STS-67 Special Events Resource Tape, Part 1

thank you stand stand by for interview making news at 6:13 the shuttle Endeavor in space on the longest shuttle space mission a 16-day mission the purpose to use three unique ultraviolet telescopes to study objects in space tonight something very exciting we get to talk with the astronauts right now live up in space this should be fun before we go live to the shuttle however introductions are in order we'll be talking with shuttle Commander Stephen Oswald he's 43 years old been with NASA since 1984 and this is his third shuttle mission and payload specialist Ronald pice he is also 43 and he's from Warren Ohio he's an astronomer and he's been working on the ultraviolet Imaging telescope project this is his second shuttle mission and with any luck we're going to plug in with him right now good evening gentlemen this is absolutely amazing to us that we can sit here in The Newsroom and talk to you in space thanks for being with us tell us just a bit if you would about what your mission is and where you are in your astronomy Mission sir well we're the into the third day of U of this Astro astronomy lab and the point of all this is to take these three ultraviolet telescopes that we've got in the payload Bay up above the Earth's atmosphere which Shields us on the ground from ultraviolet radiation but uh the bad part of that is of course we don't get to see a lot of the information from uh the celestial targets that we're looking at from the earth so when we take these uh instruments up above the Earth's atmosphere into space we can uh get information that otherwise would be unavailable to us on the ground we'll explain to our audience very quickly that you'll see a delay you'll hear a delay here because they're in space and it takes a while for this to be transmitted so there' be just a moment's delay a $200 million set of telescopes is what you're working with we understand and some 600 stars are going to gaze at to unlock the secrets of the universe can you explain what's special about these telescopes what they can do Iran has been working uh on these telescopes for about the last 10 years let me just go ahead and pass it over thanks Steve the uh the three telescopes that we have on board which were built at uh Johns Hopkins University University of Wisconsin and Goddard space flight center um do a lot of unique things that are not done by other groundbased observatories or space-based observatories like Hubble uh for example we have wavelength coverage into the into the far ultraviolet which uh allows us to see um a lot more of the very violent and uh explosive events in the universe that U are very important for astronomers to study and understanding How the Universe got to be the way it is and and how it works um we also um have Imaging capability we have spectral capability for for measuring temperatures and pressures and so forth we have Imaging capability to um study the morphology or the uh you know the structure of uh galaxies and popular clusters and so forth and it's it's a very unique capability that's just not available anywhere else excuse me for not being scientific in my question here but have you seen anything interesting so far are things hooked up well we um um we spent the first day uh just kind of turning everything on and making sure it was okay everything came up in good shape um uh a lot of the operational proced procures that we have for observing these targets were things that we had developed on the ground and uh and to to some extent not been able to practice in detail because they work a little differently in weightlessness than they do on the ground so um although we're still having some growing pains in uh in getting operating here we are getting good data we're um we're observing the targets that we have scheduled and as we as we get coordinated here and everybody learns their job up u a little better we'll be I think we'll be in fine shape now we have some questions for you from the first district school in Covington fifth grader Diana Carter asks how does it feel to wear space suits for a real long time well fortunately um we don't have to wear space suits for a real long time we're uh this is as you can see a shirt sleeve environment working here aboard the Orbiter and we do wear the uh launch and entry suits the partial pressure suits uh for the asent and the entry and then of course if we needed to go outside to uh to work on the vehicle uh or on some flights not this one but on some flights we do planned extra vehicular activity uh then we put on the white suits that you're you're used to seeing on TV with folks uh working around outside the Orbiter it does look unusually casual to me up there looks like you guys might might want to be playing golf today here is another question from fourth grader Aaron D he asks how does it feel to lift off in a rocket and how it feel to float when you're in the rocket well it's um it's always been amazing to me the um the amount of energy that goes into the Orbiter on the way up hill for eight and a half minutes is uh is just absolutely incredible when you go through this uh rather violent assent in the last uh minute and a half or so you're at 3GS uh three times the force of gravity pushing you back in the seat uh accelerating from about March 17 through about Mark 25 uh and then when you get to Main engine cut off there's this instantaneous Zerg uh that's obviously with you until you re-enter and that transition from uh 3gs to Zerg uh and then getting used to that and the funny thing is it gets better every time you come back you get you get used to it more quickly uh but it is a an incredible experience to just be able to be up here in freef fall uh for a couple of weeks and uh