cool the better has broken it is going
away from it get it open
the TV the TV is broken
copy
and Jeff we're tracking it with the
radar and we do read zero tension inside
the bill maybe looks like 8 or 10 meters
always got the brake on and we don't see
any other movement it's just laying
inside the boom copy all Andy and stand
by
ok Indian we want to completely verify
you have a visual on the satellite and
the away from the shuttle we have an
image from you you see the picture
Hermitage now unfortunately in all the
excitement somebody bumped the camera
and we lost it ok the view that we had
of it as it was drifting away and we got
it for emitted and so before sunset
yes sir well those are some tethered
dynamics we did not want to see we have
demonstrated that you can generate a lot
of electricity with tether and
fortunately we've also demonstrated that
you can use cutters to launch a
satellite at much higher orbit and phyto
concurs that was one of our objectives
two of our objectives at least in fact
we can see it picked up about an 80 foot
per second boost
okay wedding and I guess as far as being
able to capture some of it
again it looks like it's going in copy
Scott thank you
as for posing visually Roger we see it
two minutes to the ceiling back with you
on the West at 20 206 copy
that's a beautiful shot of an amazing
piece of equipment
commander Amy Witte from WHNT TV but
have played the devil's advocate here
how would you answer critics who say 443
million dollars is a lot to lose and
space research should be curved
how would you respond to that I guess I
would say that we need to take a hard
look at what happened in line and
doesn't have disappointments come along
the way because every time we do
something we learn something I don't
think there's a research program around
that doesn't have its types of failures
and connect can have some of that same
criticism applied to it but we can't
learn unless you're trying so I have not
lost money my excitement about what we
try to do appear in space so have I lost
mine yeah I know do I think it is it has
really lost its parent I think it is a
tremendously commendable and worthwhile
goal for us to keep on doing this type
of research up here we haven't seen the
last of tethers I hope and we just need
to go ahead take another hard look at it
this is Marsha Dunn of The Associated
Press for dr. Hoffman
I'm warning if you could describe a
little more your feelings of personal
loss as you watch the tether cut and as
you saw years and years of work just go
out into nothingness we got about half
way there in terms of being able to
deploy the satellite and to just whet
people's appetite for the incredible
scientific investigations that could be
covered
scientists have lost a lot and I think
we feel for them and we were really
looking forward to demonstrating that we
could actually retrieve a satellite from
20 kilometres which of course is
something that has never been done and
we've put an incredible amount of work
into that and those of us here will
probably never get a chance to do that
when you're working hard to try to
develop new ideas new science new
technology you have setbacks you know
how many how many things did Thomas
Edison try it before he finally found a
filament to make an electric light bulb
and I want to think back to SPF 46 when
we obviously also had a disappointment
and one question was asked to us about
you know what the purpose is why we
should keep doing this and at that time
what I did was to take out something
that we brought on board and that is a
copy of a book by Arthur Clark this is a
book where he describes a very
futuristic view of an application of
tethers where some day that maybe a
tether system that would lead to a space
elevator going from or normally up to
geosynchronous orbit tethers have the
potential to revolutionize a lot of ways
we operate in space nobody said it's
gonna be easy I would have hoped that
after two flights we would have gotten a
little farther than we got this time and
I don't want to try to pretend that that
we're not pretty bitterly disappointed
but nevertheless you know human
lifetimes are stored in the big scheme
of things and hopefully these dreams
will someday come true and our
successors I hope will look back to the
things that we've done and at least they
can say that we hope to point the way
and if that's so then I think they'll
all have gotten a lot of satisfaction
from