we'll start with crew patch again and a
view from orbit the crew patch is still
flying on orbit firmly affixed to the
bulkhead of mere and the core module
meanwhile before dawn the vehicle is
prepped on the pad we actually woke up
before midnight launch morning for us
was actually launched afternoon as we
were already operating on moscow time
we'd had a significant sleep shift here
are getting into the suits after the
morning or afternoon for us a weather
brief we had a chance to take a look at
what the towel weather was what the
forecast for the Cape was Chris had
already been through his suit pressure
checks he was obviously ready to go
Jerry's always ready and we had just got
back from weather weather briefs and
checks bill also had already completed
all that work and we had a little bit of
a chance to relax in the chairs there
before was time to come out well here we
are coming out of the ONC and one of the
most pleasant surprises in addition to
some of the media that was there to take
our picture was to see some of the same
faces I see here today and join this
briefing they were there to greet us and
to give us a bomb by Yas on our way so
thanks for the training same and the
rest of the people who travel down there
to say goodbye we saw a beautiful
sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean and then
we got to go from launch Mel C see Kim
waved goodbye at two minutes prior to
launch and it's six seconds prior the
main engines cranked up and exactly on
time the solid rocket boosters ignited
and the whole down boats let go and we
were on our way and there's absolutely
no doubt at this point in your mind that
you know you're going somewhere the the
first stage ride is is buckboard rough
it's a lot of vibration a lot of noise
it's an impressive thing to be a part of
we punched through a low cloud deck
right there and came out the other side
and and the people who had assembled for
our launch got one last view of us as we
headed out over over the Atlantic Ocean
a second stage ride is incredibly smooth
just as rough as first stages second
stage is just incredibly smooth and
quiet once we got on orbit and opened up
the payload bay doors here's an example
some of the beautiful views that we got
these are the snow-covered Pyrenees
Mountains France to the north Spain to
the south the islands of New York of
menorca right here and this is actually
better view than I often got from space
because I'm not having to compete with
the other four guys four
a window room right here one of the
first orders of business was to assemble
the docking module in the bay and that
involved up using the Canada arm and I
had the honor of being the first
Canadian to ever operate the Canada arm
up in space so it was a real thrill for
me to use this big piece of equipment to
install this large 55 ton Russian
docking module onto the top of the
orbiter docking station here in
preparation for attaching it to mere I
used a bunch of different visual cues
space vision system was one of them
which looked at the dots here compared
them to the dots up here and gave me
relative position inside the cockpit i
also had this view here which is a
centerline camera you can see there's an
actual reflection in this mirror of the
camera itself by the camera looking at
its own reflection I could align things
very carefully but we got it carefully
in position within about fractions of an
inch in fractions of the degree and then
Ken fired the thrusters and slam the two
mechanisms home and it worked exactly
like all of the people at JSC had told
us and mechanism just worked perfectly
to lock them together after we had
successfully installed a docking module
now it came time for our next big task
was to put the doc take the docking
module to its home in space and it was
we could see mirror from the long way
out the initial burns were done up on
the Ford flight deck and then we moved
Ken moved back to the a flight deck so
we could continue with our operations
here you can see I'm working with the
rendezvous computers Chris was taking
shots out the overhead window with the
laser here he has taken the handheld
laser marks we also had two laser
systems in the payload Bay and it was
great it was a beautiful sight as we got
closer to mirror I think the activity on
the flight deck increased Chris began to
really operate the cameras bill shifted
over to lasers as the TCS dropped
offline jim was busy keeping track of
the timing in a timeline and the orbiter
and Jerry shot a lot of these pictures
as well as operated the IMAX camera I
think this is where you see that all the
training and teamwork really come into
play because everybody was
doing all the things we've been trained
to do we're working very closely and we
were able to bring these two pieces of
Russian hardware together on orbit 215
miles up exactly where the Russians
wanted them and as you'll see from the
outside view the whole operation
proceeded very gradually there in the
lower right you can see the view if you
were sitting out on the left wing tip as
these two parts come together you might
have noticed that we had a little
trouble with that target some of the
paint had peeled back and that will be
replaced in future here just about this
