I
I'd like to introduce the crew on my
left lieutenant-colonel Eileen kid
Collins United States Air Force and she
was a real pleasure to work with over
the past year and a half I hope to work
with her and again in the near future
and it was great flying with her it was
her expertise that enabled us to hit the
timing task to the exact second she was
giving the guidance commands he was the
policewoman during the running booze
making sure that we were doing
everything according to the schedule and
she performed all of the burns on this
on the Spartan retrieval she went to
Syracuse University in 1978 graduated
with the math and economics major as a
master's degree from Stanford and
Webster she flew c-141s in the Air Force
and was a professor of math at the Air
Force Academy the kid was not a rookie
when the SRBs ignited she was right
there with us as a as a veteran she's
the perfect choice for Americans first
woman pilot in space on her left dr.
bernard harris pulled together all of
the science for me on this flight he was
my payload commander and was his
expertise that enabled us to
reprioritize and replan and get all the
extra experiments from space head for
combined into space m3 and he went to
the University of Houston 1978 graduate
the biology degree has a doctorate and
medicine from Texas Tech did his
residency work at the Mayo Clinic worked
at NASA Ames he's on for faculty
appointments he flew and STS 55 on
Columbia he has great bedside manner but
I'm not going to let him take any more
blood for me
dr. C Michael fall Esquire from
Cambridge England before the flight I
said he had the unofficial title of
world's smartest man I saw a lot of the
world and I'd like to upgrade that to
the official title he is the world's
smartest man at least of the world that
I could see he's a computer whiz from
the University of Cambridge has a PhD in
astrophysics I worked at NASA's Mission
Control Center before joining the
astronaut office he flew on STS 45 and
STS 56 Johann Kepler never guided
100-ton vehicles together in space and
he has dr. Janice Voss ms3 from Rockford
Illinois did a superb job on the arm
during the grapple of Spartan she went
to Purdue University has a PhD in MIT
from MIT in estero not accept here at
JSC also and she flew and STS 57 she's
the commander's dream she just went up
there and did every job that she was
given to expertly and was a pleasure to
fly with and i hope the flyer her again
i hope to play with all of them again
we're teen how to see through my very
good friend Colonel Vladimir yogi it's
Tito of from Russia lat another CRO of
me he's a very cool if you've seen the
his second launch attempt you'll know
what I'm talking about you should have
seen him on the arm during this flight I
said pre-flight that we were going to
watch him we did and we did learn a lot
about space flight from Vladimir he was
very cool on the arm he waved the folks
around on the on the end of the arm and
did an outstanding job we would like to
roll the movie and after the movie will
show our slides of course the toughest
part about training is designing the
patch and once you do that then you're
ready to go fly here we are on suit up
morning putting on the Asus suit four of
us head the new suit it's a very good
design worked very well if we ever need
it for a depressurization system system
I'm sure it's going to work very well we
also had the liquid cooling garment was
kept us very cool on a scent and during
the entry that's also a new improvement
many people helped us over the year
getting ready to go
launched into space and it was great
when we walked out to see some of the
smiling faces the folks that have helped
us over the previous year and a half and
it was nice to to wave at them and give
them a smile as we departed for the
launch pad of course is your approach
it's the first time you've seen them the
launch pad when there aren't very many
people around this is a moment that
takes me back to when I was about six
years old and I first decided I wanted
to be a national this is looking up at
your rocket and this sent shivers down
my spine every time I think about it and
it was a special feeling as we went up
the elevator the main engines ignite six
seconds prior to liftoff and then of
course the SRBs ignite when you see the
launch from a distance in person or on
cameras it looks like the vehicle is
climbing very slowly and stately we are
here to assure you that there's nothing
slow about it it's a power and speed are
the two words that come to mind when the
SRBs ignite it's a pretty rough ride a
lot of vibrations shakin goin on of
course 7 million pounds of thrust and
you can feel every one of those pounds
the first rendezvous maneuver is done
right here on the wash pad we wait until
the launch pad is in plane with the
mirror and then we quickly launch that
occurred shortly after midnight and so
it was a night launch pretty exciting
going uphill I especially like the the
view that we see after we land it was
great seeing the view in the cockpit but
of course we're working the systems and
making sure everything is working SRB
separate and run away
once we get on orbit we have a nice
external look of the space have which is
the module has all the experiments in
fact 23 different experiments here you
see myself and veloce has a camera as we
open the hatch to space hand the
investigations included a variety of
things from crystal growth the plant
