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ready to inject the air core how is the

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spacing and pinching look on the drop

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you're good to go fred

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okay copy that

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okay and i guess we're ready for uh

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retraction and speaker zone

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and fred you might try to control that

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a great day for nasa and the shuttle

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crew we are fortunate to bring you a

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very special interview tonight this

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morning we take you now to the space

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shuttle columbia where astronaut michael

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lopez alegria joins us and good morning

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to you and welcome to nbc nightside

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can you hear me morning tanya how are

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you i'm doing fine how about yourself uh

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this is day six up in space how are you

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and the other crew members doing

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we're doing great physically and we're

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having a ball all right having a ball

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like to hear that now i want to make

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sure i get your title right you are a

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mission specialist and flight engineer

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in charge of orbiter operations

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obviously sounds like a pretty important

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job keeping folks rolling around the

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earth there what are your

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responsibilities on board the space

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shuttle columbia

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well let me explain a little bit about

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the way we're divided up on the crew we

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have seven people

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uh also a lucky number and uh we're

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divided into two shifts a red shift and

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a blue shift on each of those shifts we

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have an orbiter

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an orbiter crew and a payload crew and

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on my shift which is a blue shift i am

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the orbiter crewman and we have two

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payload crewmen i'm uh floating back

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here in the space lab module which is

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where the payload crewmen conduct most

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of the science on the flight

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while they're doing that somebody has to

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sort of mine the store up front and

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that's my job and the other two orbiter

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crewmen on the redshift commander ken

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bowersox and pilot ken rominger so

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basically while they're back here doing

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all the hard work we're up there sort of

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navigating uh taking care of the orbiter

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systems and doing a whole lot of looking

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out the windows

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uh in another part of the orbiter just

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under the cockpit we have what we call

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the mid deck and there are four sleep

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bunks in there

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so only four a maximum of four people

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have to sleep at a time and that's where

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we sleep they sort of look like uh

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actually a little bit like coffins they

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have a sliding door

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which keeps out the noise and the and

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the light pretty well so it's not too

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bad

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i have to ask you too what do you see

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well it's the most incredible view

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i can imagine i've

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i don't know how many of you seen these

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imax movies on the really big screens

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and those do a pretty good job

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but when you get up here it's at least

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10 000 times better it's really

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breathtaking it's fantastic

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tell us a little bit about the

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experiments that we know will be

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useful in space station missions and

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also for medicinal purposes can you tell

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us a little bit about those the oil and

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i can tell you a little bit about that

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uh let me just give a couple of examples

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we have one experiment called zeolite

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crystal growth which uh

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is a an experiment to be able to try to

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grow better zeolite crystals zeolites

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are used a lot on earth for uh such

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things as chemical sieves and especially

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used in the petroleum industry to do uh

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refining of petroleum so if we can

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develop a better more perfect crystal

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and understand how those properties uh

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work we can actually gain a lot of

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benefits in that regard

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secondly another kind of crystal that

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we're growing in space is a protein

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crystal

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when the pharmaceutical companies

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manufacture drugs to combat infections

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or ailments

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they need to know as well as they can to

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put the structure of these protein

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crystals so they can design the um

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the drugs to fit into these sort of

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nooks and crannies and in space in the

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absence of gravity we can grow these

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crystals in a much more perfect sense

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that we can on earth so hopefully we'll

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be able to use these to uh put put them

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to good use with the medical community

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i understand that you're divided into

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teams a red team and a blue team explain

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to us

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well there's no significance to the

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colors of course it's just a way of

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calling ourselves one thing or the other

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but we just divide into two teams to be

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able to work around the clock basically

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so while the blue team is awake the red

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team is asleep and vice versa we do have

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about a four hour period at the end of

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uh and beginning of each day

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where we're both awake but the

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predominant the

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majority of the work that we do in a

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laboratory goes on during those eight

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hour periods

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can you explain for those of us who have

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never experienced it what weightlessness

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well that's a tough question i i could

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oh gosh

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a lot of i'll tell you that

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the closest experience i can equate it

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to is it's sort of like some um scuba

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diving only the air is very on viscous

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very fluid and you can uh it's

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effortless to move around you just put

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the slightest force on something and you

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find yourself floating across the uh the

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laboratory very gracefully it it's

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really it's a it's a great experience

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and it's hard to describe the feeling

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but it's wonderful well i know you're a

