you
never Houston just like snoopy the
precocious pup that can do anything you
the dog crew have done it all good
morning and congrats to dog face an
underdog there are their way we were
showing a little well-deserved rest
particularly them and so they're on
their way to the microphone but I beat
into it just a little bit this is
Mission Control Houston this view is
over northern Australia as i endeavor
continues on a course now taking across
the northern part of the continent just
inland from the north coast again these
views of northern Australia endeavour
crossing the Northern Territory
of course taking it to just inland of
luck from the northern coast of the
continent inland from the Gulf of
Carpentaria ever fresh oil or getting
some great views that land down under
that endeavor now moving into the
mountains along the eastern coast of
Australia the Great Dividing range
cogitating on how we might be able to
achieve an opportunity to go chat with
those people and ever I didn't know dogs
could catch it eight we try not to do it
where anybody can see
this is Mission Control this view from
payload cameras payload Bay cameras
aboard the shuttle Endeavour showing the
Spartan science satellite sitting on its
trust structure on the cargo bay on the
left side of the screen as the task
board a worksite upon which gym Voss and
Mike gurnard spent several hours
yesterday during their spacewalk
conducting a number of tasks to develop
techniques and to prove out procedures
which are expected to be used in some
assembly sequences for the International
Space Station that clears it is good
moping thank you for joining us
gentlemen commander walk I'll get right
with it with you a word about the
complexity and the busy time line which
you had on this mission I think before
you left you said you'd be happy if you
completed eighty percent of your chores
up in orbit how close did you come to
that figure well to tell you the truth I
haven't kept that close to track we've
been pretty busy I think we've gotten
most of the major objectives done but
the guys on the ground really have the
have the running tally much better than
I do I will say that I'm extremely proud
of the work that they're Mission Control
team has done and helping us stay with
this timeline and as I crew of course
for for hanging in there and keep it up
with it payload commander colonel vossen
let's have you weigh in on this for a
moment did you at any point along this
mission get the sense that you're
attempting to do too much yeah I think
we do that right from the start we've
known all along we had a full plate and
we've been preparing for it knowing that
we were going to be extremely busy
hoping that we could accomplish
everything that we've set out to do plus
even some extra and I think we've done a
pretty good job of that any time that
you have any difficulties or problems in
a flight it slows you down and could
prevent you from accomplishing all of
your objectives but i think that the
ground team and the crew have both gone
to extremes to make sure that we bring
back as much science data as we possibly
can
of course when there's a problem such as
you had with the wake shield facility
when you have a tight time on like you
you've had on this mission it just gives
you less oven you have fewer backstops
fewer options to fall back on how how
much did that make the problem worse
let's say with the way shield facility
having such a tight timeline well every
time we plan a flight we know that we're
using a very valuable national asset and
we want to plan the timeline just as
tightly as we possibly can to be able to
accomplish everything that we can while
we're up here we don't want to waste any
of our time we go into it very
optimistically assuming that everything
is going to work properly when it
doesn't we have a team on the ground
every night and their sole job is to
replan for us during the day and make
sure that we can still get in just as
much of the science objectives as
possible and they send us up a new plan
in the morning and then we start to
execute it and through our training and
their preparation we are well prepared
to do that and that's what we've done on
this flight I'm curious how would you
grade the performance of the wake shield
facility you were able to grow for thin
films you wanted to do seven was that
good enough as far as you're concerned
given the constraints of the mission and
the performance of the platform well
with an experimental object like wait
shield and a program that's in its
infancy which we hope is going to result
in the whole lot of greater benefits
later on and I think it's a mistake to
try and grade it too harshly it's kind
of like a brand new kid in the block you
want to give it a few few tries before
you start keeping score i would say that
wakes she'll definitely gets an A for
effort the people involved with it or
tremendously dedicated our mission
control team certainly gets an A for
effort when you don't know exactly what
you're going to get as you often don't
in the science project of this type it's
inappropriate to try and give it a great
on product I believe the fact that the
wake is
been able to be characterized and we've
made this fairly complex manufacturing
facility work that it was controlled
successfully interactively both from the
shuttle end from the ground despite
numerous problems those were overcome I
think that speaks very well for the
future of such facilities both the wake
shield itself and others of that type I
suppose some of the issues here might be
a matter of expectations the fact it or
a half-full half-empty type of thing
given the faster better cheaper approach
which was used in building the wake
shield with fewer redundancies and
perhaps might have been used in the past
was was this what we should have
expected as far as that mission went any