growth we even did the famous taste test
that you heard about the experiments on
board pretty mature and the entire
complement of the kinds of experiments
we do in space this is a protein crystal
growth experiment that uses a vapor
diffusion apparatus these trays are full
of little vials of protein crystals
dissolved in a solution you pull the
trades out you can see the little
chambers little round circles in the
center of the screen each one has a
little droplet that contains the
solution and during the flight these
droplets the Halfmoon shapes you see
evaporate leaving a protein crystal
behind and hopefully they get very large
crystals from this experiment we also
had some other life sciences experiments
onboard back in the module this is vadim
erty Tov working on the Astra culture
experiment growing plants in a sort of
equipment that hopefully we can use on
Space Station in the future to grow
things for astronauts to eat this is a
robot we had on board called Charlotte
you can see at the bottom right corner
of the screen a cable there are eight
tables like that attached to the corners
of Charlotte which allows it to fly
around like Charlotte in Charlotte's Web
it can turn switches as you see it
during doing here it can punch buttons
it has a camera this view is from the
camera onboard Charlotte so it can send
pictures to the ground of how the
experiments are performing in space so
it can be used to work experiments on a
crew members not available what you're
about to see here is the odor acts
deploy three spheres and three dipoles
were launched there was one another
sphere in the dipole the purpose of this
was to calibrate the ground radar so in
the future they can better track orbital
debris you all know about our jet
problem we work this pretty hard the
first couple days of the flight we
thought we were going to go into 33 feet
here you ok there's the oxidizer spewing
out and you can
it's very well at the terminator passes
but we thought were going to go into 33
feet but with the leaking jet we knew
that they'd be a possibility we'd be
limited to four hundred feet or maybe
even a thousand feet here's the first
time you saw station approximately 50
miles from us and the video Syria this
time we receive message from station Mir
about we have decision about 30 feet
approach this is the first time we've
been able to show you how dramatic the
speed looks on orbit we're traveling in
over five miles a second it's the first
time we've had other human beings in
another spacecraft able to take our
picture we fly underneath the mere
slightly faster and then climb up in
front of mere ko altitude where we
eventually slow down and flacco speed we
fly the first third of the rendezvous
from the front part of the cockpit just
like they do in the enterprise you do
air all the burns with the computers
computer guided and automatically
controlled and then we fly to the float
to the back of the vehicle turn around
look aft and fly the remaining portion
of it manually this is valery polyakov
he's the cosmonaut who's been up there
over a year now and will soon set a
record this is elena konnikova speaking
to us on the shuttle in fact all the
astronauts got a chance to speak on our
VHF radio to the cosmonauts on near it
was very motivating as Jim climbed up
towards the v-bar that's basically the
horizontal line tangent to the earth
where we going to meet up with me I was
ranging with the laser and meanwhile
they were looking at us coming up and
this is something we only saw when we
came back and we appreciate how dramatic
it is in fact what you're seeing here is
sped up twice normal speed just so that
we can show it quickly but I think even
so you can feel how dramatic that is in
the foreground that you see the dark
metal ring that's a an adapter on the
MIR for scientific instruments and then
at the bottom right that's a scientific
instrument because a telescope
once we're at about 400 feet Jim
arrested the approach to the mayor and
we basically station kept there for a
few minutes before we started our time
to approach once that time we came up we
basically had a window to make and
Arlene kept us straight we were flying a
range rate commands using another laser
tracking system the trajectory control
sensor in the middle of the bay ranging
off the docking port here which is the
white cross and Jim will tell you what
he's doing there this is a view taken
from one of the payload Bay cameras in
it shows how stable the orbiter is as it
approaches to the target and very few
inputs were required we saw no motion
from the solar rays you see the solar
arrays slewing we were in the lowsee
mode essentially not pluming the station
we of course didn't want to damage
something this beautiful and again you
can see how precise the orbiter is we
didn't do very much it just stayed in
the right place it's a little bit easier
to fight in the simulators and that's
good this is the view out of the window
at about 37 feet and you can see
Vladimir and I are both crashing into
each other trying to get as good as
short as the other this is a pan that
Vladimir made and you can see the
windows there's of anaconda Koba with a
knee yes Elena Konerko and me and you
wave each other and for you of course I
don't know who was it this is somebody
know a new conversation this is valery
polyakov and this is commander Alexandra
Bianca all of the time with camera and
shows the movie make movie it is his