and have it seem normal and it seems normal very quickly that is just absolutely outrageous it just seems so unusual for us to be able to talk to you and we thank you I know your time is valuable certainly in space and we thank you very much for sharing it with us Steven Oswald and payload specialist Ronald pice thanks very much for being with us gentlemen we will uh let you get back to work go ahead W KRC thank you Endeavor this is W KRC I had one quick question for each of you we're going to record back here first Mr Oswald did you dream of going into space as a child well you know a lot of folks that uh that fly have had that dream since childhood um I always wanted to fly my father was uh was a Navy pilot and always wanted to fly airplanes but um when I first saw the uh Mercury capsules being taken around the country and I saw one of those things my dad was about 6'2 and uh I knew that he wouldn't be very comfortable in there and I figured I was going to be about his size so I dropped that uh that whole Space thing at about age eight and didn't pick it up again until I was uh in the Navy flying airplanes myself at the tuxen river in 1978 when the first shuttle group was selected uh and then it uh that really got my attention and I was lucky enough to be selected uh gosh eight years later in the class of 85 thank you uh Dr pice what did you see when you last look towards Earth how did it make you feel tell you what stand by just a second let me get run on the headset here and maybe you could repeat the question okay this is Ron on the headset now yes go ahead what did you see when you last looked towards Earth and how did it make you feel what did I see the last time I looked at the Earth yes sir well just a minute ago I was I'm I'm looking at the Earth out the window right now and um as a matter of fact we're we're coming up on the coast of U of South America here and we're also coming up on the Terminator which is that line which uh uh separates day from night and it's quite a beautiful site I see a lot of red clouds down uh uh south over the Andes and we're coming across the coast of U look like Peru and it's quite a beautiful site the sun is shining on the clouds from the west and it's very very dark over in the nightl hemisphere to the East and uh we'll be ourselves Crossing from day to night in just a minute here last SPS right here great gentlemen thank you very much for your time it was a pleasure you're quite welcome it's always our pleasure to to talk to the folks on the ground NPR This is Houston please call Endeavor for voice check Endeavor this is NPR Leanne Hansen How You Hear Me NPR we have you loud and clear good day good day first let me introduce you to our listeners joining us from Earth orbit our two crew members of the Space Shuttle Endeavor Dr Tamara Jarnigan is payload Commander for the shuttle mission good morning Tammy good morning and Wendy Lawrence's Mission specialist on the Endeavor good morning Wendy good morning how are you I'm fine thank you Tammy you're the astronomer give us a brief description of what you hope to achieve during this Mission are you looking for something specific well we're looking for a variety of things um the instruments on board we have three instruments and we do things like take Spectra and measure polarization and do imaging of various object everything ranging from nearby planets to distant galaxies um one of the objects we looked at today was iio which is one of Jupiter's moons and we just have a variety of of objects to look at the universe and we're studying everything from uh local planetary phenomena like the volcanoes that uh we see on iO and also star formation and evolution of the Galaxy and the universe so it's quite a wide variety of topics we're covering on this flight will you know right away if you've seen something significant I think um we'll certainly have indications when we see something of significance but it takes some time for scientists to analyze their data and to look at it carefully and make sure that they're they're seeing what they think they see when they make their initial interpretation so it may be a few days before or even a few weeks before the scientists are really ready to come out and say for certain that they've seen a phenomena that's you new and unique or that they think they understand something in a in a more detailed way than they did before because they want to be careful when they're do their data analysis any problems so far uh no actually the uh the instrument pointing system we use to point our instruments to within about an arcc of accuracy is working quite well and our instruments are performing well so we've been very pleased and of course uh we have a very healthy space shuttle one of the reasons that the scientists on board are able to spend their time Gathering data is because the Orbiter has been very healthy Wendy briefly tell us your role on this mission well as Tammy alluded to the science data cannot be gathered unless the vehicle is performing well so my role on the blue shift is to be in charge of the Orbiter I'm technically called the Orbiter pilot in order to acquire the data we have to do a large number of Maneuvers so in some ways I'm I'm a bus driver I'm in charge of making sure the vehicle is where it's supposed to be when it's supposed to be there and on the side I get to uh maintain it and clean it as well you are Naval aviator you land helicopters on aircraft carriers is this is also your first flight on the shuttle is it what you expected it's even better I've waited to do this for 25 years and it has far exceeded my expectations Tammy this is your third flight does it get any easier with time Well you certainly know what to expect on your third flight in terms of um