from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida
this is space shuttle Columbia launch
control the countdown for launch of
space shuttle Columbia on mission STS 78
is continuing on schedule this morning
the window for launch of Columbia opens
at 10:40 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time and
extends for two and a half hours
situated in Columbia's payload Bay is
the life and microgravity Space Lab LMS
is housing about 43 various experiments
involving life sciences and material
sciences the LMS mission will seek
answers to questions about our ability
to sustain life for prolonged periods of
time and space and about the subtle
mechanisms involved in materials
processing that are obscured by Earth's
gravity LMS will continue to expand the
foundation of scientific research by
studying the effects of microgravity on
the physiology development and behavior
of living systems this is shuttle launch
control at t-minus 3 hours and holding
we are currently standing by to receive
live television of the astronauts and
the operations and check-out building
where their crew quarters are stationed
here at the Kennedy Space Center
the crew members are being assisted with
their launch and entry suits by suit
technicians from both KSC and from the
Johnson Space Center this is a good view
of our commander Tom Hendrix who was on
his fourth spaceflight he served as
pilot for both STS 44 in STS 55 and as
commander of sts-7 T our pilot Kevin
Craig 'el is on his second flight
jean-jacques 5ea is a member of the
french space agency he is one of our
payload specialists or and will be
making his first trip into space today
Susan Helms is the only female aboard
the vehicle that will be flying today
and she of course is a veteran flier she
has flown in 30 different types of
aircraft being named an astronaut in
1990 she has already flown two missions
STS 54 in STS 64 mission specialist one
Richard Lynn ahem is on his first flight
and another mission specialists Charles
Brady again on his first flight as well
is giving a thumbs-up that he too is
ready and anxious to go and the final
member of our seven-person crew is
robert brent Thirsk representing the
Canadian Space Agency he is a medical
doctor he was an alternate payload
specialist for STS 41 G and in 1993 and
94 he was the Canadian Space Agency's
chief astronaut
this is shuttle launch control at
t-minus three hours and holding and we
are just about 14 seconds or so away
from picking up our hold this has been a
standard two hour hold that follows
tanking operations just to give the
launch team any extra time to make final
preparations before the crew arrives out
at the pad and we are at t-minus 3 hours
and Counting everything continues to go
on schedule for launch of space shuttle
Columbia from pad 39b
at the Kennedy Space Center
and here we have them our commander Tom
Hendricks mission specialist Susan Combs
followed by pilot Kevin regal Richard
Linehan Charles Brady jean-jacques 5ei
Robert winters
you know we have pictures of the Astro
van and the crew departing the van is
there now at the pad surface NASA test
director John Guidi has given an
approval for the crew to begin entry
into the vehicle once they make their
way up the elevator to the 195-foot
level and we have views of the crew as
they are exiting the elevator on the
195-foot level in the background of
course is the swingarm
that the crew will walk across the
orbiter access arm that will gain them
entry into the crew module
as the crew is preparing to enter the
orbiter astronaut support personnel have
mounted into crew module a small camera
that will allow us to see live pictures
of the crew being seated in Columbia
this is the first time NASA TV has shown
live pictures of this event and to
assist with the commentary of these new
views astronaut Marsha Ivins is joining
us to describe the events as they occur
welcome Marcia thanks astronaut support
personnel is assisting as Tom Hendricks
comes in holding his head so it doesn't
bump into anything
Tom's now standing on the ms2 seat he's
holding on to a handhold above the
forward window and now he'll pull
himself up after he gets himself unstuck
here pull himself up into the seat as
they hold the parachute down you see the
big bottles on the back of the of his
harness you need to get those centered
exactly right on the parachute so that
it's comfortable when you're sitting in
their headrests back down on the seat
now now the suit tech al Rochford will
start to adjust the straps on his
harness so that he's pulled down and
comfortable in the seat and then they'll
start connecting the parachute and the
shoulder harnesses to them we ask the
crew to just lie there and and be a
vegetable while we strap them in you can
see al Scott Kevin's helmet kicked the
headrest back and Kevin to lift his head
up you can see the little comm pick tail
hanging out of the back and now we'll
fish his hand in there to get it Marcia
can you tell us what we're looking at at
this point we're in the mid-deck now and
max Candler who's the suit tech and he
is strapping in Chuck Brady who's
sitting in the MS 3 seat sitting in
front of Chuck and the rest of the guys
on the mid-deck
is the whole row of our wall of lockers
that has all the stuff in it that were
taken to space Mack
got his parachute on the harness and
looks like he's got the seatbelt on and
we have another view of the flight deck