picture from station near again it shows
how well the vehicle has been designed
after we remained in our closest point
of approach for about 10 minutes with
the my crew member is helping me to make
sure that we didn't go one inch closer
than the flavor limit of 10 meters you
can see the solar array slewing again no
motion at all from our jets we saw no
interaction after 10 minutes we backed
away and proceeded out to 450 feet and
initiated a fly around as a photo survey
in fact this is one of the heart of
things for Jim and items will talk about
in the cockpit as we back two way mirror
maneuvered so that we no longer had a
center line towards the docking port and
at 450 feet we started to climb up above
it and behind it in our orbit plane so
that we would do a full circle around it
basically trying to stay at 450 feet
during this time however using the laser
which was the handheld laser which is
the thing that a traffic cop would use
to catch e for speeding we basically
couldn't find many reflective items on
the mirror to get a range off and so we
basically had to move out a little bit
further than we first planned because of
that uncertainty but it was no problem i
think the gym if anyone has any doubts
about what we're doing in the future let
us assure you that we were on the right
track and you can't help but see a
vehicle like this that's been up since
1986 just stunning just breathtaking and
ended it really tells us that we're
doing the right thing we had met the
Russian people before we launched and
they're very proud of their space
program they know a lot about our space
program and we're of course are very
proud of our space program and it's time
to join our forces and make both of our
programs better this is about 17,500
miles per hour looks like from the top
we have payload bay lights on board the
shuttle that help eliminate the mirror
we could see it at 600 feet and you'll
see in the next shop you watch the top
upper right corner of the screen you'll
see the jets on the mirror firing we can
see there's all the structure and things
very clearly at night without any help
look up right up in there top right
corner what's going on there is it's d
state it's they have gyroscopes
basically on the MIR to give it attitude
control and at some point they become
saturated in the fire jets to desaturate
the gyros this is a parting shot and it
was a pretty sad moment I think we had a
long day was busy but one of the most
exciting days in my life I must say the
second major activity we had on this
flight was the Spartan satellite it had
an ultraviolet telescope that's on the
right side of the box of the gold box
you saw in that picture on flight day
two we took it out of its station the
payload Bay to look at the shuttle it's
looking at the ultra violet glow on the
surface of the tail of the shuttle by
the murti top you can see at the
controls on the robot arm here he's
flying the Spartan up above the nose of
the shuttle so it can look back at the
tail and it Jets on the tail to fire and
watch their glow on fight day 5 we
released Spartan so it could go look at
some stellar objects again buddy mighty
tough is flying the arm here we let the
Spartan go and then we watch it to make
sure its attitude control system is
working properly when that's all been
checked out Jim flies the shuttle way at
about one foot per second which allows
Spartan to drift about 40 miles in front
of the shuttle where it can perform its
observations undisturbed by the shuttle
environment the ultraviolet telescope
will be looking at diffuse nebulae and
other intergalactic objects which can be
easily observed from the ground you can
see us doing ranging marks and looking
at the Spartan to make sure all the
deploy is going well you see it in the
center of the screen that little black
square is Spartan on its way this is
Mike and I preparing for our big event
at least it was my favorite thing on the
mission and I was e VA we have to pump
the suits up without anybody's in it to
make sure it's not leaking and then
get ready for prep here i'm attaching
electrodes to my chest both Bernardo my
wore these during the EBA it said that
our flight surgeons can monitor our
heartbeats during the spacewalk and here
we are getting ready for our four-hour
hang on the wall while we get to look at
each other and tell each other stories
after they waved goodbye to us we had to
get right back on getting Spartan
retrieved jim was flying the rendezvous
here and you can see Spartan coming up
the robot arm is in the bottom center of
the screen I'm performing the retrieve
at this point I'm using the camera on
the robot arm which is the view that you
see here to get a good eye on how
Spartan is coming close that's me at the
robot arm you see the trajectory at the
bottom right corner of the screen there
that's the approach that we flew the
part I'm trying to grab is actually the
bottom center of the screen i'm using
the target in the middle of the screen
in order to aim and adjust my attitude
properly so i can get ahold of Spartan
that all went very smoothly job did it
Tim did a superb job of setting me up
for this grapple once we got a hold of
Spartan we then put it back in the
payload bay there had been some concern
before the flight because earlier
flights had had some problems with the
latching mechanism they had changed the
hardware before this flight and we were
hoping it all went well and indeed it