point the orbiter jets fired and
accelerated the two pieces of hardware
together the latch is captured and we
were docked a mirror at this point all
the activity on the inside shifted to
operating the apts and drawing the two
vehicles together well this is our first
chance to relax just a little bit and
give us a chance to really get a great
view of the MIR Space Station as we were
also going through a series of pressure
checks at which would allow us to open
up the hatches in between we also had a
chance to capture on film the one of the
solar rays right off the overhead window
as it was rotating to track the Sun as
we kept our Mary Gore go around around
the world here's Ken topping up the
hatch that goes from the docking module
into the crystal module of mirror and as
he opened up the hatch the mere crew is
very excited to come in and see
everybody they'd been on over for about
two and a half months at this point this
is the commander sergey a year sorry
Yuri and here's Thomas the German ISA
cosmonaut and Sergei FDA of the board
engineer will be coming through in just
a second here after this was completed
we went back in the mirror and conducted
a series of video cons down to the
ground and then we went right back to
work what we're going to show you here
is a transfer of the protein crystal
growth experiment from the shuttle over
to the mirror of space station and then
we returned a similar experiment that
had been placed there by sts 71 and
returned it back to the orbiter what
we're trying to give you here is an
impression as you saw in the slides for
the
the length of the runs in the various
different modules but also the amount of
clutter and stowage that has accumulated
over the ten years of living in space
with various different mere crews as
Chris indicated earlier we did transfer
over 2,000 pounds of hardware and
supplies to the MIR station and in
addition we return something in excess
of 800 pounds of equipment and
experimental results that scientists
will be looking at for some time to come
this is going right through the base
block of the mirror and into the cove on
one module and you're seeing yuri and
sergey removed the old PCG experiment
and i'm handing them a new one in
addition to the science we head on board
we also realize that we were these
people's only visitors in a six-month
stay on orbit and we try to bring them
things that would improve the quality of
their life which here included ice cream
sandwiches and I have never seen three
grown men eat ice cream as happily as
those three guys didn't see eating up an
ice cream sandwich and then Yuri floats
the last of his little mini dove bar
into his mouth there and they were very
happy that we had thought of this and
brought them those experiments though my
lips were moving Fayette and brought
them that but the gift that I think
really meant the most was to bring
Thomas this guitar they have this old
guitar that actually went up in cell you
at seven it's one of the oldest items in
space it's been up there for 15 years we
brought him a new classical practice
guitar and had this opportunity to play
together and sing in the mir core which
was just very memorable for both of us
well we did I actually do quite a bit of
work while we were up there you could
see the arm in position to gather data
from mere jet firings part of a series
of experiments in which we were trying
to get data that will help us understand
how the shuttle will interact with the
International Space Station it was
really quite a thrill to be maneuvering
the arm or in proximity to the solar
arrays and as it turned out it was quite
a thrill for Yuri to see that as well
here you can see things are starting to
get ready to take a little bit sadder
note these are folks that we became
close friends with on orbit correction
on the ground and became just lifelong
friends with on orbit and unfortunately
at some point it was time to say goodbye
and here as it was quite appropriate Ken
as the last one from the Atlantis crew
to leave to leave mere and we close the
hatch and then the next day it was time
to actually undock do our fly round and
then get ready to come home actually
before we uh thought we did have one
last opportunity to wave goodbye from
our overhead windows we could see the
one or several of the windows of mirror
here we are waiving the a final goodbye
to our drug compatriots up there and
then the it was time to actually do the
undocking with Canada controls we
released the hooks that were holding us
in place and springs pushed us away can
fire the jets right about here to get
about a point to foot per second opening
rate then from their orbital mechanics
accelerator Dyer are our rate of
separation from near there is a good
picture of the thing that we got some
privilege to add to mirror the docking
module we had these pictures taken by
the mere crew as we continue to move
away we moved out to a range of about
500 525 feet from mere as we move to
that distance mere rotated back to its
solar inertial attitude that would put
its or solar panels in the most
advantageous orientation to the Sun Kim
was generous enough to relinquish the
controls for a period of time during the
fly around let me get the opportunity to
