this is a story about mission 33 a
military mission flown on discovery in
November 1989 I'm Fred Gregory the
commander i'm john blaha was the pilot
of the flight i'm kathy thornton i was
mission specialist three story Musgrave
as aim is to I'm Sonny Carter I was the
you miss Warren this is about three
hours before launch when we get in our
suits and now we're leaving the building
about two and a half hours to get in a
crew van about four thirty in the
afternoon it's just on my lunch yeah
it's just before sunset discovery is
sitting out on the pad waiting for us it
was one of those exceptionally clear
nights down in Florida everything went
pretty smoothly right afternoon we had a
little hold as we were counting down but
essentially we launched right on time
when those main engines started it felt
like some electric motors back there but
when those solid Rockets ignite it there
was no doubt this thing was going to
space there's people in the front seat
we're looking at the front windows those
of us in the back we're looking at the
back windows that's where the view was
and those of us on the mid-deck we're
looking at the gallery in the lockers
award is mirror on my wrist and looked
at the rear windows you can see the
whole of Florida lit up like a flanch
boat this is a lot like training to me
it was like riding a train kind of a
rumbling until the solids fell off it
was you listening I never made a night
launch before but when those SRBs
separated from the orbiter as you looked
out through the front window at the
separation motors it looked as though
you were looking into a furnace and then
the three main engines kept pushing us
towards space and it's kind of neat they
go from zero speed on the pad
a half minutes later you're doing 17,500
miles per hour space is just about as
beautiful as you can imagine look it
looks like black velvet with diamonds on
it it's kind of a game of
ring-around-the-rosie between the
mid-deck and the flight deck it's really
our first experience in zero-g up there
hey you can see what happens to your
hair up there in space and sure takes on
a different style this is dr. Carter
he's the ex professional soccer player
you see what I told you about your hair
up there that's dr. Musgrave with all
his degrees mr. Spock here comes John
doing outside loop in it yeah I'm
strapped to the wall there and stories
going to going to use this phenomena
here to see what the pressure is in my
eyeball it's one of the medical
experience we were doing and you get
story taps that on you know right on my
cornea and it reads a reading that we
can then record he doesn't hurt at all
now I've switched a story and I'm just
kind of showing you the method although
i'm not touching stories cornea here the
reason we're doing this is because we're
very interested in how the body changes
and adapter quickly to microgravity this
is a holter monitor and these are the
leads that that it's like a cardiogram
that continually records my heart rate
and it's in its form and when i close
the door it'll start here and I've and
I've connected the leads and I'm just
showing you what it records here and
then I wore this underneath my suit all
the way to landing
John would you think this experiment
well this was another experiment where
Sonny was was measuring date on all of
us and central venous pressure and I
really didn't know much about it I was
just a participant that's a transducer
I've got there and what I do is put that
over the external jugular vein on John's
neck and John then blows into that piece
that you saw in his mouth and creates a
pressure and that occludes the sound
that I can receive through the
transducer and I'm listening to it on
those earphones and we record what
pressure it takes to occlude that pulse
and by that we can indirectly see what
central venous pressure is this is an
eye doctor in a box experiment there are
eight different eye tests in the box and
we're looking at how vision and visual
acuity might change when you go into
zero-g I also notice the pen it takes
rookies a while to learn that they can
let go of things and expect to find them
somewhere near where they left them it's
another experiment we did on board I was
looking at the shuttle glow through a
spectrometer when the orbiter is
crashing through the atomic oxygen which
is that probably less than 160 nautical
miles you'd see a glow on the windward
side of the orbiter and there are people
trying to figure out the mechanism that
causes that most of the time I spent in
the commander's seat looking out of the
window we create our own electricity on
board we combine hydrogen and oxygen one
of the byproducts is water and when we
dump that water overboard it immediately
freezes and this is the blizzard that
you see from the window this is a test
that we did on board trying to
demonstrate that we could take marks on
stars and planets by moving the space
ship around and align our navigation
state by doing that and we demonstrated
on this flight that we could in fact it
another thing we did was record the
radiation that we were dosage that we
were receiving this little box
calculates it in tissue equivalence and
we would record in each day and change
out a memory module that actually
recorded it by the minute this is the
way Houston sends a message is up to us
on a teleprinter and then somebody
answers the telephone and talks to him
on my right side up here what I'm doing
is changing out the lithium hydroxide
canisters that's a chemical at the cabin
fans blow air over and that absorbs a
carbon dioxide from our respiration
otherwise the carbon dioxide we build up
in the cabin we breathe an atmosphere of
air twenty percent oxygen eighty percent
nitrogen of course we exhale carbon
dioxide we recycle our air on orbit you
do this twice a day in their eyes yep
once after once after getting up and
once before going to bed the text and
graphics system here wasn't operating
just right so kathina attempted to clear
a jam that was in there who carried
quite a complement of cameras with us
this was a 16 millimeter I think we were
trying to attach to the orbital the
orbiter electrical system it didn't run
very well on the battery so we used a
what we call a breakout box to change
the voltage of the spacecraft to the
voltage required by the camera this did
get it working the background of the
trees for food
I'd never noticed but looking out the
window you can hardly see any motion on
the earth below yeah this is the
Namibian desert southwest coast of
Africa and we're crossing Africa west to
east looking across Kalahari Desert up
over to the east coast of the African
continent and then upon the horizon of
the earth there yes South Africa would
be to your right and goal it to your
left this is the flight deck and this is
sunny looking out of one of the overhead
windows down at the earth looking down
at the Red Sea and Yemen and Saudi
Arabia Ethiopia Egypt up to the upper
left and Iraq on the upper right moving