with the ground launch sequencer
mainline computer program has been
active and it is now processing all
pertinent data you're cleared to launch
copy that and Columbia you guys have a
good mission and we'll be back here in a
little over two weeks thanks Jeff we got
a crew here that's ready to go and I saw
the professionals here at the Cape we're
ready to work with JSC during launch and
that the rest of the day we're ready to
go clear to work with folks at the
Marshall Space Flight Center and we're
just about ten seconds away from
resuming on the countdown for the launch
a space shuttle Columbia today and we're
at t-minus nine minutes and Counting and
the ground launch sequencer have been
initiated it NASA test director John
Guidi is about to call for the
transmittal of stored pre-launch
commands as Columbia is less than nine
minutes away from beginning a two and a
half week mission of life and
microgravity experiments taking full
scientific advantage of the effects of
microgravity in space coming up next
will be the orbiter access arm being
retracted away from the vehicle this is
the walkway used by the crew to gain
entry into and out of the vehicle and it
can be returned to position within
seconds if need be
and we see first motion of the Oh a a
retract
which is beginning at this point
t-minus seven minutes and Counting and
the gaseous oxygen vent hood is slowly
being retracted away from the top of the
external tank inside this tank is about
500,000 gallons and super cold liquid
fuels that run the overboost three main
engines
- OH - so semaj divisors and a nifty 802
flow have a great flight and have more
fun than a barrel of when we have a go
for autosequence start
Columbia's onboard computers have
primary control of all the vehicles
critical function 10 - 20 seconds 15 -
15
12 11 8 we have a go for main engine
start 5 4 3 2 1 and we have liftoff of
the space shuttle Columbia on an
international life science and
microgravity mission
Houston now controlling the flight of
Columbia Columbia completes the roll to
place the shuttle in a heads-down wings
level position for the eight and a half
minute ride to orbit 23 seconds into the
flight 1b is three liquid fuel main
engines will soon begin to throttle back
in a three-step fashion to sixty-seven
percent of rated performance that will
dampen the stress on the shuttles
aerosurfaces as it breaks through the
sound barrier
one minute 45 seconds into the flight
Columbia traveling at 2400 miles per
hour more than 18 miles downrange from
the Kennedy Space Center 22 miles in
altitude all systems functioning
normally booster officer here in Mission
Control standing by for solid rocket
booster shut down in separation about
five seconds from now
booster officer confirms a normal solid
rocket booster separation standing by
for the performance call come you stand
we're with you join engine start it's a
great shot
and obviously this is a silent version
so we'll try to let the gaps
how'd your any narration you can provide
it'd be great okay obviously I looked
out the window just during the roll
program there and our obviously first
stage pretty bumpy ride and he could
feel the throttle down
and with that for a cloud deck there I
glanced out the window to see the high
cirrus Becca by Tom it sure does show
the rough rides of the solids yeah you
all know it's playing impressive right
on those boosters
there's a tail off of the SRBs
and there's a flashing SRB Sep
and the sky was dark but we could still
sit here and out the side windows after
SRB Sep and opening the visors that's
why we have tethers sure shows where the
blond hair assemblies the only surprise
that hazy the transition to become
and you'll see a few reflections of the
forward RCS button RCS Jets firing
during 80 SEP and of course we did the
11 second plus X after the 7 we see you
doing that now Tom and that's a lot of
people real happy to see that video it's
sure to show you coming back off your
chairs after the 3G real nice so we're
happy to camera captured
hey Chris I think less there Marsha
Ivins some of the other folks that spent
a lot of time making this available to
try and bring another token of the
cockpit with us it's just a fantastic
experience to hear Tom we agree and we
really appreciated the in-cabin video
during the strapping as well and let's
folks see what you what you did to get
to space and what the ride looked like
and I'm sure those people are listening
now and happy to go along with you and
you didn't call me you should see
another one of Lockheed Martin's tanks
or the stable flight just after step
like that wash I verify a good
horizontal sit also thank you in minutes
it wasn't it
CC oh no I don't go pop so in C go back
single row he comes go si yo go payload
so EPS we're go in Co so booster no
surgeon go thank you
and weather gave me a go obscene
forecast if all three sides KSC Edwards
and Ben career so fight oh that's all
what's required two days correct right
thank you
copy hell are these utilities go anta
thorough range clear to launch
copy SRO launch director entity your
launch team is ready proceed
copy that I've run a poll in the past
thirty SLPP liftoff confirmed
Houston companies in a roll program
not elaborate 104 lotty calm good fast
cooling thank you
team status as we press onto a checklist
slide you come go ahead
yes sir he has done fess and he to
reconfig and a sin checklist thank you
sir
handy let's see prop line discipline I
