hmm
drifting with a current down a
moonlit stream
glee
dreaming of a pair of
eyes in
dreams again i see
visions
good morning discovery and we thought
you'd like this
piece about ohio senator john glenn
suggested it
uh good morning houston uh yeah it takes
it's back home thank you very much
we're now receiving live television from
discovery's cameras discovery houston on
tdrs east
this view from a camera that's mounted
in the forward
right hand corner of the cargo bay
discovery houston we're getting a superb
picture from the payload bay and i can
see the storm
just coming into view i envy your view
for real
in this view of tropical storm chantal
maximum winds now about 51 miles per
hour as it
moves to the north northwest in the
atlantic
well to the north of puerto rico
this is mission control houston this
television view from discoveries of
tropical storm chantal
again in the atlantic
well north of puerto rico on a course
that will take it to north northwest
currently a chantal as a tropical storm
has winds of about 51 miles per hour and
it's moving on its uh north northwest
track at about five miles per hour
okay and we're ready on the midtech
we're ready to come aboard when you're
ready
we're ready for you
discovery houston three smiling faces
there
and we have a good frame and a good uh
camera view
discovery are you ready for the event on
the middeck
we are ready tom
maddie montford this is houston please
call discovery for a voice check
hello how are you nancy don and mary
ellen
good morning how are you
doing just fine before we get started
let me just tell you that the show that
we we do we cater more to moms and
children so when you speak about what
you do
as simple in a simple terms as possible
we would really appreciate it
okay wonderful so we'll just get started
i'm going to intro you right now
we are speaking with nancy curry don
thomas and mary ellen weber they are on
the sts
mission on the space shuttle discovery
they are on the mid deck and they're
ready to speak to us right now hello and
thank you for being with us
thank you for allowing us to come down
and be with you this morning we're just
having a wonderful time after our launch
uh two days ago from the kennedy space
center we had just a spectacular launch
we had the deployment of the tracking
and data relay communication satellite
on our first day and we've just
been having a very successful mission up
to this point
now we were originally going to speak to
you a few weeks back and of course that
mission was delayed can you give us a
little insight on what happened
discovery houston we're not getting dons
down link can you try the mic again
okay do i ask the question again may i
ask the question again
discovery uh that last question did not
come down so would you give the answer
again
yeah basically the reason for our uh
delay of one month was because of a
woodpecker there were two woodpeckers
that were poking holes in our external
tank they made a number of holes about
197 of them we had a roll back to the
vehicle assembly building to patch the
holes and we rolled back out to the pad
launched about a month late but here we
are successfully on orbit
did that make you any more nervous to go
up in space than you probably already
feel
uh no i don't think so we've been
training very hard for this mission for
about a year and we're ready and
it's part of the business sometimes
sometimes weather's going to get in your
way and sometimes it might be
woodpeckers or
sometimes it might just be equipment
failures but
you know we believe our space program is
really safe and
we were ready to go
all three of you right now are on the
mid-deck of the aircraft can you tell us
a little bit about what you do there
basically the mid-back is part of where
we work and where we sleep and when
where we eat and also where we exercise
we have a uh bicycle which does not have
a seat on it because we don't need one
in zero g just have a seat back on it
and we exercise uh at least once a day
on orbit but we have a whole variety of
experiments we've been keeping very very
busy
and we also have several experiments
that we're running from the flight deck
most of those are camera oriented and
are taking up most of the windows on the
flight deck
now people are interested in your
day-to-day activities on board the
shuttle discovery
um for example what did you eat today
oh there's
well this morning i had rice krispies
for breakfast
and for lunch i had some barbecued beef
and a tortilla
what's that
is it good
it's actually pretty good what i'm
holding here is some shrimp cocktail
that we just mixed with a little bit of
cold water and that's one of our
favorites
and i'm holding some chocolate instant
breakfast which i had this morning and
it's actually very good and we all get
to select our menu yeah we got to speak
with
most of your family members this morning
and aside from
missing them what is the thing that you
miss the most about not being on earth
well you hit the nail on the head the
thing we do miss most is our families
back on earth
other than that it's you know getting
out and being able to take a walk around
