole extended NASA family is just devastated," she said.

Although Helms grieves for the loss of the shuttle and her crew, she agrees with President Bush and NASA that the space program must continue.

"This loss won't change the way human beings are wired, so I'm sure that the human race's desire for exploration will be all it will take to get the program moving forward again." she said.

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