foreign
me
laurissas around the world that'll be
proud to hear that we played a song for
them this morning and how appropriate
that there's a line in there about uh
alarm clocks
uh
we've as you know not really needed
alarm clocks the last couple of days but
we're up and adam and ready to go for
another great day thanks for the music
currently the shuttle atlantis is
orbiting the earth firmly locked
to the mir space station as this live
downlink from payload bay cameras aboard
the shuttle indicate
in view is the orbiter docking system
linked up to the
docking mechanism of the cristal science
module
with its omnidirectional antenna clearly
in view in the upper left-hand corner of
this picture
and in the rear of the shuttle's cargo
bay the space lab science module
where mission specialist bonnie dunbar
and ellen baker have begun perhaps the
busiest day of the five days of joint
scientific operations on tap for the 10
astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the 225
ton atlantis mir space complex
we're now getting live tv from the space
lab
showing the mir 18 crew back in the lab
along with commander hood gibson
floating in the foreground
as
mission specialists ellen baker and
bonnie dunbar perform a variety of
activities mostly metabolic experiments
vladimir dujourov the mere 18 commander
is seen next to dunbar on the right-hand
side of the picture who gibson is in the
foreground
in the rear of the picture is the mir 18
flight engineer he's partially
obstructed from view right now now
coming back into view that's gennady
strekeloff the mirror 18 flight engineer
pilot charlie precourt is back there as
well along with the u.s astronaut norm
thaggart who's wrapping up his fifth
flight into space
of course so the last three and a half
months having been spent aboard the mere
space station
on board mir at the moment are the mere
19 crew who replaced thagger du jour off
and struck a loft that's anatoly
seloviav and nikolai budaran they're in
the uh
the process of uh checking out many of
the mirrors systems continuing their
handover from the mirror 18 crew as they
begin to set up shop for their two-month
stay aboard the mirror they'll be
relieved by another cosmonaut crew in
late august
atlanta space lab mayor we're back with
you tdrs west
atlantis
atlantis we confirm a nominal firing
yeah we can confirm the forward ones
that
okay great copy dave 6 through 11 and
then we'll stand by
i guess the data from the
part one looks okay so far
atlantis hoot uh you acquired exactly
the data that we needed
procedurally it was just fine and we're
still evaluating the data
we have no reason to think there's any
problem
this is a special report from cnn i'm
john holliman at cnn center in atlanta
we're about to go up about 217 miles
above the surface of the earth to the
core module of the mir space station
where the 10 shuttle and
smear astronauts and cosmonauts are
waiting to spend about 15 minutes with
us we have to share our time with
somebody else so we have to use the 15
minutes as effectively as we can i'm
going to start with commander hoot
gibson who's just had a new baby
daughter emily as i told you a second
ago
it's nice to have new children how would
you when emily gets to be eight years
old explain what happened on this
mission to her
well john i suppose she's probably going
to grow up hearing all about it so by
the time she's eight years old she's
probably going to be tired of hearing
about it but uh
i guess
i guess i'll tell her and and
grandchildren that that it was
perhaps the proudest moment of my life
to be able to take part in a in an event
such as this in an event
the likes of which we haven't
haven't tried to do i haven't dreamed of
for over 20 years now it's certainly
been
the piloting challenge of my career and
the and the uh and the flight operations
challenge of my entire career to get to
take part in in an event like this and
uh
i'm really proud of the crew that i got
to go up with and the folks on the
ground that helped put it all together
and i guess i'll try and convey all of
that to little emily as she gets bigger
yeah how tough a job has it been really
you said it was the piloting challenge
of your career tell me how it was during
the docking in in the last few seconds
of that and uh and tell me if you had
time to listen or feel the two ships
coming together there's that we i've got
a fax in from a viewer in russia who
wants to know that the sensations that
you felt and heard and sensed as you
were completing the docking
uh john i'll tell you what we felt from
over on the shuttle side and make sure
you ask the uh the russian crew the mere
18 crew what they felt because i think
they noticed more at the actual moment
of docking than we did
the the most demanding part of the of
the whole rendezvous i felt was when we
intercepted the the alignment cone that
we needed to fly up in and stay within
that alignment cone
uh there was there was a fair amount of
maneuvering and a fair amount of
thrusting that we had to do with the uh
with the orbiter atlantis to get it
established and safely within that
corridor and keep it there
uh once we had it there it was a lot