operating in a microgravity environment but everything FL is a unique one uh we do something very different on each Mission and it's a pleasure to come up here and uh perform 16 days of astronomical observations Tammy do you have any free time to look out the window we have a little bit of free time sometimes it competes with our sleep time it's very hard to make yourself go to sleep when you have such a wonderful view of the earth and the stars have you seen any but between observations or during some of the observations because we do all our um we operate our instruments from the flag deck sometimes it's just as simple as picking up and taking a look at the overhead or after Windows of the space shuttle to get just an incredible view of the planet have you seen anything memorable I think that the view of the Earth for me is always memorable the sun rises and the sun sets and and maybe I'll ask Wendy to answer that also go ahead Wendy it's hard describe the sunrises and sunsets uh the colors are beyond anything I've seen on the earth and uh last night we had a pretty memorable pass over the Pacific Ocean there were just a large area of thunderstorms that should be headed towards California here within a day or so but just miles and miles and miles of spectacular lightning is it true can you see the Great Wall from space well at our inclination we wouldn't be able to see the Great Wall what else are you able to do uh to relax this is a very long mission for you do you bring books well as you as you mentioned with so much to look at out the window we probably wouldn't spend our time looking at a book so our relaxation we do take some music but our relaxation is mostly enjoying the Earth enjoying uh being in space because we don't get to to stay here very long so we want to take in all that we can what music did you take with you oh I think I've got a wide mix I've got a little bit of uh country I've got some from the 60s and 70s and up into the 80s and some of the other members have classical music on board um we have some special music uh made for us by our alternate payload specialist who's a very very fine musician and in fact we played that for him last night while he was was working at Huntsville now does NASA still wake you up for your shift with a tape of uh music well we are a dual shift flight and so one crew is always awake so therefore so we have um people sleeping and people working simultaneously so we don't do wake up music on the Dual shift flight we broadcast all over the country I I might mention also that uh one of the other crew members is awake who's who's not on the radio today is Sam Durant and Sam's busy configuring our telescopes for our next observation we're broadcasting to the country now you have any messages for the folks back home I think all of us are very proud to be part of this program um we're here doing astronomy because we want to bring home a wealth of information about the universe we all live in and we want to disseminate that information to the public and we're very excited about it but uh we're very happy to be here Wendy I just think I'd like to say to the the kids in this country that the dreams that you have as a child can in fact come true if you're willing to to work hard and chase after them and of course along the way you need a lot of people to support you and I really appreciate all the support I've gotten over the years from friends and family and teachers Well we'd like to take the opportunity now to invite you to come and see us when you come back down to earth well thank you very much Dr Tamara Jarnigan is the payload commander and Wendy Lawrence is a mission specialist for the Space Shuttle Endeavor it's currently in Earth orbit they're due to land on the 17th of this month which would make it the longest shuttle flight to date thanks both of you for taking the time to talk with us and uh Happy Landings thank you thank you very much here's the answer to our second space quiz how long do it take to shuttle to get from the launch pad into orbit an amazingly fast 8 and a 12 minutes to travel to 218 miles into space and how fast do a signal from television he'll get to Endeavor you're about to find out just how fast it's about a half a second joining us live from Endeavor Sam Durant and Wendy Lawrence good morning Endeavor Good Morning Baltimore it's good to hear your voice I was waiting for Wendy to speak it's good to see you two and what we're experiencing here is our half second delay that's not too bad at all we're getting here loud and clear very good but there is this half-second delay because of course NASA is bringing the signal down to earth and then it's going back up into another satellite and coming down to TV Hill so we experienced a half a half second delay and it can be maddening unless you're aware of that it's kind of like long distance was before fiber optics Sam and Wendy listen we have some kids here with us in the studio because that's that's one of the reasons we've we we've established this link up to to maybe uh spur some interest in the youngsters one day they may be you uh Mr Mr John Miller joins us and Miss Karina hooker Karina well welcome uh Sam and Wendy to the show and go ahead and ask your question please well hi this my name H I would like to ask you a question what does a mission specialist do she asked what does a mission specialist do let me first say that there are actually two categories of astronauts we have an astronaut pilot they're the ones who actually fly at the controls of the shuttle and they will land a shuttle when it's time for us to come home and a mission specialist uh The Specialist is kind of a misnomer because we actually end up being the Jack of all trades and master of none the Specialists