time that you have an experimental
program like this that's making new
steps in areas that we don't fully
understand we have to expect to go
slowly and the Wakefield has done that
their first flight they did a lot of
work on the arm they weren't deployed
this flight we deployed them their
control system work very well they had
some problems but they learn to
tremendous amount next time they fly we
hope that things are going to go even
more smoothly we learn a lot every time
that we fly a space shuttle and the same
thing is applied with the Wakefield
every time they fly they will learn a
lot more don't do a lot better and we
hope that over time they will develop it
into a commercial facility for growing
semiconductors like this you can't do it
overnight and until they've done it a
few times they don't know all the
problems they have to overcome I believe
that they'll continue to progress right
along and like any experimental program
they'll get better as they do it more
with respect to better faster and
cheaper your point miles I think is is
is it worth it well if you're going to
go better faster and cheaper you do buy
into some risk
you do not have the same redundancies
and backups that you often have and
things occasionally will go wrong and
can be expected to go wrong more often
than they will if you've got the kind of
program where we put all the bells and
whistles into it but you can't have it
both ways if you believe as we believe
that you've got to conserve resources
and take a little risk to mission
success then you have to accept the
consequences of occasionally having some
things go wrong and that goes with the
this kind of appropriate would you call
it at significant steps down the road
toward the commercialization of space I
think I would remembering that
commercialization of space comes in all
different flavors if if wakes she'll
were able to produce eventually or
facilities similar to wake she'll were
able to produce eventually the kind of
semiconductor materials that were
impossible to produce on earth or
impractical to produce at any sort of
reasonable cost then I think you'd find
people singing its praises to find that
out you've got to go ahead and take the
first steps and I think that's what
we've done and in that sense I think
it's very significant Colonel boss a few
words about the EBA yesterday by all
accounts it appeared to be quite a
success what were you able to prove
about the possibilities and the
viability of actually doing construction
work in space we've done quite a few
edas before that have demonstrated that
we can work in space we were doing some
very specific task on re VA related to
the construction of space station some
maintenance task and construction task
we had various tools boxes that we've
changed out and we use different methods
for changing them out I think that we
showed that some of the methods that we
have could be the easier methods such as
free-floating for certain task or some
of the tools that we've been developing
the rigid tether and the body restraint
error which are additional tools to help
to control either devices or our own
bodies while we're out there are things
that will help us to reduce the EV a
time during the space station
construction
make it an easier thing for us to do and
make it a lot cheaper for us in the long
run so I think that we did prove that a
lot of the objectives that we were
looking at were feasible and they will
make it viable for us to do the
construction of the space station and
just as a word of comfort were you oh it
sounded like you're pretty warm with the
the thermal improvement were you warm
enough yes they were Mike Bernardo
myself we're cold any time during our
ETA one time I was when I deliberately
turn my cooling to max cooling just to
make sure that it would kumi and in fact
it did and then I turned it back to warm
again and it wore me right up we had
several things that we're done to the
streets this time we have a device that
bypasses are cooling completely so we
have less doing than ever before in the
suits we had some new thermal
undergarments we had some new glove
heaters that were intended to heat our
hands up on previous flights people had
reported their hands getting very cold
when they handled metal objects and all
of those work extremely well even in the
coldest attitude that we could have in
the dark we were both very comfortable
and had no problems at all and when we
brought the equipment back inside even
up to an hour after we had been back
inside some of the metal objects we
touched we're still extremely cold to
the hand so the suit is doing a
wonderful job and Glenn let's and all
these folks there at the Johnson Space
Center have done a wonderful job and
improving them you must have been
pleased to have such a successful cap to
the mission both of you gentlemen were
you happy to see that EV a go as it did
well speaking into the commander I
certainly was you da is an important
tool and we need the opportunity to
utilize it and practices as much as
possible to be ready to build station
property but I felt kind of like a
mother watching her kid go off to school
I couldn't walk them to the school to
the school or to the bus stop but I had
to worry about him till he came back in
so I was very happy to get those guys
back inside Colonel Vasa was your uh oh
I'm sorry go ahead
I was just going to add to that that of
course it was a wonderful experience for
us both Mike and myself it was our first
time out in this all we're trying to
gain experience for more crew members
also so that we'll have an experience
Kadri when we start building the space
station and we certainly got that we
finished up the EBA EBA a lot better
than when we started it and so we now
two more people who are ready to go and
help to build space station you had a
few words about the view out there is it
