It’s hard for most of us even to imagine the experience of piloting one of NASA’s space shuttles in orbit, but in one major way, Duane Carey is just like the rest of us. Here’s an Air Force test pilot who has flown some of the fastest, most exotic, most demanding aircraft ever created, yet he still says he enjoys riding motorcycles more.

That’s not just talk. In fact, when NASA allocated him room to carry one personal item into space with him, Carey chose to take a flag carrying the AMA logo, which he plans to donate afterwards for display at AMA headquarters.

The mission that will take 44-year-old Lt. Col. Duane Carey into space is designated STS-109. Its purpose is to conduct routine maintenance on the Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits the Earth and gives astronomers a view into the farthest reaches of the universe. The crew aboard Columbia will use a robot arm to pull the telescope into the shuttle’s work bay to give Hubble a tuneup.

There are two types of astronauts aboard shuttle flights. The mission specialists are the scientists or other experts who are on board to conduct experiments or complete specific tasks, such as servicing the telescope.

Also on board are a commander and a pilot, the highly experienced fliers who actually control the ship. The commander, Scott Altman, will have primary responsibility for handling the shuttle. But over 11 days, Carey will have his hands on the controls quite a bit as well.

"The way I look at it, it’s the job of the commander and the pilot to get those folks up there to do their jobs and to get them back," says Carey.

It’s an assignment unlike any other a pilot can be given, especially when it comes to bringing the shuttle back from orbit.

"We’re about a 220,000-pound glider coming in," says Carey. "We actually enter the Earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and we have enough speed to glide halfway around the world and land in Florida."

Along the way, there’s a complex series of maneuvers that Carey compares to a motorcycle racer hitting his braking markers. For the shuttle, the markers are "gates," or designated positions in the atmosphere, that must be hit in order to stay on the right trajectory for the landing.

In orbit, the shuttle is moving at more than 17,000 mph. By the time it lands, it has to scrub off nearly all that velocity, touching down on the runway at a mere 225 mph.

"The space shuttle is unlike any other flying machine," says Kenneth Cameron, an AMA member and retired astronaut who flew three shuttle missions (see "Frequent Flier," below). "It’s huge. It’s a bus. It’s like flying a large building."

In comparison, riding a motorcycle sounds like a breeze.

"I enjoy riding more than I do flying," Carey says. "But I’m a better pilot than a rider."

Carey was introduced to motorcycles by his stepfather, Claire Pastorius, who owned a BSA 650. When Carey was 13, Pastorius bought two Honda CT70 trail bikes for Duane and his brother, and the motorcycling hook was firmly set.

The first motorcycle Carey owned himself was a Can-Am 175 he used for everything from off-road racing to commuting to high school.

"I truly believe that’s what kept the boys out of trouble," says Carey’s mother, Penny Pastorius. Between riding and working part-time jobs to make money to pay for motorcycling, the brothers kept busy.

In fact, years later, Mrs. Pastorius was surprised that Duane ended up as a pilot.

"He wasn’t the one who was always drawing pictures of airplanes," she recalls. "That was my other son. Duane was drawing motorcycles."

After graduating from high school, Carey became what he calls a "motorcycle bum." He bought a candy-orange Suzuki GT750 and went off to explore North America and decide the direction of his life.

"I had $200 in my pocket when I left," he remembers. "I’d travel until all my money was gone, then I’d get a job for a while. I worked as a typewriter repairman, a bartender, anything I could get."

When his desire for the road was satisfied, at least temporarily, he returned home and made two big changes in his life.

One was marrying hometown sweetheart Cheryl Ann Tobritzhofer. They’ve been together ever since, and now have two teenage children, Zack and Erin.

The other big change was enrolling at the University of Minnesota, where he joined the Air Force ROTC. And Carey says all those miles on motorcycles came in handy when he applied for pilot school.

"I believe my motorcycle experience helped me do well on a lot of the aptitude tests the Air Force gave me," he says. Tasks such as glancing at a display and instantly gathering information were nothing new to a rider with thousands of miles under his tires.

