[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 18] [Extensions of Remarks] [Page 23803] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]HONORING CHICAGO ASTRONAUT JOAN HIGGINBOTHAM ______ HON. RAHM EMANUEL of illinois in the house of representatives Thursday, December 7, 2006 Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to honor Astronaut Joan Higginbotham. Higginbotham is a member of the crew on the Space Shuttle Discovery that is scheduled to launch tonight from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Additionally, she is a fellow Chicagoan, and I wish her the best of luck as she prepares for her first mission, STS 116. Higginbotham graduated from Chicago's Whitney Young High School in 1982, and Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 1987. She will be the third African-American woman aboard a NASA mission, and she and her fellow astronaut Robert Curbeam will make history this week on STS 116, the first Space Shuttle mission with two African-American astronauts. Higginbotham previously worked as a payload engineer at the John F. Kennedy Space Center while also earning two master's degrees from the Florida Institute of Technology. As a mission specialist on board Discovery, Higginbotham's responsibilities will include a complete rewiring of the International Space Station's power supply. She will also have the responsibility of operating the robotic arm to deploy several satellites and to direct payload transfers. Higginbotham will be joined by Mission Commander Mark Polansky, as well as Robert Curbeam Sunita Williams, Nicholas Patrick, William Oefelein, and Christer Fuglesang from the European Space Agency, who is the first Swedish astronaut. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing my fellow Chicagoan as well as her fellow astronauts, and to wish them all the best on their launch tonight and their 12-day mission. ____________________