and we can see here in the foreground
one of the plant growth chambers
and floating above it from our
perspective is payload commander susan
helms documenting the
plants
via still photos
this particular container
holds four of 20
seedlings some of fur and some of the
loblolly pine
two of each four in each of these
containers
are bent
the other two are the controls in the
experiment are left unbent
samples of both the bent and the unbent
pines
will be cut
on this flight day and another flight
day
after having been bent on flight day
three
those samples will be
preserved
and returned to earth
for further study
we can see now members of columbia's
payload crew now preparing to take a
cutting
from
these seedlings
from this vantage point we can clearly
see that two of these seedlings
are in vent positions
this was performed on flight day three
and the control
samples within this plant growth
container are unbent
in this procedure one payload crew
member makes a rough cut of the seedling
while the other payload crew member
stands ready with the vacuum
to remove any potentially hazardous
debris
from
the weightless environment inside the
space lab module
we can now see payload specialist
jean-jacques favier floating near the
front of the space lab module
in front of the workbench where he is
stowing equipment used to take cuttings
from fur seedlings
as part of the plant growth facility
experiment
we can now see payload specialist
jean-jacques faviere working within the
plant growth facility glove bag
he has isolated a fixation bag
and is now removing
one of the
fur seedling samples harvested a few
moments ago
the purpose of the glove bag is to
provide an additional level of safety
and containing the
chemical fixative used to preserve the
sample
and we can see him now installing the
sample into the fixative bag
he will then reinstall
this clip
to seal the opening of the bag through
which the sample was installed
the chemical fixative is contained
within the lower portion of the bag
between the other two clips
this is michelle coyden with the
associated press have you noticed
increasing fatigue and short-term memory
loss as the mission goes on
and could this be a major problem on
flights this long
uh to answer your question i think uh
the crew has been doing exceptionally
well uh it's a 17-day mission now and i
think we're pacing ourselves for right
on target and i don't think we've had
excessive fatigue or any memory loss we
in fact seem to be working better uh
both individually and together as a unit
this is mark crowe of the houston
chronicle and my question is for either
tom hendricks or
susan could you just give us a sense
your sense of the success of your
endeavor to this to this point do you
feel like you're accomplishing the
mission goals
uh yes mark in a nutshell we had a very
very demanding mission that uh from the
very beginning was going to be
challenging just simply because it was
so unique it had so many different
aspects between the microgravity as well
as the life science and we have just
been thrilled to be able to accomplish
all that we were able to accomplish to
tell you the truth coming into this
mission i don't think i was sure it
could be done and these guys have been
outstanding
in the sense that they've been able to
get right to it and do things had a few
glitches but they got fixed thanks to
the great support we had from the ground
and you can't ask for more than that
it's been great
that concludes our question sir from jsc
columbia please stand by for kscpao
columbia this is kennedy pao how do you
hear me
columbia regional lock and clear and
we're ready for the questions
this is irene brown with upi for um tom
hanricks i don't know what you know of
the saudi bombing that happened last
week and i was wondering if you there's
a memorial service this afternoon for
five of the crew members who are from a
unit that also supports
nasa's shuttle launches i was wondering
if you knew any of these people from
previous shuttle missions or training
and if you had any thoughts on the
incidents from your perspective in space
well we have seen saudi arabia uh
several times during the mission
and we regret that there were any loss
of life and especially
loss of military members that some of us
may have known
we were notified by message but we have
not seen a list of the casualties
our sympathies go out to those that the
lost loved ones and our prayers go out
to those that are still in the recovery
and from space so we do not see
the conflicts that humans are
going under
on the earth we just see a beautiful
earth and we wish that we could share
that perspective and help bring peace
through the perspective from space
this is stephen young with reuters for
susan helms i was wondering how you're
feeling um this far into the mission
which is longer than than many shuttle
flights uh
previously and you seem to be quite uh
keen to go longer than 17 days how much
longer do you think
you could continue on board
well you're right this is going to be my
longest mission i've had two before and
one of them was six days and the other