have the opportunity to conduct many experiments on board in fact the person behind me is Dr Tammy Jernigan who's the payload commander of this flight she's in charge of running our primary experiment which are three telescopes out in the payload Bay as a mission specialist I'm in charge of some of the experiments we have down on the mid deck we're growing protein crystals and on some flights Mission Specialists actually have an opportunity to go outside the space shuttle and go on a space walk or perhaps fly the mechanical arm we have on board to retrieve satellites so the mission Specialists get to do a wide variety of things it's a great job and I really enjoy it I'm glad to hear that next up in our TV window who you saw just there a minute just there just a minute ago is John Miller for svera Park John say your question loud and clear please okay is there a difference between the food down here on Earth and the package food up in space and if there is a difference what is it well the main difference is most of the food you have to rehydrate meaning they take the water out of it to make it lighter and uh make it last longer and when you get up here you have to put water in it and there's a machine downstairs which we call a rehydration station which has a needle in it and you put the food in there and you inject water in it and you either use hot water or cold water depending on whether it's something you want hot or cold and then you uh mush the water around to get it to mix with the dry food and then you eat it and it's not bad most of it's uh pretty good you know besides Sam and Wendy besides having a couple school kids in here we also have some people uh near and dear to your heart uh Sam your wife Becky and your kids Ben and Susan are here joining us family take it away Hi Sam we miss you you do dad I was wondering if I hope you're doing well Dad I was wondering if brag get's in the night hi hi hi Becky hey is that you Ben yeah how are you I'm doing great have you been playing your guitar yeah it's pretty cool oh Dad can you buy me a new amp I think the one you have is just fine for right now Ben wow go ahead and talk to your dad hi Dad hi Susan how you doing I miss you I miss you too you've been having a good time yes pastor says hi Hi Sam we love you and we miss you you look you look I hope you're having a good time yeah you look like you're having a good time Becky if I if I can interrupt you for a second we've got some other children's questions that didn't make didn't win the the contest Russ Miller from Arnold Elementary School also lent County asked a question that I wanted to ask have you guys seen any space debris up there at all in the past couple of days uh no we haven't the space debris um is very widely separated in orbit and you very seldom see it in fact sometimes it's even hard to see something when you're looking very carefully for it and it's very large for example the mirror space station we passed Within 3 miles of it the other day and we tried as hard as we could to see it and we couldn't see it because sometimes down here we get the impression and Newsweek does an article on it this week that it's a junkyard up there you haven't seen a thing now some of the uh the objects that we do get to see are actually objects that we put out in space ourselves uh we have the capability of producing our own water on board and we produce it at a rate faster than we can consume it so periodically we'll dump that water overboard and it instantly crystallizes into ice and that's quite a spectacular show in fact we had our own snow storm up here last night but that those ice crystals aren't considered a hazard to any other spacecraft up up here well you know Wendy Sam we have another question from the Gibbs from MacArthur Middle Middle School in Fort me and and she is asking when you look out the window and you look back to Earth what can you see could you can you identify of of Baltimore for instance is if you were to fly over the a can you really see features on the ground well from Endeavor absolutely you can uh unfortunately our orbit doesn't carry us far enough North to see Baltimore but uh any of the major cities you fly over you can recognize very easily in fact when you're flying over the United States at night um we get about as far north as Florida but we can see all the way up the East Coast all the way up to Boston the city lights wow how about that wow hey you know Wendy we had uh we we also wanted to mention to you that your dad is watching right now the Admiral we had a news story on him and he is so proud of you he almost busts his own military protocol of of his own right stuff when speaking of you a proud father indeed you want to say hi to him sure I'd love to say hi Dad my father wants me to be the first in the space shuttle program to Institute what we call in the Navy a tiger Cruise program and that's where your dependents are able to come with you so Dad I'm working on it maybe I can get you on board on my next flight hey Wendy I have a friend who flew helicopters in vnam I know you're a helicopter pilot he said to ask you how did a good Chopper pilot end up with a fixed Wing crew like that well you know it's the breaks Naval Aviation but I've been trying my best to train them and they're coming along they're actually a really talented bunch of aviators I feel very privileged to be associated with the the commander of the flight who's a Navy Captain Steve Oswald and the pilot of the flight and Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Bill Gregory and they're very very fine aviators and they've taught me quite a bit okay I've been double dared and triple dared to ask this question but how hard is it to go to the bathroom up there we had to ask keep