good morning endeavor
morning tom
this is carl and we see your tips on and
we have we're still working on the
execute package we'll have it up to you
shortly
okay carl sorry um thanks for looking
for the tips message
roger
we see the waves and we could use some
extra light there
okay winston thank you
endeavor houston the flight director
wants to know who buzz lightyear is down
there
and we're into midnight
hi dan barry
houston endeavor freebies
go ahead preview
yeah sorry uh we've uh completed
checkout except for the last 15 minutes
of battery charge check and both seats
look good
great news dan and we concur
yeah we got a bunch of thumbs up down
here too
rizz we're just about to go live to the
shuttle endeavour where the astronauts
are about 250 miles above us hurdling
are on the grove at about 17 000 miles
an hour and joining us up there on the
flight deck is commander brian duffy
first of all good morning commander or
whatever time of day it is for you
i'm first of all curious about the
evasive maneuver you had to perform to
avoid a dead defense department
satellite tell us a little bit about
that and how that worked out
i'm sure miles and you know it wasn't
any big deal for us
there are a lot of things in orbit in
space we know where they are and just so
happened we were going to get
close enough to one to just make the
folks on the ground safe we just made a
small maneuver we could avoid it
completely and make it no problem so but
we did that it was no big deal
i'm curious we were able to see anything
at all from the orbiter we were able to
see that dead satellite or were you too
far away
actually by the time we did the maneuver
early enough so that we were so far away
from it i don't think we could have seen
it
the u.s space command in colorado
springs colorado tracks some seven
thousand man-made objects up there that
are either dead or active satellites
especially as you look toward building
an international space station how big a
concern is all that space junk
well you know i mean the fact that it's
here is certainly
a concern now quantifying the size of
that concerns a different story um you
know we're not that worried about it we
think we have very good models and a
fairly good understanding of the
situation and it's one in which you know
we're very comfortable with proceeding
with building a space station
you know we're happy to come fly in the
shuttle with all that stuff up here too
i guess uh for the folks at home though
they should understand that even a small
fleck of paint can cause some damage to
an orbiter when you consider the speeds
at which the two objects meet
well that's that's true and that's just
uh because of the physics of the
situation you know it's
one half the mass times the velocity
squared
has kinetic energy involved and if you
have vehicles and
objects going very quickly yeah it could
be a concern
all right i want to shift gears here a
little bit and i'll open this up to
anybody who'd like to take this
during the launch just the other day
one couldn't help but think a little bit
about the challenged challenger disaster
which occurred 10 years ago this month
uh the temperature was kind of chilly at
the cape and a lot of the parameters for
launching uh under those circumstances
were developed after the challenger
accident how much was challenger on
people's minds that morning
well miles i'll take that one the reason
i'll do that is because i'm the only
member on the crew that was
in the astronaut office at the time the
challenger occurred and um
we're very aware of course of the 10th
anniversary of challenger
it's hard not to not to be they were our
friends
our good friends and our you know
companions
we think we're carrying on we know we're
carrying on exactly what they set out to
do we know they'd be very proud of us
we weren't worried about it that morning
but it's the fact that the 10th
anniversary is coming up the challenger
has been on our minds some
i'm curious how much on a day-to-day
basis within nasa does the challenger
accident loom in discussions decisions
planning
um well well you know the um
after a challenge occurred
we took a very uh tough look at the
agency and the way decisions were made
and we made an awful lot of changes and
the system that we have produced as a
result
of the changes that we made
is very good you can look at our track
record here we've done an excellent job
and we're all very confident in the
system and we think it'll continue to
launch vehicles safely
are you satisfied and that could go for
all of you here are you satisfied with
the pace of
development on a next generation of
manned spacecraft a single stage to
orbit craft for example or would you
have predicted perhaps 10 years ago that
we would have been a little further
along
no one wants to take that one
well i think i think we're all very
happy flying the shuttle uh it was
designed many years ago but this is 74th
mission and it's proved to be very
reliable we've learned more and more on
each mission
about the vehicle itself and that data
are going to be used to design the next
generation spacecraft there are some
efforts underway although not full-blown
for a replacement for the shuttle but of
other manned vehicles being looked at
and we're hopeful that uh that we'll go
ahead and forge on when the shuttle gets
old enough that that we will want
another vehicle
i know recently nasa administrator
daniel golden was actually critical of
the pace of new rocket development
within nasa there really hasn't been a
ground up new rocket developed in the
u.s
recently
would you be among those that would call
for such efforts especially in light of
the budget constraints in washington
well i think i think a new vehicle would
be a good thing i think we ought to
start planning for a new vehicle we
don't need one right now the space
shuttle has been doing fine even though
a lot of the technology is what you
would call by today's standards old
it's proven to be a very reliable
reliable vehicle again and we have no
need to immediately replace it but i
think we ought to start looking at
at a new vehicle
by the way for our viewers that's
mission specialist leroy chow and let me
uh shift into the space walks which are
planned here i know you will be involved
in two of the spacewalks there are two
each of them six and a half hours long