the neighborhood enjoying the you know
fresh air and a cool breeze in your face
but to make up for that we got a
spectacular view out the window here yes
can we take a look at where you're
flying over right now is that possible
that we're gonna uh
it's a little bit of uh what you what
you can see from the shuttle
as we speak
we're currently we're in the middle of a
night pass
over southeast asia just going over
approximately indonesia
i'm not sure you'll be able to see much
out of our payload bay cameras
it's it's dark but we can get a sense
the top part of course is the earth
most of our flight we fly facing with
our payload bay facing the earth so as
we look at the overhead windows of the
shuttle we're looking down at the earth
uh however last night we were flying
with the nose of the orbiter down
and uh so we were actually looking at
the forward windows of the orbiter down
at the earth and for the first time i
think some of us got the sensation of
falling towards the earth that was quite
interesting
what does that sensation feel like
well basically uh you know floating here
in zero gravity you feel quite
comfortable from the time the main
engine's cut off you let go you just
float around as long as you don't get a
raid on yourself
this is a question for nancy and
madeline maybe you're the best to answer
this do you have bad hair days up in
day on space is a bad hair day
do you know that as i've spent a couple
of days here at nasa i've just been so
impressed by what a great personality
the astronauts that i've spoken to
have aside from your technical skills
and the academics that you must know to
get to where you are is personality a
big big part of you getting where you
are
well we would like to think so of course
but
the selection a large part of it is
based on a one-hour interview with the
selection committee and they hold their
cards pretty close and they tend not to
talk about what exactly they're looking
for in the personalities but certainly
uh being able to take the initiative and
demonstrating that you can work with
others and things like that uh you know
we have to believe that that does come
into play
now mary ellen i know you're adventurous
as well you're a competitive skydiver
with 1900 jumps under your belt
does that thrill compared to the one
you're living right now
well i have to say no
it's uh this is pretty awesome this is
really pretty remarkable
although i really do enjoy jumping
now what do you do for fun you said you
have you have some time to exercise but
other than that what is your your off
time like what do you do
we really haven't had a whole lot of off
time this far in the mission and so i
think every possible opportunity that we
have particularly during meal times
you'll find five noses pressed up
against the window looking at the most
spectacular view we'll ever see in our
lives
yes now um nancy we got a chance to
speak with your eight-year-old daughter
this morning stephanie
was on our show last fall when mike my
co-host interviewed you
and she said to me that she would love
to see herself and and your dog auggie
up in space sometime
we don't like
now what are some of the fun things that
you all do in weightlessness i mean
right now obviously you are hanging on
to what exactly are you hanging on to
okay let us give you a short
demonstration of something we were
showing a couple of the new guys last
night it will take just seconds
oh
what are you eating there
oh
nancy was spinning almost as much as the
m m's are that uh been released inside
here
you're you're an easy gymnast nancy
um
wonderful now if you all had a chance to
live up in the space station
for a year where you wouldn't be able to
see your husbands and your children and
your wives
would you take that that opportunity
that's a great question uh i sure would
like to bring them along if we could do
that and hopefully one day in the future
we'll be able to bring our families
along on longer voyages into space
mary ellen did you want to answer that
i know i agree i would go uh i would
certainly go on the space station
and uh you know with or without my
family but i would certainly rather have
them alone
tell me a little bit about
in the simplest of terms what your
responsibilities are aboard the
discovery
my particular responsibilities are
mission specialists too all three of us
are mission specialists
mission specialist students a flight
engineer on the flight so i was sitting
center seat between tom hendricks the
commander and kevin cradle the pilot all
the way during the ascent and dom was
sitting to my right and it was uh it was
really spectacular don and i both had
out mirrors so that when the mid engines
lit we could actually see some of the
flames as we rolled heads down we could
see the earth start to go by and uh and
then of course all of our concentration
was on the forward portion of the
cockpit monitoring all our instruments
on board
my main responsibility was deploying the
tdrs satellite our tracking and data
relay satellite that we deployed on day
one in addition to that i'm responsible
for a number of the smaller mid deck
experiments that were flying in this
mission and i'm one of the two crew