it clean you had to ask it's easy it's not hard at all it's uh very much like using the facilities on the ground it's uh a little different but basically inad gravity you use forced air and it works fine all right listen guys we're 30 seconds from lose no winter theant family want to say bye to Dad Karina John join in just say goodbye bye bye we love you bye we love you all right we'll see you back here in Baltimore here's a little home cooking it's going to rain tonight and it's going to get cold tomorrow we'll see you back in Maryland folks okay we got to make it official Houston this is WJ JZ this concludes our uh this portion of our event thank you WJZ WM please call Endeavor for a voice check Endeavor this is WM how do you hear me WM this is endeavor we hear you loud and clear Sam Wendy good morning good morning listen can you I I'm in the studio right now I'm seeing the lights of the studio cameras give me exactly the view take a look at the window tell us what you see right now Sam and Wendy we're over the ocean we see uh lots of clouds we're approaching the coast of South America we see the uh blue of the upper atmosphere uh it's an incredible sight now did you pass all your geography lessons in school do can you make out what you're seeing when you orbit the earth actually you can quite well a couple nights ago we had a very spectacular pass over the Hawaiian island change it was it was at night was very easy to see the the outline of the islands because of all the lights uh flying over South America we've had some spectacular views of the Andes and the volcanoes that are all snow covered and moving on into Africa it's very easy to pick out some of the major lakes there and uh Australia I think is by far the favorite it's just absolutely spectacular the red Red Dirt like I've never seen before and and the sand dunes on the coastline as well well evidently you don't go far north enough to see the Inner Harbor of the Naval Academy but can you what what about the eastern United States can you make it out there oh absolutely you can see um all of Florida you can see Houston at night you can see all the way up to Baltimore and you can make out the lights of Baltimore you can see all the way up to Boston Sam you've been up this is your second time how does it different from the first time you went up well it's uh I would say just as uh spectacular as it was the first time it's an incredible experience the uh only difference I experienced is I was a little more comfortable initially than I was the first time because uh I'd been there before and I just you know I knew what to expect and Wendy this is your first time up uh describe for me the lift off well we kind of had a saying amongst the crew that when the solid rocket boosters light you definitely know you're going somewhere fast and that certainly got my attention it was amazing how quickly the forces built up you're lying on your back so you feel most of the forces right through your chest and it really felt like my older brother was sitting on me just just like he did when he when I was a younger kid so I have to compliment my brother for helping me get ready for the space FL how can you describe for me uh your finding so far I know it's still early we have a couple more days but what have we found so far up there well in terms of uh the science we're doing we've uh observed many many objects and I I couldn't tell you exactly what we found out so far but I know that we have uh observed uh over a hundred astronomical objects we're observing in the ultraviolet we're observing uh Stars galaxies and looking at ultraviolet light that comes from them uh which doesn't reach the surface of the Earth so we're learning a lot about the universe that we didn't know before and while you're up there do you ever take time to figure out the space accomplishments for us down here on Earth have we become like ho hum about all this or do we really realize the impact of every black Blast Off well we certainly realize the impact of every blast off and I think uh and it's an amazing accomplishment the shuttle system is a incredible piece of technology and I think America should be proud of it and Wendy uh since this is your this is your dream come true Did you ever as a little girl realize that space would be your office I wanted to do this ever since I was 10 years old I'm probably one of thousands of young people who vividly remember watching Neal Armstrong take those first steps on the moon and and said to themselves I want to do that when I grow up so I think I've been looking at this for the past 25 years as something that was an impossible dream and I I really have to thank a lot of people who helped it become an achievable goal and it's uh it's it's even better than I had hoped it would be it's just fantastic to be in space it is really a privilege and the view of Earth is just so spectacular I wish I could adequately describe it but it's really been a treat and Sam looking down at us this morning do you have a somewhat different opinion of us human beings from way up there well us human beings are the same up here or down there uh but it does give you a feeling of uh inspiration and awe to look at the Earth from this altitude and to see how beautiful and how fragile it is how many carry-ons are you allowed and can you tell us what's inside you're you've brought some stuff from Baltimore and Maryland with you up into space can you tell the people what you brought with you well having gone to the Naval Academy and also had an opportunity to go back there and teach and coach I have H several Naval Academy items on board I have a ball crap from the the Navy crew team and I'd like to give them my best and they're doing spring break practice right now and I