you
and joining us this morning from aboard
Columbia our mission specialist Mike
Earnhardt and payload specialist Roger
crowd we crouched we say good morning to
you and welcome to night side gentlemen
good morning how are you doing great and
you all look wonderful i should point
out that when it comes to that
sporting-goods equipment you are talking
about golf clubs the information that we
received we have to point out that's not
the main reason you're flying in space
although some golfers would be flattered
first of all a primary objective of your
mission is micro gravity science explain
that fourth microgravity science is
really just what people multi think of
as laboratory sciences like physics and
chemistry and biology and convention
science and material science that's done
in space and the reason for the micro
means that there's a microgravity
environment that means about one part in
a million of the Earth's normal gravity
and what that does is allow you to study
things with that the influence of
gravity which scientists have wanted to
do for hundreds of years and we finally
getting a chance to start doing it
alright your crew has been setting fires
during these experiments and it sounds a
little scary now what's the purpose and
can you explain the behavior of flames
in the state of weightlessness
I think either the question is why are
we studying fires up in weightlessness
and there's a couple of good answers to
that one is that it's really impossible
to truly understand fires on earth
because of the fact that to give you a
simple example if you light a match you
instantly create warm air which rises
because women weighs less than colder
air and that convective process of the
warm air rising carries the fuel away
from the fire and tremendously
complicates the combustion process
making it difficult for us to really
understand the basic physics and
chemistry of combustion and some of the
experiments there Roger and the payload
crew are doing up here will allow us to
more fundamentally understand combustion
which is really important to our life on
Earth so it turns out about ninety
percent of the energy that drives our
whole society comes from combusting
fuels and if some of the research that
these guys are doing up here can improve
combustion only one or two percent that
will save billions a year into our
economy and also result in less
pollutants I want to ask you Michael
what do you think about the Mars
Pathfinder news what's the reaction of
the crew there we're all just
tremendously excited about the Mars
Pathfinder it's a tremendous engineering
accomplishment in a great tribute to the
folks at NASA in the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory we also feel very clear rates
to be orbiting the Earth in the space
shuttle Columbia during this historic
occasion I think that symbolizes the
synergistic role between humans and
robots in space exploration it turns out
the Pathfinder and several robotic
spacecraft that are planned behind it
will help document the conditions on
Mars in terms of the atmosphere and a
planet surface in that information will
help us design a spacecraft system that
could carry humans to Mars in the future
to help colonize Mars and and the other
planets and so we're just tremendously
excited about it
being reduced can you see this nebulous
what get report it's 120 degrees away
based on the grid squares maybe even
closer than that for you the velocities
point zero okay the jitters firing the
progress resupply ship has television
cameras providing this view of the
docking target at the back of the cove
on one module on the MIR space station
this it's about half a degree upwards of
the crosshairs the distance is about
four meters you will fade you tonight
let's about a slightly a profitable part
was really horizontal line before you
put it by the potato lady right here
well it's going down now it's all right
there is captured there's contact with
them quality good
it also states that four LIF I'm
complete through steps p dot 27 then
we'll wait for the experiment go time in
the pcap to continue okay Dom we copy
that
first column 506 echo eight Niner five
118 1685 5160 1 147 k 6 5 11 30 7 second
column 6148 19 and 64 x alpha 10 to 50
repeated four times 5 52 I hope the
adjustment points in the US which here
and we think we do you may actually have
to just up we're quite unsure about the
smoke ID on this one because basically
completely threw us off the map previous
test okay I copy that and I guess we'll
letter to go here so if they spoke to
your words of wisdom and reported it
burn keep talking keep on talking to
alan who can talk to me during the birth
so we can work it out we were always I
thanks for all your help on this we're
looking forward to this one this will be
interesting putting a good word for it
to everybody on the same one can you
guys doing a great job we big likewise
in Reverse even when I've done a great
job force us far nor we think if your
help yes we're ready for the downlink if
you if you have it all right Jebidiah
yes sir we got a great view from the a
flight deck okay great we have a little
red tape you about four minutes long
with the nice variety of science and
living in space stuff on it so let me go
to play and we will start narrating the
tape
hey Jim we just hit the k-band worm how
about holding up on the down link for my
first here you see a fatal me back in
the lab earlier today one of my duties
just about every day is the videotape a
stroke PG ba this is part of the Express
rack and the part that of interest here
