Hernandez will serve as Discovery's flight engineer for launch and landing, and will wield robotic arms on the shuttle and space station.

MSN: Discovery's eclectic crew is poised for space

In May 2007, Toby King, a former Navy nuke technician and flight engineer, joined POWER Testing and Engineering Inc. as a field engineer.

WSJ: Transitioning From the Military to Civilian Work

Kotov, together with a flight engineer TJ Creamer and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, are shortly set to follow the Atlantis crew back to Earth after half a year in space.

BBC: Atlantis set for 'final' return

Rounding out the crew is two-flight veteran astronaut Ellen Ochoa (robotic arm operator and flight engineer), rookie pilot Rick Husband and the commander, Kent Rominger, flying his fourth mission and his first in the left seat.

CNN: liftoff

And for aviation engineer Oliver Caldara, it was the motion of birds in flight which inspired him to design a new, more efficient, type of paraglider.

CNN: Aviation industry learns from nature