hope they're rowing hard and practices are going well and I have a Naval Academy spending on board and uh I know Sam's got a couple of particular items from Baltimore that he'd like to describe well I have a a flag from Lutherville Elementary School we made a a contact with the amateur radio experiment with them yesterday and when I get back I'm going to present that to them and I have a a Placer from cockyville Middle School that I'm taking up for them and uh I'm really looking forward to bringing that back and presenting it to them and with a certificate saying that it uh has been some 6 million miles or so by the time we get back now can you both describe what's behind you what are we what are we looking at those not all of them but we we only have a half an hour show but can you tell us what what we're looking at right behind you sure this is the uh what we call the half flight deck of the shuttle uh right in front of us is the is the flight deck where the commander and the pilot sit uh this is the station where most of the experimentation and a lot of the systems in the shuttle are controlled uh this is where the controls are for the Astro telescopes and if you could see out the window uh the Astro telescopes are right out this back window right here in the cargo bay and uh our teammate here Tammy is operating them right now has just acquired some stars and we're observing them right now all right just don't bump anything uh tell us how does this conversation work how are my words getting to you and your words back to here well it's a true mystery to me but uh some magic that Houston performs fortunately um most the signals from the shuttle actually are are relayed to the ground via a satellite system that we have and uh there's only about a u you know sometimes a 5 to 10 minute period of time where we're not contact with Houston during a 90minut orbital pass so the world of communications has always baffled me but I'm glad it works how about describing your everyday occurrences going to the bathroom you have to eat you shower you shave describe for us what it's like up there in space well the one thing that you mentioned that we actually don't get to do is shower and we would love to do that we have some uh um soap that we use to wash off every morning so like I typically shower in the morning so when I get up in the morning I put this uh waterless soap on and use a rag and sort of towel off but uh we eat and go to the bathroom just like we do on the Earth all right any personal messages while we uh get ready to say goodbye here any personal message Wendy Sam I like to say say hi to my family that lives outside of Annapolis and uh give a hello to the Naval Academy and congratulate them on their 150th anniversary and I'll be talking to them in a few days I hope and I just like to say hi to all my friends in Baltimore and to everyone there and uh I'm looking forward to coming back and seeing everybody it's been a great experience it's been a great experience for us this morning we'll see you at touchdown thank you very much you WM that concludes the event thank you WM and for endeavor we'll be taking down air to ground two KFWB this is Houston please call Endeavor for a voice check Endeavor this is KFWB how do you hear me KFWB we're on Endeavor and we read you loud and clear HTH by by five down here and welcome aboard Endeavor I believe uh you're talking to a few of us up here on the flight deck and we're orbiting the Earth 190 miles up good morning good morning and hello from Los Angeles uh Colonel Gregory is this long Mission exhausting tedious or tiring you're a world-class marathoner and now you're piloting the shuttle's alltime marathon mission no actually we're having a great time up here and it's not exhausting at all after the first day we got into a very nice routine and we found it quite comfortable up here and we're also getting our exercise in I'll point out in fact that's had some effect on some of the observations we understand hi John grunfeld one of the uh astronomer astronauts up here and uh actually we haven't seen very much impact of the exercise on any of the observations we have a compensation system that takes that kind of motion out of the telescope observations Dr grunfeld as a young astronomer you used to Trek up to Mountaintop Optical observatories and now you're observing from the real Mountaintop this must be a wonderfilled experience for you oh it's absolutely fantastic and yeah I used to go up to mount polymer and up to Mount Wilson and uh observe and this year is a whole lot better you've worked in visible light x-ray G and now this what is it about ultraviolet that's so useful to you astrophysicists well every uh window in the electromagnetic spectrum has its special features that allow us to learn something about uh Stars galaxies black holes neutron stars ultraviolet uh is a window that allows us to look at very very hot stars and uh some of the more violent phenomena in the universe gives us a special insight into what makes Stars tick the new networks may not know this yet but you people are the hottest thing on internet ever your first ever online space mission may literally reignite humankind's enthusiasm for space and exploration and science what's your reaction to that well that's great we're really uh happy that we're able to provide a lot of this information uh near real time to the folks on the internet and uh we're glad that there's a lot of enthusiasm out there I know we uh provided some of the stuff uh premission that they uh have available out there and we're glad that they're keeping it up during the flight what are some of the most unusual questions being sent up to you and what's your response um I'm not sure which questions uh you're talking