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rookie is this everything you had hoped

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it would be

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a hard thing to be able to reach my

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expectations because they were pretty

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high but this has far exceeded what i

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expected it's been a blast and i'm

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looking forward to the next few days and

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looking forward to doing this many times

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again

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okay on a personal note i have a little

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background information here on you i

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understand you're 37 years old you're

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the first spanish-born astronaut in

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orbit you graduated from mission ville

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high school in california so two

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questions in regards to this when you

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were back in high school in california

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did you dream that you would someday be

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doing this and for all the youngsters

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out there who aspire to become

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it's interesting uh i have a lot of

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people that i work with a lot of fellow

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astronauts who actually did dream on

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about doing this since they were you

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know small children uh even before high

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school

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i had a little different circumstance i

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want to be an architect when i was in

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high school and sometime between then

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and the age of 25 which is when i really

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set my sights on this is when i got

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converted

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the way i would do it to all those who

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aspire to be like my friends who already

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knew what they want to do when they were

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very young kids

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i would say only do it if it's something

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that you really want to do something

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you're very good at

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it has to be something that you like so

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make sure that it's something that you

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like

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and then

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just work your hardest in school do the

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best you can and but always try to keep

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a perspective on on the fun part of life

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and something enjoyable as well

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well i think that's a great way to wrap

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up this interview and we thank you so

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much michael lopez alegria astronaut

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aboard the space shuttle columbia

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joining us from space here on nbc

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this is mission control houston we're

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now

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looking at live television the module

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looking at television from a television

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forward portion of columbia's cargo bay

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looking back towards the laboratory

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below columbia the uh

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coast of the mediterranean sea as the

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spacecraft is

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bad story

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next time your panel r2 got a switch

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all right stand by

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tell you what story i can i can get it

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okay

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on r2

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r2 cert pump

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the gpc on

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up to our north we can see italy

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sardinian lee sardinia and sicily

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really a great site today

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yeah we're starting to pick it up in the

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yeah it's a little hazy and oblique i'm

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not sure the cameras are gonna give it

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that 39 degrees is really great and it

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39 degrees is a great inclination

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one of the things that's been really

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nice is we've been going to bed at the

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same time the last few nights helps you

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fox can you expound on how good 39

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this view again uh

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showing the nile into the red sea is

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columbia continues south

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welcome aboard the space shuttle

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columbia

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we've been on orbit since last friday

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conducting science experiments as part

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of the united states microgravity

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laboratory

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but tonight our thoughts are with the

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national pastime to the blaze and to the

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indians good luck in game five of the

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world series

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with the water from dehumidifiers

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the dumps now beginning a report

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again no water be dumped from the lab

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expected to take about 15 minutes or so

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the port or left-hand pedal bay door of

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columbia was fully opened for this dump

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to allow a better clearance and ensure

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that no ice or water collected on the

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edge of the door

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in its partially closed position that it

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occupies for the majority of the flight

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that door opening procedure went very

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well once the dumps completed the door

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will be closed again

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to its uh

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partially closed position the position

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it occupies to help protect against a

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space debris impacts on the interior

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radiators in a freon cooling loops along

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the inside of that left hand door

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columbia's orientation during much of

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this flight to gravity gradient

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orientation one that has a natural

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stability to it and it minimizes jet

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and so while we bring video to the

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ground from the geophysical fluid flow

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cell experiment science video for that

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team of researchers that are looking at

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very complex fluid flows

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can see

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at the same time we have an opportunity

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to take a look inside the space lab

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module

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with uh

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tv coming

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from both sources by means of the high

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pack digital tv system

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cue card number three you said

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affirmative al let me try to get a

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the only one we have is cc

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or gffc

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and it has been

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over the course of the mission now it

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has been running a rather large

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variety of

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scenarios or

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sets of conditions to model particular

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phenomena involving fluids

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and this video coming down now from

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colombia is providing

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some of the indications of what's going

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on in the

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scenario that

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the

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physics research

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but it's also one which

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provides insights into specialized

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problems of

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having to do with

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our environment

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and having to do with

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bodies in heavenly bodies in the

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universe such as the sun

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and

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now uh at the moment we're taking a look

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at one of the other

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areas of science activity

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we're getting some video with the

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shuttle's camcorder

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this video to take a look at

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one of the

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hello

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287 degrees and that left me at five

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copy that kathy

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and kathy we've got our video back and