at about five miles a second but from
that altitude it appears to so you
merely creeping across the earth at
several different types of cameras and
we would shoot a few shots with one and
then pass it off to someone else it's so
funny when you try to do that when you
get on the ground everybody is so
surprised that things immediately crash
to the floor instead of floating gently
this is Lake Kariba in South East Africa
if you remember in 1965 there was the
operation Noah in that area to save the
animals and so we were able to
photograph that for some geologists that
were interested in it less part of the
African Rift yesterday just like being a
tourist except you're out in space
you've got cameras and you've got a
window and you take things which are
maybe scientific but also things that
appeal to the eye this is India at the
top of the picture China and the bottom
and the Himalayas where the former
continent of India has collided into the
of Asia creating those mountains you
have to shoot pretty fast you don't ask
questions at 300 miles a minute you need
to get the photograph and ask later what
you took there's a lot of room up there
to get everybody in the windows Oh looks
like a small area but you can you can
get the entire crew up there taking
pictures all at the same time if you
wanted to this is the Namibian coast
again and this time we're on up and
sending pass through Africa so we're
going through Angola those are two
different kinds of clouds there I mean
easily see north there I mean one's kind
of a sea fog at the bottom left and the
other were kind of the wispy cumulus
class John took a lot of pictures and
every time he took a picture he said
boom every time watch his lips here
watch this much done he's talking about
here we go you can watch the camera move
around there every time he says
these are the Indonesian islands that we
had a past west to east across them and
normally this part of the world is very
covered with clouds but on our mission
it was clear and so we were able to get
some beautiful pictures coming across
the Indonesian islands thankfully it's
mostly volcanic we were learning quite a
lot about our world by looking down at
parts such as this but it's so
interesting to look down at the oceans
from the altitude with the with the
proper Sun angles you get pretty good
insight on the dynamics of the oceans
down there this is a beautiful infrared
picture the canteen took the Irrawaddy
River Delta she really did a good job at
the infrared this is off on the east
side of Madagascar an island that has
two beautiful volcanoes in it Reunion
Island again an infrared photography of
it geologists were very interested in
that particular feature
this is chao call for thanksgiving
dinner we launched to the day before
thanksgiving in eighteen eighty nine and
so we had our turkey and potatoes and
broccoli on orbit probably a day later
than people on this planet but you get a
little confused about what time of day
it is when you're up there you see
sunrise 16 times a day it's hard to tell
what meal you ought to be eating
translation and attitude controller
almost done completely with your hands
very little very little feet they're
accepting to maintain a position once
you get there because you see people
moving very slowly to they won't
ricochet off walls but this was the
thanksgiving meal and i think it was the
only meal where all of us floated
together and ate at the same time
Katie's got the Megaton boards on there
our class of nineteen eighty-four were
known as the maggots affectionately
bowel the astronaut office and we carry
that on the missions with what y'all
think Fred's doing here looks like his
body's movie and yes the answer is he is
dancing to all four tops temptations
this is the kamagra day there's 33 tried
our commander yes I think everybody will
Walkman all the time and everybody had
their own specific music that they
listen to their a lot of soccer players
on board john blaha coached and played
Sonny of course was a professional
soccer player Kathy being from the
University of Virginia was at Pro and
Virginia were national champions we need
to get to take one or two things just a
remind us of home and generally a plug
for our alma mater Zyzz one of them
picture the family is nice to him
chapter the pictures upside down that's
better
John I'm plugging his university and I
watching kick this piece of scientific
gear here how small College in the south
that's the world's greatest medical
school carried a lot of dinosaur cookies
up there but we ate all of them except
one skip John John a all of its right
John ate all of them looks like a bunch
of grown-ups playing with their food but
actually this is a physics lesson if you
remember the hardest thing to teach
students and physics is the difference
between mass and weight look there
everything is virtually weightless
however it still has mass if you watch
out the gummy worms and the goldfish
moves the goldfish is less massive it's
a amusement very quickly I had to take
this hat on what I thought at that time
the world's biggest Dodger fan and those
glasses came from my daughter to
complete the set of Los Angeles kind of
stuff I'm glad you're described that and
just the crew picture with a standard hi
mom sign we forgot the one about ten
money we D orbited and landed at Edwards
Air Force Base just before sunset we
landed on runway zero for a runway that
we never used before landing the orbiter
and we landed right on time and within
about a inch or so of where we were
supposed to touch down was smooth and
rolled out just as the Sun dipped below
the horizon Fred I think you're about a
half an inch to the right of center line
we'll have to do it again one mile per
hour slow the next shot is a is a same
approach but it's an infrared shot and
gives an indication of the temperatures
on the orbiter during the approach the
whiter the surface the hotter it is but
the very interesting thing is as the
wheels come down they very gray
indicating they're cool but as they
touch down those tires really heat up
tremendous technology that allows
that kind of material to be built you
see the bottom of the orbiter there is
is so much hotter there's the wheels
touch down and then the top and around
the cockpit and of course the nose being
the hottest but it's really dramatic
difference here that's the auxiliary
power units exhaust up near the base of
the tail he changed the polarity this
picture and make the hot parts dark then
the orbiter looks just like a regular
orbiter except you can't read discovery
on the side we had these launch and
entry suits on we came in and was very
cold outside but with the suits and the
combination of us trying to become
earthlings again all of us were very hot
when we came outside takes a while to
get your earth legs back there was a lot
of staggering going out there but that's
one tired and happy crew we're ready to
go again absolutely