experience for the first time what it's
like to fly the shuttle in space and I
really appreciated that we flew two
loops around mirror to complete loops
around near and then Ken from the
forward compartment actually I did the
separation burn that finally separated
us away from here well the commander
never let us forget that he was in fact
a marine colonel and he was always up at
the crack of dawn in fact before many
times and here he is shaving and he's
already racked the rest of the crew out
of their bunks and getting us ready to
start on another busy day of activities
on orbit
you can see Chris and Jim shaving and
Jim was one of these guys did a lot of
parallel ops he's also brushing the
teeth at the same time Jim still
brushing his teeth and now and now bill
got into the act and you see Chris in
the background there he's reading his
electronic mail well Ken as I said was a
always anxious to make sure that his
troop stayed in good shape kind of like
a marine drill sergeant and here's Chris
getting in some morning exercise and I
was more into doing laps so here I am
getting some laps in on the mid deck
before the busy day's activities start
and you think that's easy to do well we
demonstrate a little bit of physics here
the conservation of angular momentum as
we spend christened the mid-deck it's
rather tight but as he expands his legs
and arms you can see that rotational
rate slows down and then when he brings
them back together it picks up again
Chris had told you during the slides
that seeing sunrises and sunsets is one
of our favorite things on orbit and this
video gives you a good feeling for how
rapidly a Sun sets in this case occurs
and will cut away to a neck which is a
very nice sequence here of you seeing
from the elbow camera the sunset is
occurs on the orbiter and you see that
we have the lights on in the orbiter and
continue to work through the dark
periods of the orbit we still had some
secondary payloads and science to
conduct prior to coming home you can see
we have a yaw rate this is looking out
the F windows at a nighttime view of the
horizon you're going to see the Rockets
the primary RCS Jets fire is Kim
commands the orbiter Scott that y'all
rate and the as impressive as it is here
the oohs and ahhs coming from the MS is
at the flight deck looking out the
window at this they were impressive
impressed also shortly thereafter it's
time to do the flight control system
check in order to get ready to come home
here you see Ken and myself and Jerry
also going through that fairly long
procedure to make sure
all the AP use the flight control
systems and the computers are ready to
support entry here you'll see the
hydraulically powered elephant's going
through one of their test sequences and
shortly thereafter actually the next day
it was time to come home as the orbiter
re-enters the Earth's atmosphere we
experience temperatures on the outside
of up to about 2800 degrees and that
ionizes the atmosphere and leaves a
contrail behind us that any jet would be
proud to lay down there's a picture of
that contrail going back behind us and
if you I think you could really see it
for about a thousand miles behind us you
can see the globe behind can and here's
Jerry demonstrating it yes we are
starting to reenter the Earth's
gravitational field out my window was
the most spectacular view we had to pull
our flight track about 600 miles south
so we were banked to the right and that
gave me the prime window real estate and
this is from about 235,000 feet about 50
miles in altitude going over the
Canadian Cascades and Rockies and that
gives you a real feel for just the
sensation of speed that you get at this
point in the entry well jim was doing a
lot more than giving us a travel log
across that high-altitude scorching path
down across the northern United States
but here the whole crew on the flight
deck and I know the training team often
wondered what we were doing up there in
the motion base and this is how it
looked we were busy monitor in the
displays watching the orbiter keeping
track of all the systems as we headed
down getting set up for the intercept of
the hack here up the right-hand window
you can see some familiar territory the
vehicle assembly building as we lined up
for the final approach on to runway 33
it was cloudy that day in fact we logged
an instrument approach on this one we
penetrated an overcast and here as we
come down about 2,000 feet the pre flare
was initiated and here the landing gear
Jim Lord at 300 feet as we lined up on
33 it was a good day for flying and
soaring as you could see from that
little clip of the Eagle slight
crosswind but we had overall good
conditions the lighting was just about
perfect we touched down and then rolled
out on 33 here we're using the
aerodynamic braking and then the drag
chute which has been a recent addition
but a real
breaks a ver as we used very little
breaking coming down the runway and
decelerating on centerline this
particular view on the next shot gives
you a little bit of an idea how nice it
was to bring Atlantis back home you can
see as we rolled out bringing it to a
stop towards the end of the runway that
the launch pad behind us was sort of
indicative of all of the phases of
shuttle operations as we launch from the
