CAPE CANAVERAL (Florida): For NASA astronaut Jerry Ross, who this week will become the first person to leave the planet a record seventh time, space flight is getting to be like a regular job.

On six previous missions he has deployed satellites, made seven spacewalks, done classified military work and visited two space stations, both Mir and the International Space Station.

Since 1998, when he flew on the first construction job to the International Space Station, Ross has shared the space-flight record with four other Americans.

On Thursday, when he returns to that far flung outpost to install the first “railway in space,” the record will become his outright — not that he counts on keeping it forever.

“We aren’t doing our job right if we limit the number of times people can go fly in space. What we’re trying to do is find a routine and safe way to do it and find reasons to do it,” said the 59-year-old Ross, a retired Army colonel and unabashed booster of the controversial space-tourism industry.

“I’m hoping that my granddaughters will have a chance to go fly in space many times, and I’m hoping they’ll take me with them.”

Ross is hardly the household name that pioneers like Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong have become. But Gagarin flew just once, Glenn and Armstrong twice.

Any of them might envy Ross, who after Thursday’s launch is also due to set a new record for time outside his spacecraft during the two spacewalks planned for him this trip.

The shuttle Atlantis and its crew of seven is to deliver a new segment to the space station, a cooperative effort of US, Russian, Canadian, European and Japanese space agencies. —Reuters