WACO (November 16, 2009)—Baylor junior Stephanie Hobaugh wasn’t in class Monday; instead she was with the rest of her family at Cape Canaveral watching the launch of the shuttle Atlantis, which her father, Col. Charles Hobaugh, commands.

“It’s pretty nerve wracking, I won’t lie,” she said.

“But it's the neatest experience anyone could have.”

She’ll be back on campus by the time the shuttle links up with the space station later this week to deliver a load of spare parts.

But she’ll stay in touch with her orbiting father via e-mail and perhaps even an occasional really long distance phone call.

“The last time he went up I got to talk to him through my cell phone and it takes about 5 minutes for each dialogue to go through,” she said.

Hobaugh, who’s a Marine colonel, is making his third shuttle flight but this is his first as mission commander.

He used his commander's prerogative to skip the irradiated turkey and freeze-dried trimmings that NASA could have tucked away for the crew's Thanksgiving dinner.

"The season is whatever the season is," he said. "We're just always pleased to be in space. I don't care what they give us. It could be beef brisket. It could be tofu. It doesn't matter to me. We're going to enjoy ourselves no matter what we do."

His was the last voice heard by the Columbia astronauts right before they died in 2003.

He was speaking to them from Mission Control as they were returning to Earth; their spaceship broke up over Texas, minutes before landing.

Hobaugh said he thinks often of that morning and believes he's smarter now because of it.

Hobaugh, 48, who’s nicknamed Scorch, flew combat missions during Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the early 1990s.

He became an astronaut in 1996.

He and wife Corinna, a schoolteacher, have four children, ages 16 to 22.

He was born in Bar Harbor, Maine.