one was 11 to 12 days and uh looks like
we're at the 11 day point today and i
i'm feeling great i'm feeling better
than i ever thought
absolutely no problems
with with any of my physiological uh
being because i've been getting exercise
and eating well and sleeping well and
done that in the past but there's no
change for this mission so things are
going extremely well
as far as how long we could go on this
flight unfortunately we don't have the
consumables to get beyond a certain
point and that's probably about flight
day 19 or 20 and if that's what they
want to give to us we would take it but
i suspect we're probably going to land
on sunday and the next time around maybe
my next flight will be even longer than
this one and that would be great
robin soriano with florida today for
susan kevin or tom you've had the chance
on this flight to use video
teleconferencing to fix things and to
talk with families i wonder how that
has made a difference as compared to
previous missions
well the
kca or the video teleconferencing that
we've been using has really been
outstanding
we showed it when we
fixed the bubble dropped experiment it
was a lot easier to talk to people with
a two-way communication they could show
us diagrams they could point exactly
the item that we needed to fix as
opposed to sending up a message and then
trying to interpret the message it also
has been a morale booster because we've
been able to uh talk to our families
with
the new video teleconference so i think
it's a great state a step in the future
and i think
they'll probably have it on the
international space station
bill harwood for cbs news uh for anyone
really uh commander henrich you talk to
the group in houston that's in the
chamber the life support chamber that
they're testing regenerative life
support systems the other day and i'm
curious from your perspective on a 17
day mission and thinking about shannon
lucid on mir
how does it shake out in terms of the
psychological pressures on living with a
large group of people in a small area
versus the medical sorts of things you
guys are studying what's what's kind of
the balance there for long-term space
flight
well we can only speak from this
experience and from this experience it's
been absolutely fantastic working as a
team together in fact what you're seeing
here is just a small part of the team
the entire team includes all the people
in houston
at huntsville alabama and at the primary
investigator sites around the world and
we're just a visible part of that team
four of us are the subjects for the
majority of the experiments
and we don't feel that we're in an
enclosed environment uh through the
communications that we have we feel like
we're just a member of the team and
although it may be
it appears to be a small confined
environment to us it seems very roomy we
can wander between the space lab and the
flight deck look out the window come
back and do some work and we don't have
a problem at all with 17 days and with
this sort of communication capabilities
and the roominess that we have with the
laboratory or the future space station i
don't see a problem with the long-term
flights and of course uh shannon lewson
can give us a better perspective from
here
this is the filter on earth news for
rick linehan uh what's it like as a
veterinarian that handling these large
two-legged mammals instead of your
normal uh animals that you would handle
well i suppose you're referring to us or
at least the four members of the payload
crew and uh i i used to joke about that
um we we are the experiment on this
flight and uh
over the uh excess of two weeks of the
flight we'll be studying uh muscle bone
uh calcium metabolism uh different
physiologies this pertains to how a
human might
live long term in space and uh as
commander henricks has talked about uh
this is sort of a prelude to
stay on the space station a lot of the
studies that we're doing here actually
are being done on a long term with this
many many people in a group for the
first time and we'll use all this data
uh to uh
step man and staff the space station
and uh figure out better ways to keep
people in space learning keep them
healthier stop the muscle and bone
degeneration and as a spin-off of that
we're also able to use this data
hopefully uh to look at the disease
processes which occur in our elderly
population on the ground and hopefully
uh
down the line use this as a way to
control that also
tell me for any young people who are
aspiring to be just like you who are
home here in north carolina any advice
you want to give to an aspiring new
astronaut sir
well i think uh you know it's been fun
we had a chance to talk with many school
kids all the crew members here
participating with sarix amateur radio
and so we talked to the schools around
around the world and listening to my
crewmates and myself i think we uh we
all agree that uh
to work hard to dream those dreams and
to not give up on dreams
and to take good care of oneself and
to keep
working as you as a team
trusting in people and helping each
other out those are the keys not only to
becoming an astronaut but to life also
you