easier to keep it in the corridor than i
thought it was going to be
and we were able to fly a pretty
accurate approach uh all the way up and
the closer we got
uh the more i was able to determine that
we were going to be able to fly it very
accurately and precisely and so uh
and so it went very smoothly from that
point on
at the actual moment of contact
we didn't feel the docking mechanism
capture or the actual contact when we
first
contacted the mirror
we fire a number of thrusters for about
three seconds straight so of course we
heard the thrusters and felt the
thrusters firing
but in terms of actual thump or actual
contact it was
a little bit of a let
the word letdown really doesn't fit here
but uh there wasn't a bang or any kind
of a clunk that we could hear other than
the thrusters firing yeah why don't you
pass the microphone over to norm and
i'll ask him the same thing and then he
can pass the mic to vladimir who was
over there as well norm um it's
interesting to me we've asked our
viewers around the world to fax in
questions they all want to know what it
feels like what it smells like a lot
more than you know
the scientific things that are going on
there tell me from your position on
board mir uh what it felt like when uh
when hoot piloted the shuttle into the
side of your space station
well i've got some good comparisons i've
been here when we had a progress
resupply ship back and when that
occurred i was probably a foot away from
the node where it impacted i felt
nothing i heard nothing
when the spectre module docked with the
station that's about 20 tons we felt a
very slight vibration but really felt
nothing when the shuttle docked we felt
it the 100 tons uh hitting the station
had some uh impact on us and it was
pretty impressive given the mild uh
sensations with the previous vehicles
yeah okay this is a question for
vladimir then i'm going to come back to
norm just to let you know where we're
going here um vladimir
you uh had never spent time on board a
space station with americans before was
it much different and is was it much
different with uh dr norm taggart there
doing all these sophisticated medical
tests on you the whole time you were
together
um
we
a
common language even when we were on
earth so we worked together very well
and
implemented the program jointly
we didn't really feel any difference
that there was an american on board
or you know that he was any other
nationality
so there were never any serious problems
or misunderstandings
back to north dakota for a minute how
much of a problem has it been for you
norm to be weightless for so long and uh
what sorts of things have you done that
our viewers might who follow the space
program might not know that you might
have done special this time to
counteract the effects of weightlessness
on your body
the russians have had folks up for long
duration space flights so they have a
number of recommendations and i tried to
follow most if not all of them we were
some devices around
our upper thighs that are supposed to
help with uh
with the problem of fluid redistribution
after uh return to earth we exercise two
times a day and i actually for many days
exercised a full hour and that's actual
time either turning on a bicycle or
running on a treadmill or walking on a
treadmill
and uh in addition to that they also use
a device that folks may not be familiar
with called a lower body negative
pressure device we've used it many times
in the past to evaluate the status of
the heart and zero g the russians
actually use it for training thinking
that it helps people with again the
problem of orthostatic hypertension
medical term but in practical terms that
means when you stand up the tendency to
feel like you're going to pass out and
fall over
and what that does is you get inside a
device that completely encloses the
lower half of your body a differential
pressure is created and actually sucks
the blood into the legs to create the
same sort of distribution of blood and
zero g that the normal person would have
standing in 1g i've done all those
things and i hope it i hope it helps and
i guess i'll find out in about a week
yep you expected to be in space about 90
days you've been up
nearly nearly four months now how much
of a hardship has that been for you and
for your family on a personal level
i miss my family a lot
i've depended on them for support and
i've gotten it through the years it's
tough to be away from home i spent a
year in vietnam i guess i spent nearly
four months here
it's something that you feel you have to
do
but you also realize you're making
sacrifices when you do it and they
sacrifice too and i feel badly sometimes
that i get to have all this fun so to
some extent the sacrifice is worth it
they don't get that benefit well i'm
going to come home and probably stay
home a little longer this time and i i
miss them and i look forward to seeing
them take a couple of cop days why don't
you do this what i'm going to do at the
end of this vision as well
this question for nick budaran is the um
the rookie in the uh in the atlantic
crew you've been there for uh about a
