I
you
it's hard dude
where I'm going
but there's a dream I've been following
soul
mama
good morning discovery if you look out
the window a little more than 500 miles
off to the Northeast you'll see the
houston rodeo goodmornin which we could
be there listen to constable bill bailey
and Reba
isn't this coming bread doctors TV y'all
have k u been gone now yes sir if you
want to select the otha camera oh yeah
comet hale-bopp and we're watching it
right now it's a it's showing out right
in the middle
sure is great to have an astronomer
quarters it's a lot more impressive part
but it's kind of neat on TV anyway
certainly is and we were saying it's
great to have an astronomer on board I
think we should always have a start of
our job boys Jeff Hoffman is not here to
agree with you
okay message for jerry linenger on the
MIR space station from your three
classmates three fellow hogs in the
discovery orbiting that 335 nautical
mile freer and 34 I guess today we say
hi to you Jerry and then we've been
thinking about you frequently during our
mission here we wish that we were in an
orbit that we could pass a little closer
to each other and maybe talk a little
bit but we're very proud of all the work
that you're doing there and we're
looking after your family real we're
close I guess they're in Russia right
now but we're keep track of them and
we're hoping that you're doing well and
all of your experiments are going well
but you're just having a great time look
forward to seeing you when you get back
here Scott hey Jer its back I hope
you're having a real good time over
there on that mir space station
obviously you're doing all that great
stuff to get us ready for a next
generation of spacecraft we're getting
ready to build we had a blast here on
the Hubble telescope mission I got to
fix a lot of stuff so as a happy camper
the only thing broken on me or give me a
holler I'll come in fix its I don't
charge much for house calls here Steve
Steve Smith on the Jonah adapter to go
out the door here a couple times for
this side if we know you're going to be
doing that the next month or two so I
just want to say it's a great time it's
a good experience that we look forward
to sharing your thoughts on that just
family fine we've had seen them quite a
bit actually before they headed back to
russia and that's been really fun
thinking that we're all here together
you take care and we'll talk you soon
you
and again the light says Florida that's
Miami in the upper right hand corner you
can see the Cape middle the screen right
now and Orlando's the large city in the
lower part of the screen going out of
you copy
and the roller left hand where this
picture is Long Island in New York you
see quite clearly sucks because through
the darkness of central park with my
gosh
now that's good vision
hey Kevin the answer messages are coming
in the tips glad okay well waiting for
the tips to spit out the messages the
weather for the Cape tomorrow is looking
fairly good some scattered clouds at low
and high altitudes our only concern
right now is possible showers inside the
box but we think we have a good chance
of getting into kennedy edwards is also
looking good when obviously tomorrows
against a light will evaluate the
weather and see exactly what our options
are but right now we think we have good
chance of bringing down to the prime
place tomorrow that's right Kevin and
just free info the winds at this time
the air at KSC are pretty light at high
altitude 30 to 40 knots and of course
out of the West they're out of the
Northwest at the edwards run around 75
knots
this is Michelle cordon with the
associated press this is for Jo tanner
it seems like this is kind of like
training for a marathon and you train
for months and months and then it's over
can you describe what you're feeling now
are you relieved are you kind of let
down that it's over no I'm not let down
at all we're having a great time still
and yes a little relieved that that
everything went so so well we had hoped
it would go this well and it's just a
sense of accomplishment for the whole
team on the ground and at me there's no
orbiter here that everything went as
well as it did it's not about healing
what my brother and I refer to as big
letdown it off so still really pumped up
it probably will be for a long time
Steve Smith hundred years from now
people will look back on Hubble as
having revolutionized the way we see
ourselves in the universe how do you
feel about having a part in that that's
been a great honor to be a part of this
we've always heard that Hubble was just
a fantastic machine and actually be able
to put our hands on it and work on it
has that been very special I think it's
gonna be one of the fondest memories of
my head I only my career wasn't a stop
it up my whole life this is marco from
the Houston Chronicle and I'll asked us
to Greg Harbaugh and if it's not in the
right direction please sort it out but
my question has to do really with the
distance by what you sort of discovered
the damage to the outer layer of the
Space Telescope during the spacewalks
wasn't clear to me whether you could see
it from the crew cabin or it was
something that sort of surprised you as
you got right up on the telescope and I
wonder if you might elaborate a little
bit on on what you saw was there sort of
extensive minor damage with with acute
damage that you could repair or was
there really more damage than you could
get to that look bad you just could fix
what you could with the amount of
materials you had available to you for
the patches
there was quite a bit of damage mark and
my personal experience was I didn't
realize how expensive it was until I got
up close looked at it my impression and
my assessment is that it's fairly
superficial it's the outer layer or two
of the multi-layer insulation that's
just been cycled so many times in going
through the thermal transitions for the
millions of miles that this telescope is
traveled that it's finally fatigued in
some places and so it cracks and so you
have these spider type cracks places a
spider web site Craig's and other places
would be long straight cracks and splits
that sort of thing I think we repaired
quite a bit of that I think we did we
could do everything that frankly Ella
based how much we were able to repair
that of all that we had seen I think we
left that telescope in really good shape
thank you i have a question also for
Mark Lee I wonder if you might be able
to elaborate some on some comments you
made about this set of spacewalks and
what you see will be required for space
station assembly were you heartened by
what you could do to react and be
flexible and the way you prepared for
this do you see that sort of thing