just want to make sure that the injector
temps on your left jets that are on FA
one
okay you can see a Rick and Chuck with
the cameras is hard work and Susan
sorting out some of the others things
are on the mid-deck we've got most of
the crew out of their helmets folks on
the mid-deck are really busy getting
ready to take the suits off
Houston should see Athena's with Kevin
in the left Roger we're looking at it
now it's a good picture and here you can
see Rick adapted to zero-g but Kevin had
failed to real add to the floor so give
Rick a task during his adaptation in the
last
and they're coming to the tunnel now is
Bob Thirsk and he's already wired up
with the three experiment
on the left side of the picture and the
red and white striped shirt is payload
commander Susan Helms and near the the
tunnel at the rear of the picture
connecting the space lab to the rest of
the orbiters crew cabin area
mission specialist Rick Linehan a white
shirt adorns jean-jacques 5e a the
French payload specialist with Canadian
payload specialist Bob Thirsk in the
foreground
it's a microgravity transmission I'm
back in the Space Lab module at the
moment in behind me you can see some of
the crew members working on the
experiments that we will be conducting
today and over the next several days
before we return July 7th
these are microgravity experiments can
you explain what that means to all of us
well there is pretty much 50/50 when we
call life science and microgravity
Sciences the other half the life science
is a study on the effects of the human
body being exposed to this environment
and behind me you can see dr. Bob Thirsk
is one of the experiments which is what
we termed the like wrestling machine he
is testing his muscle strength and
helping him as dr. Rick went ahead and
we also a conducting simultaneously
furnace operations and bubble drop
operations to see how materials operate
at microgravity so it's both material
and what we call human spaceman what is
interesting to dr. what is that
astronauts tend to inadvertently develop
a torso rotation motor strategy as well
during the first couple of days of
spaceflight and we probably do this to
try to minimize our symptoms of motion
sickness but in fact we might be
exacerbating the symptoms the doctor
what torso rotation experiment study on
the life and microgravity Spacelab
mission we're going to be measuring our
eye movements with special electrodes
that we apply to our face
the special velocity rate center that we
rigidly fixed to the top of our head it
also will be measuring our torso
movements as well with the special
backpack accelerometer which is fixed to
our back after the flight is over doctor
what is going to compare our eye
movements to our head movements and our
head movements to our chest movements
and he'll be looking for any evidence
that we might have adopted some torso
rotation motor strategy during this
flight we'll be doing this experiment
was early in the mission we've already
done it exactly towards the middle of
the flight in a couple of days and again
towards the last day or two of the space
mission if it turns out in fact that
we'd have a doctor torso rotation motor
strategy during the flight which might
cause symptoms of motion sickness it'll
be relatively easy to train future
astronauts to avoid this type of motor
strategy or to pre adapt them to the a
typical movement environment on in a
ground-based laboratory prior to flight
welcome aboard Columbia in SPS 78b life
sciences a microgravity Space Lab LMS
for short my name is Rick went ahead and
I am the MS for the flight and this is a
ski for astronaut lung function
experiment now Alfie is the brainchild
of dr. John West and Elliott and Kym
frisk from UCSD University of California
San Diego and it is designed to measure
the physiological processes of gas
exchange in the universe on earth and
it's pace or freefall now there are
discreet differences which will occur in
space and there are four payload crew
members who are participating as well as
your crew members in out the experiments
throughout the 17 day LMS flight and
what we hope to ascertain from these
experiments is how the gas flow rate in
the law changes due to microgravity or
freefall in terms of how gas dissipates
or aligns itself in the long now when we
learn things like this we able to
predict
horrible one will function obviously in
space and we can use that knowledge to
determine how things should function on
the ground and with this information we
can also hope to understand various
biological processes which occur in the
human lungs so different diseases that
we might be able to study when we have
better controls it additionally we'll
use this information for long term stays
in space on the space station and
hopefully a long-duration spaceflight
maybe one day to colonize the planets
all this information will be put to use
in one way or the other for long term
space flight and stays on space now this
rather debonair suit that I'm wearing is
now called the Clarke 1 mod of the RIP
suit and rip basically it's a
respiratory plasmid the gravity suit
which will measure our ribcage and
abdomen contractions and expansions
while we breathe and this is measured
over on our alpha ket here
and with that signal that is rotted to
the ground the P is dr. Elliott dr. West
and dr. pris we're able to determine
differences in how we expand our chest
function in space when we breathe it's a