background on a morning about a week ago
and bring the vehicle back ready to be
towed off and processed for another one
I think very close to Dan there you can
see what I have to admit was a sigh of
relief as the wheels were stopped and
then a chance to thank and congratulate
all the crew there on the flight deck
here we are at the start of the mission
and no special thanks for the last
minute fix to the to the UHF
communication system that did manage to
get us off the ground and this
particular slot slide shows that hole in
the clouds that the weather coordinators
were able to find and as things cleared
on that morning we were able to finally
start on our way to the space station
Mir one of the aspects of the mission I
wanted to include in a slide
presentation was a little vignette of
life on board mere and this is in the
core module of the Russian space station
and Chris and Bill who proved to be very
enthusiastic with all aspects of the
mission particularly enjoyed the amateur
radio payload as we all did and here
they took a few moments to try out the
Russians radio and I think that part of
the international aspect of the mission
was highlighted when the mirror atlantis
complex was flying over canada and a
canadian was on a russian radio talking
to folks at home and a bill and chris
took turns on that radio i think it was
a little difficult to decide who is
going to get to talk next but we all
were very enthusiastic during that all
whole period but this I thought showed a
lot of what was
this joint venture was all about one
other aspect of the mission that is
worth mentioning is also characterized
by this particular photo we had another
one that was difficult to get all of us
in the photo since the photography was
difficult but what you see here are
representatives of Russia Germany or the
European Space Agency the NASA and the
Canadian Space Agency all participants
in a combined spaceflight behind us is
the united nations flag with it is the
us-russian ISA and Canadian flag
somewhat obscured and we're holding the
copies of the United Nations Space
Treaty and also of great interest
astronauts and cosmonauts is the part of
that treaty that deals with the aid and
help to space travelers in the event of
any landings unforeseen locations so we
flew the UN flag and those Scrolls to
commemorate the 50th anniversary of the
United Nations the secretary-general of
the UN mr. boutros boutros-ghali called
at that time and spoke to us in fact the
flag was launched aboard soyuz was flown
aboard mir atlantis complex and returned
earth on Atlantis and we're all looking
forward to seeing our mirror crewmates
again in April when we return to the
United United Nations headquarters to
return these articles to their rightful
home the picture here is a crew photo
and it's a rather unique one I think in
that it was taken with the help of our
mere crewmates and in the overhead
windows there you can see five smiling
faces and that was all of us taking a
look at our home and take with the
snapshot from the Russian space station
and this was the kind of spirit that was
present all the time in Atlantis we were
all during the rendezvous during the
undocking everybody wanted to be up in
those windows but we were all
very excited to be there and I think
awed by the size of the MIR space
station and all of this mission
represented it's difficult to see from
the side of the slides in focus okay
thank you while docked with me r we had
a pretty full plate of tasks to do a lot
of transfer we transferred about a ton
of gear across two thousand pounds
including the water and all of the items
and one of the items that we are to the
items way to transfer with these large
blue boxes teff which thermoelectric
freezers and that's Thomas right or the
German cosmonaut holding them and he's
inside Spectre which was launched
earlier this year so that's how it looks
now up in orbit and not only a Spectre
the laboratory that Thomas does most of
his work in but it's also where he
sleeps and lives he's got his a bedroll
laid out on the floor of Spectre and he
was pretty happy to see the docking
module doc I think he was I on that is
his potential birth from now on we
brought these two flags up as a new
design so a Jerry went through and
change those out with Thomas's help on
board all in all we were planning to
transfer about a thousand pounds of
water and there's a bit of an
incompatibility between the two space
vehicles on the shuttle of course we
purify or keep our water clean with an
iodine content and on mere they use
silver by aside and the silver and the
iodine aren't compatible so we needed to
remove the iodine from our water and
then inject silver biocyte into it so
that they could store it and use it on
board mirror I'm here in the mid deck
and I was I did eight out of the ten
bags that we did so I was largely the
main Gunga Din on board creating and
transport in the water you can see in my
left hand is the hose that comes from
the galley that's pumping are I had
donated water then it goes through that
long silver di di emanating filter and
then if you look carefully right in the
middle of the bag there's actually a
syringe where I could inject the silver
biocide but apart from all the transfer