did it went right down into the guides
and latched up on the first attempt
which was good news for the EBA guys
champing at the bit to get in the
payload bay and chomping we were but not
and I kept on looking at each other as
they are ms slowly did its thing but
here we are we got outside we were very
happy we wave to the camera and started
our thermal evaluation well I was the
first guy on the arm I got in with no
problem you see the arm is outfitted
with a pad and once I got safely in I
grabbed a hold to Mike and by the way
we're we are tethered shortly after that
balochi lifted us both up about 30 feet
above the cargo bay for the cold soak
and during this time frame actually
neither Bernardo myself thought
particularly cold anywhere it was only
when we started to unbirth the Spartan
and we moved into darkness at the same
time here you see me on the end of the
RMS moving it a little bit closer to
Bernard so he can grab ahold of it with
a small handing tool and perform his
mass handling evaluation during this
time I had full control
once my candidate off to me it was my
job to take this almost 3,000 pound
object satellite and wave it back and
forth in the air not only weigh about
250 pounds and our 205 pounds i should
say he's getting laughing all the time I
don't weigh 250 pounds they wouldn't let
me go in the shuttle so it was a as not
as an easy test as you may think even
though it doesn't weigh anything it does
have a lot of mass and you can see here
my initial starts and stops I did not
have the satellite very square and it
was sort of a steep learning curve at
the very beginning after a while I got
the hang of it and then it became pretty
pretty easy but the only way you can
move masses like this is very very
slowly I must say Bernard did it
extremely well initially he said he had
a lot of concern about doing it even
slower than we had practiced on the air
bearing floor but as far as I could tell
he moved it without cross-coupling
anything towards the end of his mouth
handing evaluation I was steadily
getting cold while watching him and so
we ended up birthing the Spartan because
of specifically very cold hands on my
part and I think when I had cold feet
after we've been told to do the birth
Bernard was able to practice his thermal
emittance evaluation after I did that
then it was Mike's turn on the RMS yeah
he had been up there freezing his toes
and hands off at this point and he did
actually did a close pass over IMAX
camera that we had in the payload Bay so
you'll see some nice footage to that
later one of the things we do on every
flight is look out the windows and take
pictures for earth observations folks
one of our important jobs in the space
program is to monitor the Earth's
environment you can see glaciers here in
the southern Andes Patagonia area it's
an area that we don't see very often on
shuttle flights because we don't go to
the high inclination that we had we were
at 51.6 degrees this kind of terrain is
a very enters to the Russian
co-investigators on this flight because
of the glaciers and watching the water
runoff but we do eventually have to come
home ours was an eight-day flight
morning a flight day nine we packed up
to go home we had one last chance
say goodbye to the MIR Space Station
you'll see it in the center of this
frame and then you'll see a meteorite go
by shell has unique experience of having
meteorites go below it if you think a
scent is exciting or the mirror on eva
is exciting you wouldn't believe entry
the only way to take out the energy that
we have put into the vehicle and liftoff
is to come slamming into the atmosphere
there are not many molecules up high but
the ones that are there are screaming
hot and when you hit them and you see
the pink glow outside the windows the
flash is caused by the attitude control
Jets firing you'll see a scene looking
back aft on this 25 mile trailing plume
of fire as we come flying into the
atmosphere now it was pretty dramatic
for us because it was a night entry we
saw the Sun as we approach the hack just
briefly the large turning circle so most
of the entry was at night the Sun peeked
its little head above the horizon and
then dipped below again as we descended
in our hundred-ton glider with a lifted
drag ratio of worse than four to one and
reverse flight path control but the
system is very very smooth you see the
turbulence from inside the 20,000,000
candlepower xenon lamps down the runway
illuminating the runway of course from
where we were it looked like daytime
early morning you'll see again flying
over the threshold of the runway you see
some of the turbulence but the vehicle
handles it very well it takes out all of
the gusts and turbulence you see some of
the trailing edge vortices coming up in
the wingtips in the next shot as we roll
down the runway and lean will deploy the
drag chute and the dis reefs just prior
to nosewheel touchdown which helps to
reduce the loading on the main wheels
and the nose gear see the shuttle chase
airplane flying by Mike said he could
see some of the flashbulbs going off on
the side I wasn't looking in that
direction
Jim always told us not to look out the
window but I blew it I might now that
you feel quite heavy after her coming
back to earth Spang over a week in zero
gravity when I took my helmet off it
felt like it weighed almost 75 pounds
after Eileen get rid of the direct sheet
was the first time we had used the