the object is to look at tools
techniques and equipment which might be
used to build the international space
station
you almost get the sense that nasa is
doing its best to get as much space
walking experience in it as possible
so that you have an experienced group of
astro construction workers when it comes
time to build that space station is that
what's going on
well that's certainly part of it miles
uh you know we'd like to get some folks
experience so that we can have that
experience to draw upon when we do good
in a full swing of
station assembly uh winston scott behind
me he's uh he's going to do the second
eva with me and dan barry who's working
on the mid deck right now will do the
first one with me and that will be three
new uh eva people on this flight that
get some experience but along with that
we're also as you mentioned looking at
the design concepts building concepts
and maintenance concepts for the space
station this is very critical the the
results that we get from these flight
tests are going to feed directly right
back into the space station program to
make sure you know they'll tweak what
they have to tweak to make sure that we
get a buildable and a reliable station
not long ago there was some talk that
the russians were attempting to modify
plans for the international space
station they were suggesting that
perhaps their current space station the
mirror become
a core feature in the new international
space station that would presumably
delay things and raise costs on this end
i assume at this point astronauts would
prefer that the design stay as it is
well miles i guess i'm going to try to
avoid that question a little bit
you got to remember we've been training
for a year for this flight and
especially the last couple of months uh
we we've been very focused on our
mission and uh although we've
sort of been aware of what's been going
on around our mission um we we probably
haven't paid as much attention to it as
you might think so i think we'll just
kind of
maybe dodge that one a little bit and uh
maybe it's more appropriate for somebody
in our management
pilot uh brent jett uh showing that
astronauts are good at all kinds of
evasive maneuvers um let's move over to
uh winston scott i know when you're on
your space walk
you're going to uh spend a little bit of
time in the shade of the shuttle a
hundred degrees below zero fahrenheit
are the projected temperatures and i
suppose folks in the northeast concerned
about a blizzard should think about that
for a moment tell me about the thermal
modifications on this spacesuit are you
uh satisfied that you're going to be
nice and toasty up there
you know miles as a matter of fact i am
i'm very confident that i'm going to be
nice and toasty uh the modifications
have been worn before they've looked at
uh how the other guys felt when they
were a couple of missions before me and
they made improvements and
i'm uh really not that concerned about
in fact i'm looking forward to it
but you're a florida boy
yes indeed but they've got
a couple of modifications as a matter of
fact i've got heated gloves we just
finished our emu check out our extra
vehicular mobility unit checkout i
powered those gloves up they got nice
and warm for me i've got what's called
an lcd pot bypass unit that's supposed
to keep my torso warm
and
i think it's going to be i think it's
going to be exciting besides the things
start to get too cold up there i can
give these guys a signal and they'll
rotate me towards the sun and uh maybe
send me a cup of hot chocolate out there
but i think i'll be okay
i suppose if you bang on the door or
window that let you in
i sure hope so they owe me something i
didn't bring my trumpet up here with me
winston jett is also a big band uh
orchestral uh trumpet player uh that
would be interesting to try that in the
space shuttle i i'd like to see and hear
how that would sound
tell me i think it'd be a lot of fun of
course that's been done many times
before
people i think don't realize how many
astronauts are also musicians i happen
to be probably the only one with a
degree in music but we've got a lot of
folks around the office that play music
and
sing and have a good time i certainly
would not be the first to bring an
instrument up and play
by the way for our viewers that uh
to translate a little bit of nasa jargon
there that bypass he was talking about
allows the astronauts simply to turn off
the cooling unit in the space suit now
that sounds like a simple idea why
didn't they ever do that before
well miles uh it's a difficult question
for me to answer being a new guy but i
suspect they probably never needed
needed to have that before we're looking
at
going to colder and colder temperatures
as we get into a larger international
space program we start constructing
stations off
we'll be seeing colder temperatures and
therefore we need these improvements to
the suits
all right not pictured here are 66 astro
rats
i'm surprised they didn't come and join
you for the interview we were hoping at
least one of them would tell us a little
bit about that experiment i understand
you're testing out some high-tech rat
cages why is that important
well miles on this flight we're flying
the animal enclosure units to test them
out really it's a flight test for the
enclosure unit there's no specific
experiment with the net rats right now
except to see that if they like their
new house and right now from what we've
seen
they're getting along just fine uh you
you'd really be surprised they're doing
great i guess that's particularly
important as nasa looks toward that
international space station i assume
there'll be some long-term rodent
residents of that space station right
well i'm sure there'll be a place for
them and uh and even closer than that
down down the line we're going to have
some some uh
life sciences space lab missions in
which we'll probably be using that for
those same enclosures
all right thanks so much to uh those
four members of the crew of endeavor we
appreciate you joining us at whatever
time it is for you in york the course of
your day up there
and uh
the mission of endeavor will continue
until january 20th a night landing is
planned at the kennedy space center in
florida now back to you riz
same
and i've got the pre-sleep stuff for you
page 3-2 the orbit ops when you're ready
no rush
you