this was a real opportunity for the mere
crew who had been there since early
September about two and a half months to
come over to a new
place they've been inside the same walls
for two and a half months and they got
took every opportunity they could to
come over into the shuttle not only to
see another spaceship or to see Earth
from a new vantage point but they could
look out the windows and see their own
home in a really unique point of view
and they spent a lot of time here on the
a flight deck of the shuttle looking out
at the new docking module and looking up
at their home in space this next slide
has no people in there that's because
we'd like to talk a couple of minutes
about about mirror itself this is a
representative sample of one of the
modules you can see that the in any
given point the walls are kind of close
to you but the length and the total
volume Amir is quite impressive when we
first got on board mere we found that
there were no orders to speak of this
air smell fine telling us that their air
revitalization system was working just
great you'll notice that there's no
particular matter floating around that
means air filter system is working just
fine the temperatures we found
comfortable and the noise level we'd
christen a lot of tests of the noise
level on board mirror and found that
their noise level was roughly compatible
with what we had to to deal with on the
shuttle the one thing that all of us
recognize right away and especially the
people here from crew equipment and
stowage is to all of us it looks like
somebody just threw a hand grenade in
here but that represents the the
different philosophies that the Russians
use as opposed to the Americans and has
to do with our short duration missions
versus they're very long duration
missions their storage plan consists of
their people being up there for months
at a time and they know exactly where
everything is if you look closely at
this picture despite the apparent
disarray you'll notice that nothing is
floating around everything is either tie
it off or tethered off or bungee it off
and at no time during the flight where
we're Thomas or Sergey or Yuri unable to
find something when we ask for it they
knew exactly where everything was so
there really is a plan and a rhyme and
reason here even though it's going to be
a difficult challenge for us to merge
our two different philosophies and this
is just one example of that difficulty
this is a very special picture for all
of us we wanted to end the onboard
section of our slides on Mir with this
slide this is a picture of Sergei just a
couple of hours prior to the final hatch
closing when we would have to go to our
vehicle and close the hatch and we would
undock the very next morning he's
writing a letter to his wife and he's
doing it in his little his little
enclave this is an area that he claimed
as his own and the other mayor of
cosmonauts respected that claim he's got
some pictures of his family and some
religious icons that were important to
him on the walls there he's got his
window and he sleeps in this particular
area also in the evening he stole away
for about an hour to write a letter to
his wife and then just shortly after
this picture was taken he folded the
letter up and stuck it in a packet of
material that we were honored to bring
down and I'm sure I speak for all the
crew and probably offer of you and I say
that has probably never been any more
important airmail ever delivered by an
aerospace vehicle than the letter that
you see him writing here it's important
for us to keep in mind that he and the
rest of his crewmates are still up there
and there will be for another three
months and they're doing important and
sometimes difficult work and whatever
degree we can help them out on that
that's what the joint program is all
about we'd like to shift gears now and
go to what we were able to see from
space some of the other our earth
observation photos I'm sure many of you
will recognize this photo right away as
New Orleans it's a place that many of
you have had a weekend trip to this is a
picture of Atlanta another southern town
and what's most apparent in this picture
is the Hartsfield Airport right here and
you can see the downtown area of atlanta
right here in this region I 20 the same
highway that goes across much of the
South you can say see goes right through
the center of town it takes a little
here and then continues on
eastbound if you hadn't realized by now
there was significant Canadian
involvement in this mission and it was
particularly nice was with our
inclination at 51.7 degrees we actually
got to see a good bit of at least a
southern part of Canada and needless to
say most of Canada look like this it is
indeed winter up there and it's tad
different than our winters this is a
this is james bay it's a southern end of
the Hudson Bay here you have the Moose
River kind of going into James Bay
there's some interesting linear features
you'll notice that tend to sort of
parallel the the coastline here as we're
all aware this was a area that
experience significant glaciation in the
in the world's geological history and as
the glaciers receded and the land
essentially became lighter there was a
lot of uplifting of the land and so in