applying to the mini-assembly flights
that astronauts will be required to
undertake for the space station assembly
a lot of I think most of it deals with
preparation I would have to do for a
plan spacewalk like this is cover every
possibility I when you get up here
there's no hardware store to go get
another wrench or aluminum foil or
anything you need so you have to think
about everything that can go wrong and
that's the key thing to carry forward to
station so we're going to talk a lot
about planning when we get back the
other thing is we have a lot of space
station tools up here are pistol grip
tool a power tool a lot of the handrails
that we have other components our space
station era
tools so they were great and I'm very
confident about our ability to build
space station in fact you know for the
spacewalkers here today will probably
take part in that so they've got we've
got the experience to carry forward to
station this is michelle koi din again
for Greg Harbaugh what went through your
mind when it looked like there might be
a sixth spacewalk can you elaborate
I think that kind of speaks for itself
we had such a great time on the first to
the third would have been anything on
the icing on the cake but the fact that
we didn't do it was just fine with
Joanna I think what we had the two that
we did do was to experience of a
lifetime I feel very very privileged to
have been able to do what we already
have been able to do and for Steve
Hawley will be tough for you to hold out
until May when the first images are
supposed to be released well I fairly
slowly we've been talking about how long
it'll be before the instruments are
fully checked out and we'll know exactly
what capability Hubble has and we're
really hopeful but of course until those
instruments prove themselves they'll
still be some uncertainty as to the
capability but things have got very well
up to now and my expectation is it that
convey that will be very very pleased
with the results this is Mark kuro again
for Ken Bowersox could you talk a little
bit about the intensity of the work a
lot of the attention on the mission was
focused on the spacewalk team but I
wonder just sort of what the chemistry
was like if you felt like you were
pumped up all seven of you working hard
trying to help each other if you're
pretty tired at this point or whether
you're sort of relaxed and ready to land
or just kind of what the state of the
state is up there I think the overall
state of the crew right now is relaxed
prepare to land we're ready to come home
we're happy with what we've done from
what I could see every minute we was
work we were working as a seven-man team
up here we were in two groups we had
four people who concentrated on e VA and
we had three people who concentrated on
the orbiter and we did that to make
training more efficient and just to be a
little more efficient in how we divided
tasks up but when one group was working
on no particular part of the mission the
other group was blowing strong for them
and it's a great bunch of guys to be
associated with I think and one question
for socks could you tell us a little bit
but I understand at Kennedy Space Center
they're going to be new runway lights in
and you were involved in some of that
testing how is that going to help you
with this night landing at KSC it's just
a little bit tougher to judge our line
up with the runway especially if you
just have side lights there the runway
it's tough to see the aspect changing as
you drift left and right at the center
line so at Kennedy Space Center we've
added a strip of lights down the center
to help us with that lineup task when
we're in the air and also once the nose
wheels on the ground so we have a line
to steer for so we can be right on the
center line stripe when we take the
picture at the end and you guys have new
shadow altitude holders the highest
altitude since the Apollo program how
different does the view look like from
that high up versus your previous or
lower orbit missions I could tell you my
last mission was a relatively low about
160 miles and the view from up here is
absolutely fantastic a little while ago
we were all amazed watching out the
window you can see almost the entire
United States in in one window as you
look out the shuttle especially at night
you can see the lights from all the way
down to Key West all the way up north of
New York and it's an absolutely
fantastic sight it's just an incredibly
a beautiful planet below us and fill out
here we get a much better view point
since this is probably one of the most
important astronomy missions and you've
really not made any any kind of
astronomy observations driving in today
we could really see a great view of hale
bob house hail bop looking for you guys
hey Bob looks great and bare fact we
downlink some video this morning of it
from our perspective the TV cameras
don't really do it justice in the
binoculars that would carry on board
it's it's a very spectacular appears to
have two tails one tale about three
times longer than the other
really a tremendous site and this is a
good place to observe it high above the
atmosphere and and the other probably
have you trying to get the ship dark
enough so that you can get really well
dark-adapted but it's a spectacular
sight also in the morning sky you can
see three planets rising just before the
Sun and again that's a very spectacular
view the crews enjoyed that first
several days as a as a gaygent on how
little things that can be overlooked and
have such grave consequences during the
first d e VA when you depressed and you
saw the solar panel slew all the way to
the hard stop like that can you give me
your thoughts on what you what was going
through your mind when you saw this you
know something relatively minor having
such a consequence about three of us
were actually in the windows when that
happened then my attention was diverted
to the airlock depress and at that
instant we didn't connect the two
although our depressed weight was fairly
rapid and i urgently requested the e VA
guys to stop the depressed and then
later we determined that those two
events were were connected but our first
thought was hey this cannot happen these
solar rays cannot move that fast we know
about the motors that drive the solar
arrays and they will not drive the solar
rays that mass so the first impression
was one of disbelief when they finally
settled out which only took a few
seconds as you know we had to accept the
fact that they were they didn't move
that fast and we pressed on from there
but we were actually I thought the
cockpit was fairly calm in that moment
of crisis and thank God the glee arrays
held in there pretty good