ASTRONAUT REFLECTS ON BUSINESS TRIP : THOUSAND OAKS NATIVE RESUMES DAILY ROUTINE.

Byline: Christopher Noxon Daily News Staff Writer

Pulling weeds in the back yard just isn't the same the day after piercing the Earth's atmosphere with a $795 million spacecraft.

Neither is doing laundry or tinkering around the garage.

But Thousand Oaks native Scott ``Doc'' Horowitz returned to household chores less than a day after he piloted the space shuttle Discovery to Earth on Friday.

``I was in my front door and loading up the washing machine less than 24 hours after touchdown,'' Horowitz said. ``It sounds strange, but in a lot of ways landing on the space shuttle is a lot like coming back from a very long business trip. You've got jet lag, and the mail is piled up.''

But it is only back home - after the medical examinations, engineering briefings and news conferences - that the full impact of the mission sinks in, Horowitz said. After his first shuttle trip last year, the 39-year-old astronaut returned to his home in Houston with a heightened appreciation for everyday routines.

``It's sort of settling,'' he said. ``Your life has been so hectic, and it's really something to get back to a somewhat normal lifestyle. You really appreciate being able to be there in the morning when the baby wakes up or actually have lunch with your wife.''

The most recent mission was the second of at least four service calls for the Hubble Space Telescope. Astronauts updated electronics on the 7-year-old telescope, installed two instruments worth $100 million each and repaired lining that had been damaged by exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays.

Settling back into life on Earth is a gradual process that begins immediately after landing, Horowitz said. Ten days of zero gravity takes a physical toll that astronauts pay.

``You have to readapt to gravity,'' Horowitz said. ``It's like having sea legs times a thousand. Your muscles aren't used to supporting your weight, and when you first get off, you feel like your legs are encased in cement.''

It takes about 30 minutes to readjust to walking with the weight of gravity, Horowitz said. Then those refunctioning legs walk toward something the astronauts have missed badly during their tour in space: conventional food.

``Space food is all dehydrated. It's good, but you can only go so long on camping food,'' he said. ``You really want to bite into something that really crunches.''

After flying from Kennedy Space Center to Johnson Space Center in Houston, where he completed more briefings and business, Horowitz returned home. Sitting in his living room with his wife, Lisa Marie Kern, and infant daughter, Arielle, Horowitz said it was hard to believe where he had been for 10 days.

``It's almost as if it didn't happen,'' he said. ``You're tired and you've been running around like crazy. It's like a dream.''

Horowitz said he can recall the entire mission by concentrating on one specific event: the moment the Hubble telescope was released from the cargo bay and sent back into a graceful orbit. With that image in mind, ``everything else comes back and fits around it,'' Horowitz said.

Horowitz filled several days at home with tasks such as preparing his income taxes and working in the garage. But he says not even ordinary chores dulled his sense of how wondrous the world is.

``It sounds corny, but you really get a different view of mankind up there,'' he said. ``When you're up there looking at the Earth, it looks pretty fragile. The atmosphere looks thin, and you can see all the cities in the country out one window. I really believe if everyone could get a chance to see what we see, everyone would have an appreciation of where we live.''

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PHOTO (in Simi, Conejo, SAC editions only; color in Simi and Conejo) His view of Earth from the Discovery shuttle gave Thousand Oaks native Scott ``Doc'' Horowitz a new outlook on everyday activities.