week now what do you miss most about the
planet earth
um
well tell you the truth i don't have an
opportunity to miss anything there's a
lot of work we have a period of changing
the guard as it were and a lot of things
to do after the shuttle leaves
we will immediately
prepare
our spacesuits for an eva
uh in the middle of july
so we're not going to have too much i'm
not going to have too much time to miss
anything
well you must be beautiful from up there
we all watched the docking the other day
and it was thrilling to see it went so
flawlessly commander i am curious you
had practiced it in simulation so many
times how did the real thing compared to
the simulation
that's a real good question the the real
thing was
if anything perhaps a little bit easier
than all of the simulations because uh
in all of the simulations we have a
visual system that that displays what
the view out the window would look like
we have a number of computer systems in
the simulator that have to play together
and they
frequently are how do i put it they're
frequently less than perfect and we wind
up having to extrapolate a little bit
and assume a little bit when we're doing
the simulations
in actually flying the flight and
actually flying with the onboard systems
and all of the
the computers working correctly and
working properly
in addition to being able to look
outside and see where the station really
is see what the view really is telling
us
we have a whole lot better information
than what we have in the simulator so in
in some ways it's easier to do when you
actually fly it
commander if you would pass the
microphone to uh norm sagart i would
like to ask the doctor about his
experience in space after so many months
three months i understand that there are
some physical changes on the body
there's concern about what is it anemia
and maybe some some weight loss
have you noticed any changes in your
body
during that period of time
you do get
perhaps what would be considered an
anemia
i suppose what happens is uh you get
almost what would amount to a blood
transfusion because all the blood that's
normally sequestered in the legs
redistributes to the upper body and i
think blood cell production probably
shuts down for a while but as soon as
those blood cells start dying off then
you start producing humans so i doubt
that there are really fundamental
changes in the blood some question about
whether there are immuno immunological
changes the white cells at least in the
test tube don't seem to be as active as
they would be in a person who had not
gone into zero g
uh my true crewmates lost no weight in
fact uh village and gennady i think it
first actually may be gained a little i
lost a little bit of weight but i bet
i'll put that back on right away after i
get back there are changes but none of
them seem to preclude staying in space
for about as long as you would want to
if there are limitations they may have
to do with calcium loss from bone and
obviously the radiation that you
experience up here over time
dr packard if you would pass the
microphone to
good morning atlantis mir this is terry
casey wjks jacksonville how do you hear
me
good morning terry we have you loud and
clear
wonderful good to talk to you all thank
you for the time question for norm
taggart and nikolai budaran and if both
of you would respond in english it would
be appreciated
who's running that thing up there right
now all ten of you were in the mirror
the shuttle is uh actually running it
and i assume the shuttle's on autopilot
maintaining the orientation of the
shuttle uh the host complex rather and
it has to do that because the mirror
station depends on its solar batteries
for electrical energy and they have to
point to the sun
this is actually what i'd like to hear
the response from both you dr thangard
and uh your comrade budaran
nasa's budget is facing dramatic cuts
over the next several years we've got
some head hunters in congress who want
to kill this mission you're in phase one
of it russia is politically unstable
anything could happen anytime given all
that
do you all feel that you're fighting the
odds up there both both you personally
and what you're trying to do
well just think for a moment what it
took to make all of this happen
think of the technology that were
required and remember that a lot of that
technology has other uses on earth and
in fact a lot of what we take is
commonplace on earth is directly
attributable to developments that came
about through space research the
communication satellites we use when you
pick up a phone to make a long distance
call that's dependent on satellites that
came out of space research
the number of
medical items
most of them smaller medical items but
nonetheless useful that have been
developed first
and depend on research and developments
that occurred in space research there
are a whole long list of things uh but
at the last i think it's the spirit of
human adventure the desire to explore
and you need to move forward or you move
backward you can't stand still this
program moves forward
and
space lab abuse and pack we have a good
life downlink at this time on tvc one
okay we copy
you