very very important experiment and were
the best experiments I believe to fly on
the SLS series flights we're going to
get along good there from it and I'm
really excited to be able to participate
in this experiment thank you
hey good morning I'm Charles Brady from
the space shuttle Columbia mission
specialist number three them standing in
front of today an experiment developed
by dr. Richie
Edgerton at UCLA laboratories it
involves measuring arm wrist and hand
strength it is well known that in space
over launched at the time our muscles
and our bodies go weaker it's filling
Everett at the hand and wrist and arm
muscles stay essentially the same you're
aboard Columbia myself and my crewmates
are gonna accurately measure exactly
whether or not this is true this device
I have in my hand right here accurately
measures our hands wrist and arm
strength it's pointed out on the graph
here and given a a curve which we can
exactly duplicate over time we measure
this pre-flight and four times in flight
and post-flight basically involves
grabbing the hand grip dynamometer
and squeezing in various levels of
contraction ranging from 10 to 100
percent visual later plotted out on
curves that were asked to follow in
graphs as spike and were asked to trace
these this will give dr. Edgerton and
his assistants all the data that they
need to actually measure whether or not
the muscles and our wrists and arms
continue to stay the same or grow weaker
thanks for joining us aboard space
shuttle Columbia today and we'll be
continuing with some examples of muscle
and ball experiments in the succeeding
days thanks
that's off lab while we're here can we
get an early start on putting in the
next cartridge stand by one Susan will
check for you we'll stay smart Ralphie
ignore each Luca out that Kate coverage
looking awesome would you like me to try
and start that verification on the rip
and I'm sure my team Eric you can
proceed the support the muscle
physiology experiments we're making use
of a very sophisticated device called a
torque velocity dynamometer or a TBD
it's contributed to the mission by the
European Space Agency I sort of think of
the tort philosophy dynamometer as an
arm-wrestling or a leg wrestling machine
this morning as jean-jacques foggy my
colleague is working out here he's using
within the like wrestling mode sometimes
the machine wins the wrestling match
against us and sometimes it lets us win
but who wins the wrestling match is not
important what is important is that the
TBD can measure the torque or the force
applied by the limb and also the speed
at which we contract our muscles and the
position of the foot or the arm at any
instant in time and with this
information the scientists on the ground
can understand how muscle performance is
adapting to weightlessness
now our primary goal in LMS is to
quantify the effects of microgravity on
the adult human body but what happens to
a developing organism in microgravity
well we're flying the experiment called
s TLB which studies just that now s TLB
is a module filled with medaka fish
embryos which are being allowed to
develop on orbit with us during the
mission and during that time they're
being closed-circuit monitored by a
microscope television system in relay to
the ground so that the principal
investigator dr. Kerry Phillips from
Bowdoin College and NASA Ames Research
Center will be able to quantify the
differences between our space embryos
and those in the grounds you'll actually
look at the differences later on at the
end of the mission - between fixed
embryos that we have here and the
controls in the ground to quantify how
much change has occurred or has not
occurred between the two now initial
results seem to indicate that our space
embryos develop somewhat slower than
those in the ground now and NASA someday
hopes to use this information to better
understand the normal embryo logical
process of development and also
hopefully to apply this knowledge later
on to long-duration space travel and
colonization
throughout the night experiments have
continued to work in a Space Lab module
while the crew slept included among
those experiments is the bubble drop and
particle unit which we're seeing some
downlink video from right now this is a
fundamental science research into
theories of nucleation and boiling as a
function of temperature and pressure and
the long term possibility of developing
cooling mechanisms for electronic
applications possibly even for
spacecraft applications is the end
result that's hopeful from these
experiments
we can see here in the foreground one of
the plant growth chambers and floating
above it from our perspective is payload
commander Susan Helms documenting the
plants via still photos this particular
container holds four of twenty seedlings
some of fir and some of the loblolly
pine two of each four in each of these
containers are bent the other two are
the controls and the experiment aren't
left unbent samples have both the bent
and the unbent Pines will be cut on this
flight day and another flight day after
having been bent on flight day three
those samples will be preserved and
returned to Earth for further study we
can now see payload specialist
jean-jacques 5e a floating near the
front of the Space Lab module in front
of the workbench where he is stowing
equipment used to take cuttings from fir
seedlings as part of the plant growth
facility experiment we can now see