members who would go out and do a
spacewalk in case we had some kind of
emergency or contingency and needed to
go outside to fix something on the
orbiter
i was helping him out with the deploy
as well as working on some of the
mid-deck experiments and on the other
crew member that would go out and do a
spacewalk if we needed to do that
bob cabana the head of the astronaut
program here at nasa told me that
the single most important piece of
equipment that all of you have is your
spoon
where are yours are you do you have them
handy
you bet we never leave home without it
there they go and
and don has two of them
he's ready that way we can hold them for
ransom if someone loses theirs
do you get a lot of chance to talk to
one another or is it basically difficult
to speak up there
where you can hear each other clearly
although we can hear each other very
very clearly it's kind of like
you know having a fan on in a room and
uh you might have to talk just a little
bit louder but you can hear uh just as
well as on the ground
we uh we got to speak to your husband
nancy we didn't get to speak to yours
marilyn because i know he's still in
florida but i was curious when you both
were single
um
did you intimidate men because you were
astronauts was that an intimidating
factor in in the dating process
well as you know if you spoke to my
husband he's an army helicopter pilot
and i met him when he was teaching me
how to fly one of the army's newest
helicopters to blackhawk and so i don't
think he was intimidated at all because
i was a pilot just like he was and uh so
it's quite interesting because he can
understand my job very well and he's
tremendously supportive
how about you mary ellen
i know i've actually uh i was actually
dating my husband for many years before
i became an astronaut so i'm not real
certain if anybody was intimidated or
not
don he certainly wasn't he wasn't now
don um was being an astronaut an
astronaut a a babe magnet for you
i'm a happily married man and
i'd have to say absolutely not no no but
i meant i meant before you were married
that's why i got married here
well we got a chance to
meet your baby kai
and we got a chance to spend time with
simone and for you nancy we have we got
a chance to speak with your husband and
your daughter they're all doing really
really well
is there something you would like to say
to them
boy sir to uh kai and to my wife simone
i love you i miss you very much and i
can't wait to see you next friday at
landing time love you
and to dave and stephanie i love you
with all my heart and don't eat too much
pizza before i get back
and once again i guess i have to say
just i love you a lot jerry and i can't
wait to see you
now i understand that all of you swapped
rings with your husbands or your wives
do you have them on you right now
well you know i know they're missing
that
i know they're missing you and they love
you and from down here on earth
we uh we send you the very best wishes
and we we hope you get back safely on
friday god bless
thank you very much maddie give my best
to mike we enjoyed meeting him in
houston sure well
good luck to all of you
thank you
discovery we have picture
okay
don carrico will be very happy to know
that we are cleaning the windows just
like you taught us
and the next thing you'll see is uh
don and tom in the back doing some right
bobs and we you know as you you're very
well familiar with we have some
fantastic passes today over the u.s and
we also were able to capture hurricane
chantal
you can also see the six crew member on
board in this view
and just to the right of woody you can
see the mcc plaque in honor of the first
flight controlled by the new mcc
that's a great shot discovery
as we came over the hurricane today
including one crew member with one
odometer shoe on and one shoe off
that sounds like just about the scene
that we're familiar with from last year
and uh tom also the other interesting
thing is that between windex hercules
and sarax the windows have been kind of
hard to come by during this flight
that's one thing we appreciate looking
at the timeline is how difficult it is
to work all those payloads with the
windows simo
that's a forum and this is a picture of
tom and i doing hercules activation and
this is just one part of hercules the
hat and the ibm thinkpad computer and
you'll see the actual camera coming to
view in just a little bit
this camera on the ground weighed
approximately 70 pounds and it was quite
difficult to train with particularly for
star alignments to hold this device over
your head and
be able to get an alignment within 0.05
degrees
we had some difficulty with the
alignment today mostly due to the
stabilization of the camera because it
is so large
and there's the camera that i'm holding
right now
so this is i'll be on camera which is a
multi-spectral imaging
intensifier camera
and it's got its own alignment system
that's a canister on top and then a view
cam attached to that
discovery we really see how that space
is a premium working with the camera and
a couple of crew members
satisfied the last minute the pao event
was from the middeck
roger that
you