hard to concentrate on your work when
you're in those surroundings well re da
was very special with this the thermal
evaluations that we had normally people
go outside and like all our timelines
they're very compact and you stay so
busy and you're focused on your work
because you must be careful work slowly
and really pay attention to what you're
doing out there a lot of times you don't
have a chance to sit back and just enjoy
the view but because we were up on the
arm for 45 minutes and an attitude where
we were very cold outside and we were
not supposed to be active we were
supposed to have a very low metabolism
we had the opportunity to just sit up
there and watch the world go by I i
called it eda heaven because it gave you
the opportunity to the outside have the
most unobstructed view possible and to
see the world go by and I don't know if
you heard but at one point I noticed
that as I looked around I could turn
around and see 360 degrees all the way
around me and all I could see was
watering clouds everywhere and was just
amazing to to note that most of our
world really is water and I could see it
all at the same time Colonel Voss one
more question for you and this is an
entirely different subject but you were
locked into orbit on some SRBs which
were modified because of concerns about
the gas pads and I know you were
involved in the Challenger accident
investigation I'm curious how pleased
you are I'm assuming you are with the
way the process went this time around
and what lessons has NASA learned
perhaps from the Challenger accident
well I think we learned our lessons well
from the Challenger accident everyone
listens when there
problems and we go and fix them the
management listen when there were
problems we did not allow the shuttle
launch until we fix the SRBs this time
and I have the utmost confidence in our
management team as well as the workers
who prepare our vehicles some of my
commander and good friend Dave Walker
has said that really struck home to me
is that we live by the skills and
talents of the people who work at the
Kennedy Space Center and the other
places that prepare hardware for flight
and that's the truth and we all have
complete confidence in their abilities
to do that I'm sure that the solid
rocket boosters that we rode with the
absolute best possible safest ones that
could be produced by human beings and I
thought that way when I got on them and
it proved to be the case they were safe
and they did a good job for us all right
gentlemen we're just about out of time
here thanks for taking time out of your
dog on busy schedule and I know dogs
always like to come home my dogs like to
stick their heads out the window I
suggest you guys don't
this is Mission Control Houston this
view from payload Bay cameras aboard
endeavour shows astronaut jim newman
moving the shuttles mechanical arm he is
maneuvering it to the position where he
will wind up cradling the arm to put it
to bed for the rest of this mission with
its job done for the flight this all
taking place as endeavour attracts from
Northwest to Southeast over the Atlantic
Ocean on the 155th orbit of the mission
the robot arm was used extensively
during this mission to grapple deploy
and retrieve the Spartan science
satellite which is coming into your
field of view on the left the gold
foiled satellite which studied the solar
corona and the solar wind for two days
on its own the robot arm also grappled
deployed and ultimately retrieved the
wake shield facility we grappled the
wake shield on Friday to conduct a
series of tests regarding the electrical
fields around the orbiter as a travel
through space and then was used
yesterday with a portable foot restraint
attached to the end of the arm to hoist
astronauts Jim Voss and Mike Bernhardt
about 30 feet above the payload Bay and
to position them towards deep space to
gather data on the thermal effects of
the cold of deep space and the thermal
modifications made to their spacesuits
to keep space walkers in the future
quite warm as they work on the space
station assembly tasks
the rest of Newman's colleagues are in
the midst of a midday meal the crew was
awakened over 8 hours ago to begin its
11th day on orbit earlier this morning
in the wee hours a commander Dave Walker
and pilot Ken cockerel turned on one of
the shuttles three auxiliary power units
and conducted the flight control system
check out they were able to exercise the
body flap ailerons rudder and speed
brake on the orbiter it all checked out
just fine and then fired many of the
shuttles jet thrusters both primary and
verniers to make sure that all those
systems are available for the entry and
landing of Endeavour tomorrow at the
Kennedy Space Center with that out of
the way the astronauts now have begun
the stowage of their crew cabin the
deactivation of some of the secondary
experiments in the mid deck area they
are essentially packing up their ship
for the return trip the crew will be
going to bed at 209 p.m. central time
this afternoon about eight hours from
now to call it a day and to get up a
late tonight just after 10 p.m. central
time to begin their deorbit preparations
which will lead to their homecoming in
Florida back at the Kennedy Space Center
once again this view of the shuttles
robot arm built by spar industries of
toronto canada as astronaut jim newman
maneuvers it into place on its cradle
along the port lon Geron of the cargo
bay the arm was first used on the second
shuttle mission st s to indo vember of
1981 aboard the shuttle columbia
commander joe angle and pilot dick truly
who later went on to become nasa
administrator maneuvered the robot arm
during that mission that flight only
lasted two days but the middle day that
the astronauts were on orbit was devoted
almost exclusively to tests with the
robot arm and its
been a staple item of most shuttle
flights since then