NASA shuttle crew ready to remodel

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Endeavour blasted its crew of seven into clear skies under a spectacular moon Friday night. It is the final orbiter flight of 2008 to the international space station. Its mission: extreme interior redecoration, with a little outdoor-lighting work thrown in.

The shuttle rumbled off its launchpad on time, turning night into day for a few minutes as the craft's main engines and rocket boosters lit up Cape Canaveral.

Endeavour's crew, commanded by Navy Capt. Christopher Ferguson, will spend Thanksgiving circling Earth, and one crew member — Sandra Magnus — will stick around the space station for Christmas and New Year's.

The crew also includes pilot Eric Boe, an Air Force colonel; mission specialists Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, a Navy captain; Robert Kimbrough, an Army lieutenant colonel; Stephen Bowen, a former Navy submarine captain; and Donald Pettit, a scientist. Magnus also is a scientist.

The 15-day mission has been dubbed "Extreme Home Improvements" — and extreme they are. Once they reach the station Sunday, the astronauts will install more bedrooms, a second bathroom, an exercise suite and a new kitchenette, all in zero gravity. They also will do some spacewalking to fix a cranky joint that turns the vast solar panels to face the sun.

For nearly a decade since the international space station program began, the focus has been hauling people, supplies and giant high-tech tin cans to build the complex like an enormous orbital Erector set.

This time, all the construction is on the inside.

The aim of the makeover is to expand the station to make room for more crew. The station is supposed to go from three full-time crew to six next year. More crew means more science, making better use of the $100 billion laboratory.

By the time the station is finished in 2010, it will have the interior space of a five-bedroom house and be the size of a whole football field, including both end zones.