fact the shores of James Bay have
receded over the years or more
accurately we can say the old shores
have risen resulting in you shores it's
a little town here called Moose Factory
and that was the one of the original
sites of the Hudson Bay trading post in
the 18th century once again an
organization that figures prominently in
the history of North America and the
settlement of this continent and then
just a little bit actually just across
the river is moosonee and then we have
Hannah Bay down here and Rupert bay
here's Charleston island once again the
our meteorologists are real interested
in this because we see a lot of
processes occurring around Charleston
island ice forming out here then you can
also see evidence of this dry southerly
wind coming up over the water and
starting to pick up moisture as
evidenced by these clouds now I always
like to ask kindergarteners is this
picture upside down or right side up and
of course it depends on your point of
view and in space there is no right side
up or upside down but here's a very
distinctive feature that I know ken is
particularly fond of and so right here
if we go if we go right off we can see
we can see Boston and as we go back pass
Cape Cod see Long Island down here New
York City my apologies to mr. abbey West
Point is located right behind the module
here and
we sure enjoyed the game this weekend
and as he mentioned up on the stage wait
till next year and and I'm sure his alma
mater is going to be ready to return the
favor we go on down we get further down
Delaware Bay and then the Chesapeake Bay
and we had some just really fantastic
panoramic views looking down North
America we finally can see just a little
bit of the outer banks here cape
hatteras and in some of our pictures we
could actually see all the way from New
England down to the tip of Florida and
Lake Okeechobee we were real fortunate
in this flight that we passed out got
some passes over Europe which were clear
which is a pretty rare occurrence and
here we are right over the English
Channel this is the Isle of Wight this
is Portsmouth here we have a London here
the very famous white cliffs of Dover of
Dover cherbourg france out on normandy
out here and there also was a very
strong Scottish heritage in this crew of
course three of us have names of
Scottish heritage and as it turns out we
find out that Hatfield and wholesale
even let some Scots into their into
their families sometime in the past and
we could even see as far north as
Scotland in some of these pictures well
as bill said we had the opportunity to
see a good share of Europe and this is a
part of central Poland something that
none of us had ever seen from at least
from this altitude the white stripes as
you might guess our airliners going
across the sky and laying out some
contrails and it looks like the
predominant wind was from this direction
which is the west or Northwest because
you can see older and older contrails is
probably an error out through here and
there's even a very new contrail being
laid down and here that's rather faint
to see but the predominant feature I
wanted to show you is a river that goes
through here and up to the north and
eventually goes out into the Baltic Sea
where it goes out into the Baltic Sea is
close to the Polish town of Gdansk and
this river starts down way to the south
in the cap in mountains off the screen
to the lower right is the capital of
Warsaw we did capture it at least
partially on another picture in the
sequence the town of Toren is right in
this area and the town of bromberg and
that's the English version of the name
of that town is done in here the
interesting thing to point out in this
picture however is if you look very
closely at the river you actually see
little white specks just in a very
evenly spaced pattern along the river
and we believe those to be the barge
traffic flying back up and forth up and
down the river a very unique site for us
to be able to see well a little bit
further off the east now we're into
Turkey and this is the mountainous lake
lake van and right next to it is a
numerate lake it gave me all these great
names to try to pronounce this lake is
actually in the the cone of a volcano
and there's a whole series of volcanoes
that go up to the east to Mount Ararat
which is off of this view and sliced
back down across to the southwest these
volcanoes are caused by the Saudi
Arabian subcontinent common continental
plates slamming up into into the Europe
continent there is a town in the scene
believe it or not it's right down here
in this little bay it's called a tete
van and let me see I guess the other
thing to point out is that this region
kind of separates two regions in Turkey
the Armenian region to the north and the
Kurdistan Region to the south
another unique site that we saw with a
naked eye which was kind of surprising
to us is this structure that goes across
the plains of Russia you know if you can
see it very well from out there but in
particular this part stands out very
well from my vantage point right here
this is let me set the stage for you to
the left over here would be the Volga
River about 60 miles away and up in this
direction would be the southern portion
of the Ural Mountains so that would be
