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so joining me here now in mission

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control one of our current nasa flight

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directors mike lammers

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mike thanks for joining me real quick

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and welcome you worked first element

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launch so you've been you've been here

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longer than me i'm jealous that you were

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there you know when everything started

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what were you doing back in 1998 for the

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program uh back in 1998 i actually

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worked in the uh the training division

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as was called at the time which was uh

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part of you know mission operations that

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handles all the flight control and

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training for the crews and i was heavily

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involved in developing

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some of the early simulators for the

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space station and getting those to work

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with the space shuttle simulators and i

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was on the team that was

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training the crew of sts-88 which is the

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the shuttle mission that delivered node

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one that was the first uh us element

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attached uh to the fgv the

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first element launched

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fairly shortly after

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uh first element launch so uh you know

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there that mission and first element

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launch were really um tied at the hip

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um obviously first element was where we

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did a lot of uh the initial um

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integration

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um with the with the russians on on

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hardware we're going to join our jointly

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operate obviously we had been gotten a

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lot of really valuable experience with

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phase one and mirror but uh but really

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uh first element launch was was um where

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we were going to actually uh work

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together and jointly and in operating a

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vehicle um

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it was really uh

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interesting to work on i think when we

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we started there was so much that we

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didn't know even though uh first element

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gave us a lot of um experience you know

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we were still

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kind of uh in a monitor mode um uh with

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with mir as far as uh what we do which

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was systems obviously we had crew

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members on board doing doing work then

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we were taking care of them both from

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houston and moscow but uh it was uh it

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was really pretty special because we had

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spent

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i'd been here for two or three years

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before that but there had been a number

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of people working space station uh

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really in fact i think my manager had

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been working it since the 80s oh wow um

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and uh and uh to finally get to the

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point where where we were going to

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launch was uh was was pretty special

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after uh after a lot of uh waiting and a

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lot of a lot of really um hard work

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um so we all i remember in particular

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what i was doing is i came in and i

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think i i watched from one of the back

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rooms in mission control and and we sat

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around and we watched the launch and we

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we hung around for a few ground passes

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afterwards and it was

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um it was really pretty special to do oh

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i'd imagine it'd be really exciting you

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know because

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i've heard it described you know it was

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the start you knew there was going to be

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a lot of really hard work in the years

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to come but it was really good to you

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know get things started yeah and you

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know one of the interesting things about

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working you know not just for nasa but

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anyone that deals with uh launches is uh

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there is that you know all this work

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that you do it's pretty unique where you

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come up to one

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kind of moment of about 10 minutes where

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it's over so quick yeah where everything

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is kind of focused on that moment and

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then 10 minutes later

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um there you are and uh oh my gosh now

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we've got a we've got got to actually

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operate this thing so it's a lot of fun

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well and i mean you guys have been

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operating it for the last 15 years tell

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me a little bit i mean how how has how

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has it been to watch this whole program

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evolve and see see how far it's come in

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the last 15 years it's you know it's

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been pretty amazing just when you look

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back at

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how much we've learned on on operating

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in space of course it's not quite 15

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years but pretty close since that we've

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had a permanent occupation of space

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station i mean there's you know

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teenagers alive today that don't

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remember a time where there weren't

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americans

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orbiting the earth which is which is

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pretty unique um we have gotten

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i i remember

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back when i was younger when we'd watch

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space shuttle missions and this is

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during the early 80s where you know we

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do spacewalks that

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essentially put a couple of pieces of

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metal together yeah that was just a you

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know a precursor for what we were doing

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on space station and now we've gotten to

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the point on space station that we do

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um just amazingly complex activities and

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they're almost uh i won't say that

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they're routine but

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but but they're very um

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not routine but they're they're

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something that we've done and we've got

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a lot of experience with we can do with

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confidence like yeah last year i ran a

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space walk and you know i remember

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watching it

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you know where you see the crew going on

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one of the first things that we got to

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do when we send the crew out the door is

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the time it was a sunny williams was was

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the ev crew member she actually had to

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go hand over hand

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almost a good chunk the length of a

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football field to get out to the end of

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the truss and just to think that one of

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the one of the challenges that we have

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when we do spacewalks is how far the

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crew actually needs to translate outside

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just to get to the work site yeah

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whoever would have thought that our

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spaceship is too big yeah i mean it's

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it's it's massive and uh just uh you

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know the amount of focus that we had on

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first element and the fgb which you know

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comparatively it's a simple

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vehicle

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compared to a lot of the other things

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like the service module and some of the

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vehicles we send up in the u.s lab

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it's really amazing that we've uh we've

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we've built this machine and and you

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know to this day we're still learning a

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great deal about the machine itself and

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running it and also keeping people on it

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full time and i mean excited about

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what's to come still oh yeah um you know

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the neat thing about working on the

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space station is uh it's never quite the

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same right every year we do something

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different something big that's different

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um just recently i worked uh in the last

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few months as a cygnus which was the

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commercial cargo mission that uh that

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orbital launched and uh you know that

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was a whole new learning curve another

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vehicle to learn another set of people

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to work with

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and um

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you know we had that that was just this

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month next next year i'm sure there's

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going to be some more we've certainly

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got some new um

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elements in the in the pipeline that are

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on the drawing board the russians have a

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number that they're going to they're

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going to put up in the next few years

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and

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you know the space station of uh

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you know five years from now is is going

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to look different in ways than the ones

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that today does and probably in ways

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that we uh we haven't quite yet

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anticipated well yeah never a dull day

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no all right well again international

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space station 15 years and

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going strong and a lot more to come um

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get mike lammers nasa flight director

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thanks so much for being here mike

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you're welcome congratulations on all