we'll check for you
would you like me to try and uh start
that verification on the rip
affirmative eric you can proceed
the furnace has to start moving
and space lab huntsville for aghf it'll
probably take about 10 or 15 minutes for
the furnace to complete its translation
but you have a go to proceed with that
cartridge exchange as soon as it's
finished moving
okay when we see the
have a go to furnace
to insert the next country
that's affirmative
above the earth we just crossed over the
united states and we're out over the
atlantic now
well you do that about uh every 90
minutes or so what's it like circling
the earth that high and that often over
a period of 16 days
well it's been fantastic so far the
first passes we see in the morning are a
gorgeous uh
panoramic view of the mediterranean area
we have two alternate payload
specialists that train with us and
they're from spain and italy so we see
their home countries every morning just
after we arrive
too bad they can't pass up some food as
you go over all that
now this is a the longest mission that
they nasa has attempted with the space
shuttle 16 days you can stay an extra
two if you need to for contingencies
there and weather ops uh and i
understand one of the primary missions
is to study microgravity and
weightlessness in space now we've been
in space for 30 years and we've had long
duration missions in the sky lab and
certainly now with the mirror with
american astronauts up with the russians
why is it important to know what happens
to the human body and weightless
conditions
that's a great question gene we uh we
have had a lot of experience both in the
american program and with the soviet
program uh
we have on this flight however began
some real baseline collection
particularly in the muslim bomb
physiology area
probably the most extensive collection
of sampling
from muscle and bone tissue that's been
done to date
and we have a chance for a long duration
mission to accumulate that we've used a
lot of great data that's accumulated
from prior missions to formulated
experiments that we're trying to do on
this one
specifically this crew is getting
payload crews getting biopsies of their
muscle tissues pre and postmission and
this issue is going to be examined by
investigators around the world and this
is very valuable uh sampling has not
been done before
and we're getting really extensive
studies of the calcium system and we
really hope that
some of this data also interrelates and
correlates with diseases like
osteoporosis back here on earth
so it has both a a purpose for a long
duration future space missions and also
for
perhaps cures for diseases here today is
that correct
regime we've really got some great
investigators both uh in the u.s and
around the world looking at these
samples and certainly the diseases of
all like osteoporosis and many of the
muscle diseases correlate highly with
many things we find happen to astronauts
in microgravity and we're very hopeful
that some of these spin-offs from some
of this research will be helpful in
those areas
okay let me ask susan helms real quickly
what is it like just to live in the
shuttle over a period of time
well actually the best correlation i can
make is with a camping trip where you're
well prepared
we basically have a fixed amount of
volume inside the space shuttle and
inside here we've got living quarters
working quarters habitability quarters
and uh it's home for as long as two
weeks or even longer hopefully on this
flight and we we definitely
get to be a team we work together as a
team for over a year and become a family
as that progresses and when we get up
here we've got a job to do
and uh we we work back in the module
primarily during the day on this flight
and then when or i should say during the
work shift on this flight and then when
it comes time for the crew to go to
sleep we turn the front end into a
sleeping quarters
and and it's very much like a camping
trip we're we're sort of in a volkswagen
bus here locked up with the door closed
for over two weeks and it definitely
takes a lot of choreography and a lot of
practice but it's working extremely well
let me ask very quickly charles brady
about uh about
carrying the olympic torch when he was
doing his exercises the other day
well i didn't expect that my uh my
crewmates uh handed it off to me it
really was a great honor something that
we all
take great honor and pride in the fact
that columbia has been able to carry the
olympic torch here with us and also
olympic banner we hope to unfold here on
our day off and uh we all feel
tremendous uh honor and respect for the
olympic to international spirit we have
an international crew
from uh many different countries spain
italy canada france and the u.s is
represented along with a respected space
agency so we feel like this is uh our
play is a real representation of the
olympic spirit and it was quite an honor
to be exercising with that
well thank you very much for joining us
we appreciate it taking your time out
aboard your busy schedule and talking to
us
well it's been a pleasure talking to you
from aboard the space shuttle columbia
as we orbit the earth
during the life and microgravity space
lab mission we're going to make a very
aggressive and coordinated effort to try
to understand the extent of muscle
atrophy and also the mechanisms behind
it and for that reason we brought
together six different teams from the
united states and europe to study this
in a comprehensive fashion
to support the muscle physiology
experiments we're making use of a very
sophisticated device called a torque
velocity dynamometer or tvd
it's contributed to the mission by the
european space agency
i sort of think of the torque velocity
dynamometer as an arm wrestling or a leg
wrestling machine this morning as jean
jacques fabian my colleague is working
out here he's using it in the light
wrestling mode
sometimes the machine wins the wrestling
match against us and sometimes it lets
us win but who wins the wrestling match
is not important
what is important is that the tvd can
measure the torque or the force applied
by the limb
and also the speed at which we contract
our muscles and the position of the the
foot or the arm at any instant in time
and with this information the scientists
on the ground can understand how muscle
performance is adapting to
weightlessness
for example they can look at the results
coming out of this machine here and
understand what's happening at the level
of muscle
there fibers two types of muscle fibers
in our body we have fast twitch fibers
and we have slow twitch fibers
fast twitch fibers contract muscles very
quickly but they fatigued quite readily
slow twitch fibers on the other hand
contract more slowly but they have a lot
more endurance
the lms scientists theorize that
during our 17 days here in space that
our
slow muscle fibers are going to take on
properties of fast muscle fibers
that means that they'll be able to
contract quicker but they'll be more
fatiguable
but the muscle wasting and the loss of
strength is not totally explained by the
fact that changes occur at the level of
muscle fibers
there must be other changes going on as
well and therefore we have some
investigators who are looking at changes
at the hormonal level
and the neurological level as well for
instance we have one particular group
from ucla we're looking at the level of
neurological activation required to
energize the muscles in our legs
because of all the electrodes that we
wear on our body
and because of all the blood samples and
muscle biopsies that are taken from us
and because of the fact that we spend a
lot of time inside the tvd every day we
light-heartedly refer to ourselves as
the rat crew as in laboratory rats
however we and the scientists on the
ground fully expect the results coming
out of the muscle physiology set of
experiments will go a long way to
helping us understand the adaptation of
muscles to weightlessness
and in the future we're going to be able
to provide counter measures for
astronauts flying on the international
space station and on exploratory
missions to the inner solar system
and we also expect that some of the
results coming out from the muscle
physiology work will have application to
uh rehabilitation programs on earth for
spinal cord injured patients and also
patients who suffer from muscle
unloading uh illnesses
well that's about it for the muscle
physiology experiments um i hope you now
have an understanding of what we're
doing when you see us in downlink images
in the torque velocity dynamometer
so long from the space shuttle columbia
talk to you tomorrow
this television uh
being seen from the space lab science
module showing payload specialist jean
jacques favier who is working along with
pilot kevin kriegel and payload
commander susan helms
on a in-flight maintenance procedure
which should take about an hour and a
half to complete that we'll bring back
to full operation one of the key
experiments in the space lab that is the
bubble drop facility
a power cable has experienced a short
circuit on board and as was mentioned
during the mission update program it is
being restored to full health through
this in-flight maintenance procedure
you