putting a Kazakh Stein just to the lower
right region of this view or maybe just
off from it the interesting thing that
I'm pointing out here however is a a
windbreak or a shelter of some sort that
has been established by the Russians we
are assuming to cut down the soil
erosion or things like that from the
very strong winds that are predominant
in this region we're always encouraged
to try to keep in contact with natural
as well as man-made causes of things
that are detrimental to the environment
and we were very fortunate to capture a
nice picture of Mount Pinatubo and the
Philippines this erupted back in 1991
put out a tremendous amount of ash which
caused the Americans to leave in a more
expeditious fashion from Clark Air Force
Base in Subic Bay and Philippines and
let me see if I can figure out what
Clark Air Force Base is it's going to be
right down in this area and Subic Bay is
where is it over here somewhere up here
that it it's kind of hard to see from
here but the main thing to point out is
that there had been a very large typhoon
in fact they call it a super typhoon
Angela that had just gone across the
Philippines about a week or so before we
flew over the top of them and what
you're seeing is a very large washing of
the Ashley had been deposited from the
eruption further down the slopes of the
mountain and in fact this one right here
caused a thousand people to be displaced
from their temporary lodgings in this
area this is something that the future
shuttle crews will continue to monitor
to see the impacts upon not only the
people but the wildlife and vegetation
in this area just going to show you a
couple more slides going to take a run
down the Rockies starting up in the
north it's a lot of people ask what you
can see from space especially with the
light dusting of snow like this across
the prairies it becomes very easy to see
towns and the major roads that
crisscross that part of the world this
is Calgary here this is the bow river
coming up from the south down to the
south is drumheller and all of the
tremendous dinosaur finds that are being
excavated right now dinosaur eggs and in
fact infant nests of dinosaurs all to
the south to Calgary this is the
foothills of the Rockies the Rockies
just start right here on the left with
the road leading up to banff and jasper
and some pretty fine skiing up to the
left here the winter olympics were in
calgary just a few years ago and there's
a huge ski jump just at the edge of the
foothills as well and some smaller ski
hills right on the left-hand side of
calgary and have been able to ski in two
years so i'm talking a lot about ski
hills you and this road here is the main
highway that leads straight up to
Edmonton it's about the same distance in
the same sort of highway as a heavy
tweed Houston and Dallas
a little further on down comes to Great
Salt Lake and it shows some man-made
features really clearly this train
bridge that cuts across Great Salt Lake
has divided the waters of Great Salt
Lake for several years and so they end
up with an entirely different color it's
very visible from space but apparently
this train bridge is going to be
dismantled in the near future so it's
going to be interesting to watch the
mixings of these two big sluggish bodies
of water salt lake city is just down in
the south here with the ring of
mountains around it really dramatic
setting up here are the Bonneville Salt
Flats right there where all the land
speed records have been set and if you
look carefully you can see another man
may feature cutting across the Great
Salt desert here of i-80 the interstate
80 cuttin right across and coming a
little further down right on the border
between the mountain and the plane is
Colorado and right here is Denver if you
look you can see the new airport just
open recently outside of Denver to the
north is a boulder colorado here again
some great skin just over the left here
and and down to the south colorado
springs and down in the lower left
corner with a little bit of snow on the
top Pikes Peak and as a rookie on board
it was absolutely amazing to be able to
see the world every 92 minutes you know
you hear about it but the world rolls by
tremendously fast and it was just
terrific to be able to see not only
North America which I've seen most of
flying airplanes around but to see all
of Africa and to see Everest a dozen
times it was just an incredible
experience and another advantage of
every 90 minutes is that you get to see
the Sun Rise or set every 90 minutes
another thing that amazed me from space
was just how thin the atmosphere is I
mean we were only a little over 200
miles up and the atmosphere is way way
below us it's just a finished of vales
around the earth but looking through it
what highlighted by a sunrise or a
sunset you could see all the individual
layers and some days it would just be
kind of a gradual fade of colors and
then some days like this one you'd
actually see distinct bands and since we
were to our orbit was tipped quite an
angle to the
sun the sunrises and sunsets lasted
quite a while so it was just a beautiful
thing to watch and everyone says that
this picture doesn't do as justice it is
just the most beautiful rainbow of
colors that you can imagine it's
gorgeous