Eventually, Carey was stationed in Louisiana and then Korea, where, after overcoming extensive red tape, he shipped his Honda Gold Wing. In a place where there were few motorcycles larger than 125cc, excursions on the big tourer sometimes drew crowds of gawkers so thick Carey was literally unable to move the bike.

A key turn in Carey’s career came when he was selected for the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Test pilots fly a wide variety of aircraft, and Carey further honed his skills at the controls of experimental fighters.

On his own time, he also broadened his motorcycling resume. A group of officers got permission to build a motocross track at Edwards, and Carey took up the sport aboard a Yamaha YZ250.

"At first I thought, ‘Why would anyone want to do this? It’s hard work!’ " he says. "But I found out it’s a great way to stay in shape.

"There’s something very elemental about motocross," he adds. "It made me a better street rider."

In 1996, Carey was selected as an astronaut candidate and transferred to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. After two years of training, he qualified for his first flight and was assigned to STS-109.

Motocross riding has taken a vacation since Carey was selected for the shuttle mission. Even a minor injury could prevent him from participating in the mission, and that could mean other crew members would miss their chance as well.

"I just crank up the YZ every week or two, warm it up and then put it away again," Carey says.

Though he’s missed motorcycling during the intense training required of shuttle crew members, he notes that it’s a small price to pay for one of the world’s hardest-earned thrill rides.

Carey believes in the old adage that luck is when opportunity and preparation meet. Competition is so fierce for spots in the astronaut program, he says, that a little luck is essential. But so is the preparation.

"If you’re aiming for high goals, you need to set yourself up for opportunities that might come up," he notes. "You don’t know if they’ll come up, but you have to be ready."

Even as he’s about to embark on his space adventure, Carey loves to talk about his motorcycling memories, from trail rides as a boy to tours through spectacular scenery in Korea.

One of his favorite stories is about the time he took his son, Zack, with him on the Gold Wing for a trip from California to his hometown in Minnesota, all on back roads.

"We had a kind of ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ trip," he says. "That’s something we’ll always have between us. It took us about six days, just putting along.

"Motorcycling is full of special moments, especially when you make it a family thing," he adds.

That faithful Gold Wing has since been sold with 125,000 miles on the odometer and replaced with a new Honda ST1100. Zack, who was recently accepted for admission to the Air Force Academy, now rides a motorcycle of his own.

For his part, Carey is about to put his years of training to use, embarking on an adventure of the rarest kind. Once the shuttle lifts off, he’ll accelerate from 0 to 17,500 mph in about eight minutes, then circle the Earth more than 150 times.

Duane Carey is not the first AMA member to ride the space shuttle into orbit. Kenneth Cameron did it three times.

Cameron’s missions between 1991 and 1995 fulfilled a dream that was born when he was 12 years old and followed the news as John Glenn soared into space. On his last two shuttle missions, he served as commander.

"I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity," says Cameron, now retired from NASA and living in Michigan. "That was something that I’d dreamed of doing."

Cameron’s motorcycling career has bracketed his astronaut career. In high school, he longed for one of the Hondas starting to come into the United States, but was thwarted by parental prohibition. He bought his first bike, a Suzuki off-road machine, when he returned from active duty in Vietnam.

"Riding in the dirt usually means falling down, and sometimes it means getting run over after you’ve fallen down," says Cameron. "After a while, I began to wonder, coming back from a weekend of racing, if I’d be able to fly."

So he left motorcycling behind and concentrated on his career as a pilot, and later, as an astronaut.

But once he retired, Cameron returned to motorcycling, both on the road and off. His primary ride these days is a Buell S3T.

Most years, Cameron can be spotted at AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days in Ohio, where he sometimes volunteers as a corner worker. So if some day you’re trying to impress a corner worker at VMD with your speed through the esses, keep in mind that he may have clicked off a hot lap around the world at 17,500 mph himself.

Reprinted with permission from American Motorcyclist magazine. From 'Ride of a Lifetime,' American Motorcyclist magazine, February 2002, (C) 2002 American Motorcyclist Association. www.ama-cycle.org