about that has just been full of questions for you and and for NASA down at Huntsville and at Johnson I gather you oh okay we're not we're not receiving Internet questions however we do have the shuttle amateur radio experiment on board and we are uh talking to a lot of school kids and U uh we've had uh quite a few great U discussions with some of the kids on the ground as we fly over and uh some of them have had some very very uh sophisticated astronomical questions that have surprised us all can you share any of that with us well the one in particular that comes to mind was a school in India that uh I didn't actually uh conduct the uh question and answer session but Tammy Jernigan did she she was astounded when she was done that these uh these folks were asking questions about uh black holes and the origin of the universe and uh red shifts and so forth and um things that that uh they had obviously done some serious homework beforehand now we're seeing your video from orbit of course but what do you get what do you sense that we armch armchair astronauts cannot see your feel well as we look out the window here we see and I'm I'm looking out one of the windows now I see the the ocean going by below us and um and as a matter of fact just now a little a toll in the South Pacific has uh just crossed through the window they go by very quickly and uh traveling at 17,500 miles an hour we see a lot of the earth go by in a very short period of time it's a beautiful sight out there and of course we're also weightless up here which is another exciting feeling now this is such a long mission is there any anything interesting about personal hygiene do you tend to perspire do you have to take baths with wet wipes does your hair get dirty and if so from what well of course when we exercise I've been exercising between 45 minutes and an hour each day and when you do exercise you're basically one big sheet of Sweat by the end of it and we normally towel off first and then we uh bathe using a washcloth and uh some soap that we have no rinse soap and we have no rinse shampoo and we tend to dry off with the towel and throw on a new set of clothes and we're ready to go for another day this is Dr P's second uh journey I guess into space for the the other two of you this is the first time any surprises or observations about micro gravity or life in orbit or views of the Earth or the look of the universe out the window I think the biggest surprise is that after about two days up here it all seems very natural uh floating around tossing things to people uh eating you know all the things we do up here this is really like home and it'll be uh a real surprise when we go back and see how quickly we adjust to being in in 1G again and uh overall it's just fantastic being up here and being able to do the kind of things that we can do floating around and the shuttle is a pretty small vehicle when we're down on the earth and up here since we can utilize the whole Space vertically I'll float up a little bit and uh it's a whole lot bigger vehicle the other big surprise is that we're here in in daylight and we can look down at the Earth in the South Pacific and uh you know it's just a beautiful planet but if I look out the other window the sky is totally black it's a jet black and uh that's kind of a unique thing to be able to do in fact US amateur astronomers down here Dr grun Feld um can only be envious describe how black it is what the seaing conditions are like if you would there well in daytime of course our eyes have adjusted to the bright light and uh there's a a very bright shuttle Bay uh with the telescopes behind us and but behind it is a backdrop of just total Blackness at night if we darken the flight deck uh I would say that the uh the view of the stars and the Earth glow and uh of course Mars and Jupiter that we're able to see up here uh is uh comparable to to better than the best I've seen on any mountain top that's really really Envy making for those of us down here on the ground a question that I would I would wonder about uh you've been scheduled to get some time off that is the ultimate Human Experience to have time off to do anything you want in orbit what have you each decided to do for yourself during your time off okay uh basically it's one of the few times that we can just gaze out of the windows not have to worry about taking photos or anything else and so I I think I'm just going to take in some of the viewing that goes by it's really a gorgeous site out there and uh it's amazing how quickly you cover ground to take a photograph you're really working at it in the window so just to sit back and enjoy the view I think it's probably about the best thing to do Dr grunsfeld after four billion years of Earth's existence you and your co-investigators are at this moment raising the curtain of the universe what does this moment mean for human history well I think this is uh a moment both uh what we did on Astro one and Astro 2 that in human history anyway astronomy has always played a very Central role in in Civilization and uh we're the first wave of folks that are carrying that uh part of human history to space and someday will be uh setting up observatories on the moon and Mars and and sending out probes well beyond the solar system and so we're just the first wave of the association of astronomy with uh with humans in fact you may unlock with what you bring back with you the secrets to How the Universe began that's very awesome isn't it this must be quite a responsibility and and a thrilling feeling for you guys well it's just part of the everyday work of uh an astronomer or an astrophysicist and it is very exciting I wonder if you feel like you're in freef Fall for those of us who have not been in orbit you're