atlanta smear this is houston are you
ready for the event
atlanta we are ready
good morning america this is houston
please call atlantis mayor for a voice
check
atlantis mir this is good morning
america can you hear me
good morning
shannon i'd like to start with you if i
can you've been up in space for six
months you must be incredibly anxious to
come home
well i'll guarantee you i'll be on the
right side of the hatch whenever it gets
closed
that i take it is where the exit is
well it's wherever bill reedy is
he's the commander that's going to take
the shuttle home and i'm going to be on
the shuttle when he gets home
you have admitted in the past to being a
bit homesick what have you missed most
while up in space these past six months
well obviously i better say my family
because they would feel really bad if
they thought they came in second to some
real gooey dessert
how are you feeling physically after
being in space this long
right now i feel great i mean i feel
just the same as i did when i left i you
know couldn't feel uh any better
the last time somebody spent this much
time in space they lost a lot of weight
that sort of thing have you noticed any
changes in your body and the way you're
feeling at all
i haven't no no i haven't noticed any
changes and
you know my clothes are fitting about
the same so
uh unfortunately i don't think i've lost
a whole lot of weight
ken can you describe for me your living
conditions aboard mir what was did you
have your own private compartment in
which to sleep at that sort of thing
well it's most probably aware uh mir is
composed of several different modules
that have been uh you know that have
come up and been added at different
times and i uh spent
i slept in spectra which is uh one of
the modules that uh has been recently
added and so it was just really nice it
was just a real nice uh place to uh
you know spend the night
how big a space did you have that you
could call your own
well i didn't call any space my own
because uh where i slept during the day
you know people were working so there
was no place that i called my own it's
just that at night no one was working in
there so i'm sleeping in there
you must be anxious to finally have some
private space or personal space as much
fun as it may be aboard all these the
space station here with these russian
cosmonauts
it'll be really good to get home i'll
agree with you
if you can tell me how you do the basic
things in life like take a shower or do
your laundry on board a space station
well you don't
i haven't had a shower or a bath since i
left
i guess i left when march 22nd
and
the best thing about doing the laundry
you don't have to do it when your
clothes get dirty you just throw them
away
as exciting as it must be to be in orbit
for six months on board the space
station there must have been periods of
genuine boredom
well i really i truly did not ever get
bored i always had something to do
and uh in the evenings if you know if i
had time i had uh plenty of books to
read and whenever you have a good book
uh you know you don't get bored what
have you been eating food-wise what do
you guys eat up there on board the
mirror
oh i'm sorry i'm very sorry i
misunderstood i thought you said what
have you been reading
what have we been eating we've been
eating the mixture of the russian food
and the american food
john bleja as you listen to shannon
describe all this what are you thinking
you're about to embark on a four-month
mission of your own up there
well actually uh shannon and i as you
know have known each other a long time
and uh we trained and flew a couple
place shuttle missions together and then
we trained in the russian language and
we trained our city together so we
actually talked about all of this a lot
uh before shannon left in march
and she's been telling me the same kind
of things she's been telling you this
morning i'm looking forward to the stay
on mir
i've had a lot of fun in the last day
meeting my roommates and talking to them
and eating with them so
shannon's giving me a check out and i'm
looking forward to this day
the two of you are part of a pretty
elite club what kinds of advice shannon
have you given john as you end your
mission and he begins his
well i told him just to take it uh you
know day by day and uh
not to worry about anything it all works
out and
just enjoy every day as it comes
shannon you did not sign on for a full
six months in space
how did you feel when your return to
earth was delayed not once but twice
obviously i mean uh i had been looking
forward to coming home when in august
but uh i fully understand the reasons
why the flight was delayed and i think
that was a very good decision and
actually it was sort of a plus for me as
it turned out because i got to see uh
a new crew come up and i get to see how
cruz exchange and i got to say goodbye
to yuri and yuri rather than them saying
goodbye to me and it's sort of easier to
say goodbye
when somebody else leaves than it is for
you to leave if you can understand what
i'm saying so it all worked out
john you signed on for a four-month
mission the same length of a mission
that shannon originally signed on for
are you at all leary given her
experience an extended stay that the
same thing might happen to you
uh certainly it's possible and again
a number of months ago shannon and i
talked about the fact that on these
types of missions
you need to plan that you may
return later than the original plan so
that you're psychologically prepared for
that and
the cosmonauts at star city had told us
that during our training there so to
answer your question directly i hope i'm
ready and
i think i'll be able to handle that if
we are delayed
anything i would add is that i
personally uh i know shannon does too
because we've talked about it a lot i
think this is a fantastic program that
we're doing with the russians
uh this kind of cooperation
in space is something the russians do
very well
and we in america do very well it's
something we both have done well in the
past and so it's a good common meeting
ground
and um i think it's a good start to an
international space station and for
space exploration in the future
no i guess i've been passing all the
messages on that i can think of but i
would just like to say thank you to all
the great people that have worked on the
ground to support this mission because
the mission is not just you know the
astronaut that's visible but there's
been great support and that's why i've
had such a good time is because of all
the great support and i'd also like to
thank yuri and yuri because they were
just super to be in space with and
i just couldn't have asked for two nicer
people to work with and so i just
appreciate everybody that worked so hard
to make it such a great experience
atlantis space have box for ett
yes sir
came down here on the ground it appears
to us that it's shut down
okay well all the breakers are good uh
we're looking at an event timer of event
29 minute one two six zero seconds
twelve and still incrementing
i'm at space out park for ettf
looks like we just had a little problem
with the event timer everything looks
okay now
oh that's great news
and uh for
eris
i've finally got a terminate file
download command ready for transmit box
uh but i still get the hourglass
i'll try and okay that and see if i can
get out of it this way without rebooting
the computer
okay
terry we're looking over your shoulder
and we still have the same uh
monochrome video signal we've been
seeing all along
wondered if carl or anyone had made
progress on message 60 which had us
routing
and one switch throw an 019 to try and
solve it
okay i think carl had completed message
16.
copy um when we switched to the flight
deck we saw no signal so uh we're just
puzzled and there's no rush at all
that's your convenience we know you're
busy
okay
thanks
and we do well let's see we've got the
flight deck camera right now
this is mission control houston here in
the flight control room the orbit one
team of flight controllers remains on
station continuing to work with the crew
on board the joined atlantis mir
spacecraft as the activities
on board primarily are focused at the
transfer activities between the two
spacecraft broken sagan on
transfer
yeah bill just thought i'd give you all
an update if you're ready to copy
go ahead tom
yeah
yesterday in my tally i sent down i
forgot to mention we did get the crater
b oven over and installed where the iok
was and ready for entry
and today we got another big piece of
the cavant b and we've also got all the
small
pieces of russian hardware we've got
about uh
oh two-thirds of john science already
over on uh perota we'll get started on
shannon's bags coming back pretty
shortly
you