are the plants that you see right here
some of the screen inspires I think
there might be some humidity on the
camera lives but beyond that you can see
some of the green plants growing if i
remember correctly we have some sage
some pine saplings some periwinkle
spinach is growing in there and i would
be hard pressed to tell you which one is
which we also get several different
views this is another view of some of
the plants that are going in there over
the last few days that I've been doing
this video I have been able to see that
they are growing one thing people always
ask us what it's like living us see
Regina yeah I'm trying to demonstrate
what flex try and sit down what happens
is that just you starts floating away
and then you quickly get away from the
thing you're sitting on and you can't
can't get back very well until you reach
the ceiling they coming up next I'm
gonna try and walk and a similar problem
happens so we need to modify it maybe
two things space here you can sort of
hold yourself down but as soon as you
let go you quickly move away and walking
is not very practical every morning we
have to tape in procedure changes to our
books and so first few times we do this
it thinks it's not quite as smooth as it
is after a few days put the book down
book comes up with hook down give it a
good press so it stays there as well
comes back up with this paper down is
going on top of the book getting both
breasts so they stay down they come back
up and grab his tape and court trying
tape it down quickly as soon as you have
a few things going on it gets out of
control but then we have things to help
us so we reach her a bag and try and get
out one of those things that will help
us and this is where anti-gravity comes
into sex not zero gravity it's
anti-gravity things coming out of
packages as though they're being held by
some other force and we have to
rearrange that
here I'm working on the large isothermal
furnace this is odd facility built by
the Japanese this is the fourth time
that it's flown in space and I've had
the great pleasure and honor flying with
it on three of the four times and it's
been in space this is one of the
international experiments and payloads
that we have on board we have other ones
from Germany another major facility
tempest and these are two other major
partners putting together the
International Space Station I'm putting
a sample in here for diffusion processes
involved semiconductors comes from my
alma mater Case Western Reserve
University up in Cleveland Ohio and the
P is Dave Matheson and we're looking at
how certain impurities and dopants and
some semiconductor materials
particularly germanium which is a
technological importance for
electro-optic devices all the things is
very important to the flight crew is to
exercise his face the lower part of the
body doesn't get used in space like it
does on the earth so you have to come up
with inventive ways of stretching your
muscles and working your muscles so that
your muscles are atrophied due to lack
of use it's also after a few days in
space we start with calcium in our burn
so it's important to put some force on
your legs so that that can be reduced as
much as possible it'll take us a good
two weeks to feel normal after we get
back in space and be able to work out
normally your heart doesn't get as much
use in space it doesn't have to pump
blood up to our health so it's very
important for the flight crew to work
out cardiovascularly every day otherwise
it would be hard to get the ball coming
up to a head on we every day and it's
important for the flight crew to stay
awake
okay well that's our crude Swiss
downlink but today we hope they gave you
a little bit better feel about what's
going up on up here we'd like to take
the subject and say hello to all of our
loved ones back on the earth who
hopefully get a chance to see this we we
miss you we love you and we're looking
forward to getting back home here at the
end of the mission and then seeing you
again also thanks the mysteries go for
looking over our shoulder 24 hours a day
and making this a successful flight
thanks a lot see you later question this
is one of our rack sighs when's the drop
of combustion experiment that's the
volume where the droplets are bird it's
very carefully designed we have clamps
joint when playing at that seal the
chamber so you can open up to get inside
to work but it's very safe when the
hobbits themselves are burning this of
course wanted support equipment around
this also use during the runs we have
camera equipment just camera here that's
a high-speed film Carol I can use for
making movies that takes it to the drop
small sprain we also have a electronics
box control things a camcorder and I
can't ask for that takes all kinds of
different pictures and different bands
of the spectrum at different speeds
recorded on the end these all the data
for post my analysis and a laptop
computer just like we used in the orbit
it allows the crew members to control
all this equipment like the power
systems from onboard the ground can also
do some commanding for some of the runs
but this is how we do it when a clue is
running the experiments this whole thing
of course is stacked tiny into space lab
systems we have a little monitor how
does my boys tomorrow that film is also
said sumantra in the lab that goes to
ground we hold on something well box
that lets us see some UV images that are
in part of an internal camera and also
under in the experiment you can see we
have lots of cameras taking date on
these droplets
you