brakes the system is so good we will
show our slides at this time and then
we'd love to answer any questions that
you may have again this is a spectacular
night and launch with all that thrust in
power underneath the system worked very
well we had no problems until after we
got in orbit and that's a testament to
all the folks who worked on the on the
system's here at JSC and around the NASA
centers lunch plane in our high
inclination dictate that we had only a
five minute launch window these are the
kind of things that we'll be doing every
time we fly Tamir will have just a
five-minute launch window again I'd like
to thank my crew for helping me end this
mission I simply did what they told me
to do and the vehicle was so good that
it was all pretty easy we should have no
trouble in the future on these missions
again setting up for the rendezvous we
do the first portion of it up in the
front cockpit this is the commander seat
on the left for the second rendezvous we
switched the roles and Eileen took over
the commander seat and did the end I
should add that during this time we were
kept on trying to make Jim feel better
about the Jet Li this is a topic of
conversation almost every night day
transition in our orbit we've been
looking out the back when it and say is
it still leaking we go yes Jim he'd try
and smile and I guess he's running smart
here too
of the 44 steering jets that we have on
the orbiter we had problems with three
of them one of them had failed off and
two of them were leaking there was a
forward jet that started leaking on
flight day two and this is a procedure
that I'm working here that one we were
able to heal fortunately because it was
a required jet to do the rendezvous
inside of a thousand feet we cycled the
manifold once and ran this procedure we
hot fire the jet three times and we
managed to heal that leak so you
probably didn't hear much about that on
the ground um and also this would be a
good point for me to to mention all the
great support that we got from our
flight controllers and our engineers
here on the ground and also the managers
that worked very hard in very long hours
working over in Russia with our Russian
colleagues everybody wanted this
approach to happen the Russians and the
Americans alike and we did everything we
could and and of course the crew worked
hard but we have great thanks to pass on
to the people here on the ground that
allowed this mission to go all the way
into 33 feet and be a complete success
first radio contact we had with station
we had on distance approximately five
hundred fifty thousand feet from the
shuttle the connection was table and the
first time they saw the station then it
was about 50 miles from us before the
sunset was so in a bright star in the
direction of our West director and first
we had a discussion on if it was the
planet Jupiter station but in that
period of time we were not sure but
after the sunset sister disappeared and
which mean what it was station and we
were approaching it and I would be able
to see my space home on this picture you
can see the station which is located
about 400 feet from the shadow shuttle
before the sunset and the final approach
of Tara heater started during the with
orbital night and when we began at
approach I must say personally it was
hard to real
what we were actually doing you know
approaching the marriage such a
spectacular sight and yet we had a
pretty technical job to do it this time
so I would concentrate with the handheld
laser at pointing straight at the
docking port as you see it in the lower
part of the scene there and call out
ranges and range rates to gym while he
very carefully maintained a corridor and
fluid in this is the target you see the
standoff cross in the center of the
picture which we use for angular
alignment and translational alignment we
fly the approach with the attitude
control system and automatic pilot and
we fly manually the translational
control system again it was very stable
and fairly easy easy to do even in the
lowsee mode which reduces the plume on
mirror this picture is made from the
distance of approximately 35 feet in the
window station you can see the face of
dr. valery polyakov i had some
experience working with him for four
months during my year flight but now he
got so brave that the heav'n beat the
record of the launch of space flight
with my flight engineer and i set it in
1988 it has just been a little over 13
months of him working in space and on
stop this side of me represents the eyes
of the station because this is the place
where the main windows allocated this is
the place where video activity is
located and where the crew can watched
the earth on the top of the station and
middle it is some top one moment this
one you can see a green color circle but
like looks like a window but it is not
like not window with this a hedge of the
IRA log with a small iron log which the
crew used for performing experience
outside the stating stating it is also
used for stress geez disposal if it
Syrian after we had spent some time
close-up Tamir and we talked a lot on
the radio and had taken many pictures
that we then had to start the second
part which was the fly around and Jim
backed away to 450 feet and then started
a slow climb around the the mere up and
over during this time I think Janice was
taking some IMAX film footage that IMAX
film footage that Mike mentioned will be
ready in a couple of weeks and it's
