ready to inject the air core how is the
spacing and pinching look on the drop
injectors
you're good to go fred
okay copy that
okay and i guess we're ready for uh
retraction and speaker zone
that's affirmative
and fred you might try to control that
rotation
a great day for nasa and the shuttle
crew we are fortunate to bring you a
very special interview tonight this
morning we take you now to the space
shuttle columbia where astronaut michael
lopez alegria joins us and good morning
to you and welcome to nbc nightside
can you hear me morning tanya how are
you i'm doing fine how about yourself uh
this is day six up in space how are you
and the other crew members doing
physically
we're doing great physically and we're
having a ball all right having a ball
like to hear that now i want to make
sure i get your title right you are a
mission specialist and flight engineer
in charge of orbiter operations
obviously sounds like a pretty important
job keeping folks rolling around the
earth there what are your
responsibilities on board the space
shuttle columbia
well let me explain a little bit about
the way we're divided up on the crew we
have seven people
uh also a lucky number and uh we're
divided into two shifts a red shift and
a blue shift on each of those shifts we
have an orbiter
an orbiter crew and a payload crew and
on my shift which is a blue shift i am
the orbiter crewman and we have two
payload crewmen i'm uh floating back
here in the space lab module which is
where the payload crewmen conduct most
of the science on the flight
while they're doing that somebody has to
sort of mine the store up front and
that's my job and the other two orbiter
crewmen on the redshift commander ken
bowersox and pilot ken rominger so
basically while they're back here doing
all the hard work we're up there sort of
navigating uh taking care of the orbiter
systems and doing a whole lot of looking
out the windows
when do you sleep
uh in another part of the orbiter just
under the cockpit we have what we call
the mid deck and there are four sleep
bunks in there
so only four a maximum of four people
have to sleep at a time and that's where
we sleep they sort of look like uh
actually a little bit like coffins they
have a sliding door
which keeps out the noise and the and
the light pretty well so it's not too
bad
i have to ask you too what do you see
when you're looking out the windows
well it's the most incredible view
i can imagine i've
i don't know how many of you seen these
imax movies on the really big screens
and those do a pretty good job
but when you get up here it's at least
10 000 times better it's really
breathtaking it's fantastic
tell us a little bit about the
experiments that we know will be
useful in space station missions and
also for medicinal purposes can you tell
us a little bit about those the oil and
water experiments and food experiments
i can tell you a little bit about that
uh let me just give a couple of examples
we have one experiment called zeolite
crystal growth which uh
is a an experiment to be able to try to
grow better zeolite crystals zeolites
are used a lot on earth for uh such
things as chemical sieves and especially
used in the petroleum industry to do uh
refining of petroleum so if we can
develop a better more perfect crystal
and understand how those properties uh
work we can actually gain a lot of
benefits in that regard
secondly another kind of crystal that
we're growing in space is a protein
crystal
when the pharmaceutical companies
manufacture drugs to combat infections
or ailments
they need to know as well as they can to
put the structure of these protein
crystals so they can design the um
the drugs to fit into these sort of
nooks and crannies and in space in the
absence of gravity we can grow these
crystals in a much more perfect sense
that we can on earth so hopefully we'll
be able to use these to uh put put them
to good use with the medical community
i understand that you're divided into
teams a red team and a blue team explain
to us
what exactly the significance of that is
well there's no significance to the
colors of course it's just a way of
calling ourselves one thing or the other
but we just divide into two teams to be
able to work around the clock basically
so while the blue team is awake the red
team is asleep and vice versa we do have
about a four hour period at the end of
uh and beginning of each day
where we're both awake but the
predominant the
majority of the work that we do in a
laboratory goes on during those eight
hour periods
can you explain for those of us who have
never experienced it what weightlessness
feels like
well that's a tough question i i could
actually show you hang on
oh gosh
a lot of i'll tell you that
the closest experience i can equate it
to is it's sort of like some um scuba
diving only the air is very on viscous
very fluid and you can uh it's
effortless to move around you just put
the slightest force on something and you
find yourself floating across the uh the
laboratory very gracefully it it's
really it's a it's a great experience
and it's hard to describe the feeling
but it's wonderful well i know you're a
rookie is this everything you had hoped
it would be
i'd say tanya i thought that it would be
a hard thing to be able to reach my
expectations because they were pretty
high but this has far exceeded what i
expected it's been a blast and i'm
looking forward to the next few days and
looking forward to doing this many times
again