payload specialist regional geography a
working within the plant growth facility
glove bag
he has isolated a fixation bag and is
now removing one of the first seedling
samples harvested a few moments ago
Columbia Houston your mission and we
know you'll be glad to accept it is to
extend to 17 days on orbit
congratulations could work on the IFM
near the center of our screen we can see
mission specialist Chuck Brady
participating in the canal and otolith
integration study or Co eyes
Chuck Brady is wearing some electronic
light occlusion goggles part of the
hardware for the co eyes investigation
and he's involved in voluntary head
movement protocols in which he follows a
target on the luminous target display
which we're viewing from the back near
the foreground and this picture on the
other side a series of light emitting
diodes or LEDs lighting up at various
times and Jeff Brady must follow the
movement of these LEDs to complete these
protocols
much commander and to all of your
international crew aboard Columbia and
to our friends aboard mir
congratulations to come on you great
success of your mission as again as well
to spread your cooperation you within
the Olympic Games to bring the world
closer together and we're very proud
very proud that you have taken our
Olympic torch into space with you now
traveling some five and a half million
miles we're very very proud to be
included the roster commandeered
Rajasthan India Persia we watching
Guardium stone hospitals the covers
motion spoke of arrays survived a year
period that's national MP Steve Arkell
was rated of cosmos get a password
numbers D let's not disturb when you
bash real issue she's near here mushiya
shooting speech no it was unavoidable
okay perch which represents all the
efforts from the athletes worldwide to
participate in compete in these
international peaceful competitions and
now that you can see just as we do in
space we compete in a peaceful
environment for the benefit of all
mankind and that competition is to gain
as much from each of our efforts just as
these athletes that will participate in
the game's world beginning July 19th
this was taken this morning when dr.
Brady was exercising and we thought this
was setting a new standard for ham radio
operators he's operating this rx
simultaneously with getting his daily
exercise and we thought this was above
and beyond the call of duty
happy birthday Canada from the space
shuttle Columbia
bonne anniversaire Canada tip wheel and
a vet specia Columbia
from STS 78 crew aboard Columbia happy
Independence Day America
where to go we go home there's a moon
that's pretty nifty the electricity you
got the camera there go cific just give
it over my
okay it's kind of hot out here now
almost why did you do that
hello Verde calculations okay go for
probes 5000 radar Beckham both channels
look good
four thousand three thousand see breaks
coming few thousand pre-flare next gear
player ball bar one thousand ballpark
800 600 500 400 get here here's one way
looking good looking good
right keep it coming
60 feet two fifty forty two forty thirty
slightly low to thirty fifteen hold it
right there
227 216 touchdown at 270 knots
dude you rotate rotate a little bit of
rudder okay ground speed set 159 at
7,000 ago come around the brakes fix
that go into the center I don't know
dude's away
backing off the brakes
Houston Columbia will stop Roger Khanna
will stop in congratulations on a great
life science mission and a new shuttle
record and want immediate Delta cap too
high and stand by for further
development
you said go be a runway today Roger time
runway in sight and the runway is now
visible in the picture right time to
touch down now 34 seconds Columbia
descending at the rate of 165 feet per
second and we can see the nose coming up
as the pre-flare is happening getting
lined up for touchdown
landing gear down and locked
main gear touchdown
pilot Kevin Kregel has deployed the drag
chute Columbia now rolling out on runway
33
Columbia now on the ground at runway 33
at the Kennedy Space Center bringing to
an end a record-setting mission 17 days
of life in microgravity science
Poppaea will stop Roger time welcome
back we'll stop and congratulations on a
great life science mission in a new
shuttle record in one immediate Delta on
l1 we like right out temp too high and
stand by for further deltas right out
temp - hi fellow crew that's given so
much during the fight is ready to go to
work here at KSC
yes sir okay yeah we're there now yeah
just go ahead precipice okay thank you
we'll start with taking the secondary
off and high-low to enable these go for
those now that's a good read nice go
time you have a go for that at this time
TMC did we get a gimbal check I want to
mention that SCS channel 3 on the rudder
may fail and we may deselect him later
but all other channels are good and
we're go for this burn okay Houston go
ahead okay oh you've been waiting for
these words time will give you a go for
the deorbit burn be advised we're seeing
some intermittent problems on rudder
channel 3 and we made you select that
guy selectively
do that first yeah then I'll get you the
ammonia steps okay you can do that max
any changes no changes flaps no dope
okay
Eagle none okay DPS will stop DNC back
we'll stop and congratulations on a
great life science mission and a new
shuttle record in one immediate Delta on
l1 we'd like rat out temp too high and
stand by for further deltas