noticeably taller and your faces are a little bit tougher than they were two weeks ago or two weeks from now aren't they yes that's true basically uh when you're standing on Earth you've got gravity pulling all the blood into your extremities your arms and your legs and as soon as we get to zero g all of that fluid starts seeping to your midsection of your face so our stomachs kind of Bulge out a bit and our faces tend to Puff out but after a couple days it starts going down so they look a lot better now than they did immediately after Mo now you've helped us a lot with what it looks like but what is it sounds taste feel and smell like in the Orbiter well it smells okay to us we're used to it no it smells fine everything tastes good the food tastes good some people like different things from uh what they're used to on Earth and uh as far as the way it feels after about the first day it feels extremely natural at first moving around you're you're a little bit unsteady and wobbly but uh after a day or so it feels completely natural the rules of personal conduct I guess are a little bit different on orbit aren't they for example I imagine you bump into each other a little bit more probably don't even say excuse me anymore if you happen to kick somebody in the head yeah it's uh it's inevitable and we just get used to it in fact it's kind of fun uh you know when uh somebody's in the inter deck access for instance and and you want to head up uh even though it's small there's always room and you bump a little bit and uh it's kind of like bumper pool but the forces are so light that it's really not very bothersome at all it's kind of fun your colleague and my college astronomy classmate Jeff Hoffman uh described going to sleep on the Orbiter as being enveloped in a chrysalis and he said he made the first proper brood tea off the Earth any wonderfilled observations like that you're going to bring back can you share those with us well there's a few things we're uh we had some tortillas on board Fresh Tortillas and uh we built a little refrigerator out of one of the cold plates and that's kept them fresh I'll pass it off to uh Bill Greg I have to work for second here yeah you've caught us at an opportune time we're coming at to the end of viewing cycle and currently we're about ready to maneuver what we've got is we've terminated the run with Ron pice terminating the data take and now on directly behind me John grunsfeld is going to go ahead and gimble loock the IPS which is our pointing system at which point we're going to go ahead and maneuver the Orbiter in its entirety to the next area for the Target so what we're going to do is we're going to point the Orbiter at the Target once we're pointing the vehicle within the a degree of the target then the inertial pointing system the IPS will fine-tune on the Stars once we've got that fine-tune then we go ahead and we start taking data again Colonel Gregory you and your crew mates are seeing farther out and longer ago than anybody before ever you're really the product and the project right now of everyone who's ever been born how do you feel about that well I think I can Echo everyone's feelings that we're just up here doing our job we feel very privileged to have this opportunity to serve the American people and also the folks in the entire world and we're very happy to be up here we're trying to do the best job we can and we think that the data we're going to provide to scientists will be information that they can crunch on for years to come I see that Dr P and Dr grunsfeld are back uh as you know there's extreme pressure on NASA's budget in Washington right now do you have a message from space for Washington and the citizens in planet Earth about the value of what you're doing space research and exploration well the uh the NASA astrophysics program and space research in general is really our only opportunity to explore the space that we have you know outside of planet Earth and and the astronomy program in particular to to explore what's beyond the solar system and that's just very important research and it it's brought a lot of developments uh the detectors that we have on board have led to uh new new detection techniques for the medical industry and overall it's a a win-win situation uh as far as the uh shuttle program uh this is just the absolutely most fantastic flying vehicle there is the kind of things we do up here that it's an entire living system but also a you know a spaceship uh I'm just amazed and and I've been training on this for three years and I had no idea how pleased I'd be with the vehicle and it's just performed flawlessly and so this this is a program that's worth supporting any closing thoughts from Colonel Gregory and Dr perice I want to Echo uh John's feelings on what a wonderful vehicle this is it's amazing how uh well it performed on the asent it was just Flawless we just sat back and enjoyed the ride and although some missions perhaps are a little flasher and photogenic I'm proud to be up here for 16 days delivering a bunch of Science and I think that uh in the years to come we're going to be very thrilled with the information that we're bringing back to Earth on this Mission and finally Dr per well I just like to add one comment about about us being up here taking uh all this exciting data we're of course just the tip of the iceberg and uh there's several hundred more people on the ground who are planning um and uh and taking the data that we send down and so of course um they are working very long hard hours just as we are up here and deserve uh much of the credit for what we get done gentlemen thank you all Houston KFWB that concludes the event thank you goodby thanks KFWB Endeavor let's resume operational air to ground one