going to be beautiful my job during this
whole rendezvous was to be in the
Spacehab with cameras at both sides
firing pictures as fast as I could we
have a lot of beautiful photos and I
have to tell you that the the photos
don't do the beauty of this station
justice at all it really is gorgeous
this is the station as we're doing our
separation burn and getting ready to
leave mir space have as we mentioned in
the film was one of our other major
activities on the flight this is the AFT
port end of the space hab module you can
see the general setup with the lockers
that contain experiments and the wall to
the right of the slide that has things
like procedures in our trash areas this
is a budding dirty Tov working on one of
our life sciences experiments on board
there were a variety of different
experiments both in the module on the
mid-deck this is an example of a class
of experiments that we did a radiation
monitoring experiment that Jim our chief
scientist on board was operating he
loved that title we made we made Jim and
honorary scientists on this flight there
were also a large number of experiments
on the mid-deck they even though they
are spaced have experiments they're
stowed on the mid-deck so they can have
easy access for change out of chemicals
right before we launch it's much easier
to get in the mid deck then all the way
back into the space hab module and this
shows a variety of different experiments
the silver boxes are refrigerators the
top center one holds a protein crystal
growth experiment
the middle right one is the vapor
diffusion apparatus that we saw earlier
the gold boxes in the center of the
screen are accelerometers that we use to
measure the environment of the spatial
to help people better understand what
kind of experiments can best be done on
board the third major area we had on
board was the Spartan satellite this was
the attached tops on flight day to where
we're using the telescope that you can
see on the right-hand side of the box
the gold box to monitor the shuttle
environment the glow on the tail and the
RCS Jets firing then on flight day 5 of
ID muti Tov deployed Spartan as we saw
in the film it drifted away for a couple
of days and went back to pick it up this
is me on the retrieved a flight day 7 at
the robot arm controls as I'm getting
ready to grab a hold of Spartan and put
it back in the bay for our anxiously
awaiting EBA guys my nights and white
armor I mentioned in the movie that
Bernard and I try to avoid looking each
other in telling each other stories
because we'd already heard a lot of our
stories before then in fact for four
hours we're having to do a pre breathe
the cabin was kept at 14 point 7 pounds
per square inch atmospheric pressure so
it wouldn't disturb the experiments and
for that reason we had to get rid of the
nitrogen in our bloodstream by breathing
pure o2 for four hours it was actually
not as bad as I expected you're more
comfortable in space speak for yourself
I did those that were not try to sleep
more than I did during this period of
time on my left arm there I'm in the
lower left on my left arm there's a boxy
looking at contraption called the
electronic cuff checklist and it's a
device that basically let's just pull up
with menus the activities we're going to
perform during the EBA and also some
contingency procedures and I spent my
time bothering bernard going through all
of our EV a flight plan by walking with
that checklist we also monitored their
conversation on one of our loops this
was during the Spartan retrieval in
these guys just cracked me up
I think I talked about this on the movie
when we first came out we had a major
task and that was the outfit the RMS
with this pad what we call pad and
contraption here and there's a special
device which we hooked to the RMS and
then we then put a portable foot
restraint on and then we had a thermal
cube that measured ambient temperature
the objective of this this evaa we had
several objectives but the major
objective was a thermal evaluation and
that was we were told go outside guys
turn your heat all the way up and stay
out there and do you get cold and if you
followed us we got cold fairly quickly
and that's not hard to do when you're
facing beeps space and we're talking
about temperatures of an excess of
people mike is holly meyer 2.7 kelvin i
have no idea what that is it's very cold
but it's very cold it's greater than
about the 100 minus 130 degrees
fahrenheit now that I do understand we
have some preliminary temperatures from
the sensors that we had in our gloves
and it shows that it was lower than 20
degrees inside our gloves in the suit so
pretty cold this is a picture I tried to
take or took with the hasselblad while I
was basically floating free Bernard had
a hold of me with one hand and it was
surprisingly stable much more stable
than the water tank I was trying to take
shots one-handed with the hasselblad and
unfortunately I got his feet
those are my feet right and they're big
too but could there was a tremendous
view for me and Bernard while we were
doing this particularly with the earth
behind Bernard I will always remember
this for the rest of my life just how
breathtaking that was because we were
still in earth light we were not getting
as cold as we had pumped ourselves up to
think we would be and in fact I was
starting to get overconfident about this
I guess when they thought about bringing