okay on a personal note i have a little
background information here on you i
understand you're 37 years old you're
the first spanish-born astronaut in
orbit you graduated from mission ville
high school in california so two
questions in regards to this when you
were back in high school in california
did you dream that you would someday be
doing this and for all the youngsters
out there who aspire to become
astronauts how did you do it
it's interesting uh i have a lot of
people that i work with a lot of fellow
astronauts who actually did dream on
about doing this since they were you
know small children uh even before high
school
i had a little different circumstance i
want to be an architect when i was in
high school and sometime between then
and the age of 25 which is when i really
set my sights on this is when i got
converted
the way i would do it to all those who
aspire to be like my friends who already
knew what they want to do when they were
very young kids
i would say only do it if it's something
that you really want to do something
you're very good at
it has to be something that you like so
make sure that it's something that you
like
and then
just work your hardest in school do the
best you can and but always try to keep
a perspective on on the fun part of life
and something enjoyable as well
well i think that's a great way to wrap
up this interview and we thank you so
much michael lopez alegria astronaut
aboard the space shuttle columbia
joining us from space here on nbc
nightside
this is mission control houston we're
now
looking at live television the module
and the palin bay cameras
looking at television from a television
camera that's mounted in the front
forward portion of columbia's cargo bay
looking back towards the laboratory
modules
below columbia the uh
coast of the mediterranean sea as the
spacecraft is
170 miles above northern africa
bad story
next time your panel r2 got a switch
throw for you
all right stand by
tell you what story i can i can get it
okay
on r2
r2 cert pump
the gpc on
circ pump number two
up to our north we can see italy
sardinian lee sardinia and sicily
really a great site today
yeah we're starting to pick it up in the
camera too
yeah it's a little hazy and oblique i'm
not sure the cameras are gonna give it
justice
that 39 degrees is really great and it
sucks
39 degrees is a great inclination
one of the things that's been really
nice is we've been going to bed at the
same time the last few nights helps you
get on a regular schedule
fox can you expound on how good 39
degrees really is
this view again uh
showing the nile into the red sea is
columbia continues south
current altitude 170 miles
welcome aboard the space shuttle
columbia
we've been on orbit since last friday
conducting science experiments as part
of the united states microgravity
laboratory
but tonight our thoughts are with the
national pastime to the blaze and to the
indians good luck in game five of the
world series
now let's play ball
with the water from dehumidifiers
inside the laboratory cabin
the dumps now beginning a report
again no water be dumped from the lab
expected to take about 15 minutes or so
the port or left-hand pedal bay door of
columbia was fully opened for this dump
to allow a better clearance and ensure
that no ice or water collected on the
edge of the door
in its partially closed position that it
occupies for the majority of the flight
that door opening procedure went very
well once the dumps completed the door
will be closed again
to its uh
partially closed position the position
it occupies to help protect against a
space debris impacts on the interior
radiators in a freon cooling loops along
the inside of that left hand door
columbia's orientation during much of
this flight to gravity gradient
orientation one that has a natural
stability to it and it minimizes jet
firings
and so while we bring video to the
ground from the geophysical fluid flow
cell experiment science video for that
team of researchers that are looking at
very complex fluid flows
modeling very complex fluid flows as we
can see
at the same time we have an opportunity
to take a look inside the space lab
module
with uh
tv coming
from both sources by means of the high
pack digital tv system
i'm trying to locate
cue card number three you said
affirmative al let me try to get a
reading on where it might be
the only one we have is cc
one
or gffc
and it has been
over the course of the mission now it
has been running a rather large
variety of
scenarios or
sets of conditions to model particular
phenomena involving fluids
and
and this video coming down now from
colombia is providing
some of the indications of what's going
on in the
scenario that
is currently underway
the
gffc falls in the area of fluids
physics research
but it's also one which
provides insights into specialized
problems of
having to do with
our environment
and having to do with
conditions on other uh
bodies in heavenly bodies in the
universe such as the sun
and
other stars and
as well as planets such as jupiter
now uh at the moment we're taking a look
at one of the other
areas of science activity
and
we're getting some video with the
shuttle's camcorder
video
shuttle's camcorder being the source of
this video to take a look at
one of the
areas of protein crystal growth research
hello
287 degrees and that left me at five
turns 133 degrees
copy that kathy
and kathy we've got our video back and
wonder if you can video select over to
ir so you can take a look there
you