us down at the end of this 15-minute
evaluation we both gave ratings I think
of the order of just slightly cool or
normal before we were brought down to
the bay for the mass handing evaluation
it was shortly after we were brought
down in the bay I got off the RMS and
then Mike got into the RMS and then you
see me here to the right side of Spartan
we had foot restraints on each side of
these and those are always on the
Spartan impasse just in case people like
Janis ability have trouble birthing it
then we can do an EBA and actually birth
it shortly after that Mike was sort of
hanging freely we went into a night pass
and that's when it really got cold at
that point I was I had the Spartan in
hand and actually going through the mass
handling that I described in the movie
and I guess that whole sequence was
around 10 or 15 minutes into the night
pass when we both started noticing that
their fingers and feet we're getting
colder and colder and it's about that
time that we asked Eileen to move us to
a colder a warmer attitude that is but
in space at night there is no warmer
attitude how do you see me basically
doing one of the experiments I was
working on in the mid decks the solid
surface combustion experiment it's
basically to cinema basically moving
machines that take pictures of a flame
propagating a crop across the solid
surface and this is a very simple
experiment for me to do appropriate to
my capabilities
this is an experiment I'm not going to
go into telling you exactly what it is
but look at all this contraption look at
all this as a medical doctor I was glad
that I wasn't the subject in this
because it had so many wires and gadgets
that I had to connect to these guys who
took a while to get him outfitted he did
it to Vladimir too but the good news is
while he's working madly trying to go
those wires connect and I'm just
floating there having a great time this
actually this device in short basically
was in electoral via gram which actually
place electrodes over the muscles to get
an idea of how they respond to
microgravity so you can actually remove
your arm you can actually look at the
waveform so it's a very sophisticated
device very portable the thing that
doesn't show up on here is Janice is
also wearing some nice little ski boots
at least that's what they look like and
these were to apply some pressure to the
bottom of her feet to simulate standing
on the earth and we're still waiting on
the data to come back on that even in
space you can't get away from paperwork
actually the system worked out pretty
good this is our fax machine and we call
it tips and every morning Mission
Control would send messages up to us
mainly changes to our flight plan
updates to procedures we got messages to
cheer us up and is one example of the
other types of messages we get the Earth
Observation people would send us
information on that day and ground
scenes that we'd be passing over that
they'd like to see pictures of along
with what camera and what f-stop we
should use a lot of our flight was over
water but we did get some nice shots of
things over the land this is the blue
and white nile is coming together the
white nile is the wider river to the
left of the screen and the area in the
middle all the little dark trying
rectangles that you see in the center
bottom of the screen is cotton growing
area
this is the city of cartoon which spans
the Blue Nile on the right side of the
screen and this is one of the largest
cotton growing areas in the world these
glaciers was so impressive to is that we
decided we'd add another picture in our
slideshow while you can see one right
here in the middle emptying into a lake
and also down here in the bottom
emptying into a lake and they actually
start from an altitude of over 10,000
feet again this is in Chile and
Argentina South America and if you look
at the history of these areas if you go
back thousands and thousands of years
the scientists tell us that these
glaciers actually flowed into where the
lake is and the lakes were formed by the
glaciers and you know flying on the
shuttle and taking these pictures in
both the visual and infrared range we
can really get a lot of information to
the scientists and learn about the
history of earth it's this island called
the heard island which is approximately
51 52 degrees cells this is maybe a
thousand island in the Indian Ocean all
of the time this island and the
Kerguelen island under the cloudy and
this picture interesting you can see
cloudy waves and gravity waves and the
beginnings of von Karman vortex Cyril up
here in the structure cloud deck and
downwind of the snow caped Island and
this is a picture of South African it
looks like part of the ok now I can see
this is actually Cape Town and this is
Robben Island and that island happens to
be the island at NASA Mandela was in
prison for for all those years and it's
really when I look at this it really is
a beautiful scene
but also a symbol of Independence again
the system that we have is a very good
one you may have heard that we left the
system in Auto we flew such a wide hack
a large heading alignment cone left in
an auto and it went a little bit low as
expected we all knew it was going to
happen and there's we think it's a great
system on the final approach and landing
I was happy to show Vladimir how we do
it hopefully the landing was a little
bit more smooth than his previous three
landings where they drop straight down