houston columbia for rendezvous
go ahead for a round of it
bill we've been talking over the
situation
here with uh possible contingency
rendezvous today
and um also been noting how well the
science is going with wake shield
and we'd like to offer that um
during the previous five days of this
fight we've been getting excellent rest
and
and uh all of us been feeling real good
towards the end of the day
if it comes down to it and we do need to
rendezvous with wake shield today the
crew is ready and willing to stay up
almost as late as you'd like
to make that happen as late as possible
so that
wakes you can get more of its mission
completed
that's that's super taco and we'll uh
we'll throw that into the equation um
right now we're we're developing uh some
criteria uh that will apply that we will
apply at around the time of the nc 11
burn
and basically if it just gives us
confidence
that
that by tomorrow
that you'll have uh you know good
distance between wake shield and spas
that's going to be
be our desire to
do exactly what uh what you said and
let's try to get all the wake shield
data
yeah we certainly hope we can do the
rendezvous on schedule tomorrow um just
wanted to let you know we if it has to
be today we can do it as late today as
as possible to make it better
and uh pass our regards on to mr britt's
hope he's
having a good time doing this analysis
okay we'll do that
columbia houston with some words on the
big picture
ready to copy mark
yes taco as you know fido has been
taking in some c-band radar tracking
data on spas for the last few revs
and the
the news is encouraging the separation
appears to be growing uh
for the range at ti at the nominal ti
it's now 12.1 if we assume a worst case
k con of 1.1 so right now it looks as
though we're going to be doing a nominal
retrieve for wake shield
the only question in our mind is whether
or not
we'll continue to keep spas in mind drag
attitude for a little while longer that
is under discussion at this point
with respect to wake shield retrieve we
will be retrieving it two orbits early
and we will be going with the eight mile
ti nominal ti distance
okay uh we copy all the words on the big
picture sure hope it works out that way
and that we can keep
both satellites pumping out their
science
with the two revs early
will be a change to our wake up time
in columbia for taco
that's affirmative the plan is for you
to go to bed an hour earlier and to get
up an hour earlier tomorrow
okay we understand
we'll start with you dr musgrave how
serious are those particle dings in the
windshield
jim they are very very small
hits
i uh
would estimate uh
oh no more than uh depth of 1 32nd of an
inch and that's just of course in the
outer pane
with maybe
i understand you almost had a super ding
with that 4 600 pound super conductor
growing satellite what happened was that
a case of a thruster malfunctioning or
what
no what really happened was when we
released the wake shield we waited uh
at least a minute to verify that its
attitude control system was functioning
normally and that took a little bit
longer than expected to verify that the
wake shield was controlling its attitude
properly and while we were waiting uh it
was drifting ever so slightly towards us
probably due to
a small
impulse
and part of when we moved the robot arm
away from the satellite and so that
small closure rate if we allowed it to
drift for minutes would have carried it
closer to the columbia than we were
comfortable with
but in the event we started the wake
shield zone thruster and that carried a
clear of our cockpit and of course at
any time we could have moved columbia
out of the way had we thought there was
a real collision hazard but we didn't
want to disturb
the
contamination free
wake side of the satellite which was
going to conduct our science over the
next few days so we tried to hold off
any thruster firings and that's what we
were able to do was let it drift off
without any movement by the columbia at
all
if my congressman had his way we would
have no more manned space flight what
are some of the latest and greatest
benefits that i can educate him about to
try to change his mindset
well i like to talk about the wake
shield facility that's trailing us now
by about 20 nautical miles it's our uh
prototype chip manufacturing facility
maybe it's the wave of things to come in
space where we'll actually use the
resources in space like the pure vacuum
generated by the wick shield to
manufacture either high quality
electronic components like this example
or some other
manufactured product like biomedical
supplies medicines or pharmaceuticals
that would actually directly be sold on
earth and we'd actually produce them in
space make money up there make a profit
and that of course that would expand our
activity in space so this is the way to
go in space exploration is to find a way
to use the spaces space's own resources
to benefit us back on earth and that's
the first step that we're taking here
with the wakefield experiment but uh
does ham radio still play a part in
emissions and if so is it um
a vital part or is it just a kind of a
recreation thing for ham radio hobbyist
i had the ham radio 1
51 f which was close to 11 or 12 years
ago
i think it plays on two roles it
communicates what space is all about it
lets people
vicariously live with his face it lets
people come on board with us
it's also a very valid way of
communications
uh there are times when i've been a
capsule communicator in mission control
and we had long losses from the
satellite we communicate with and we
have actually gone up to the shuttle
through a ham radio operator i think
it's an integral part of the electronic
net that we are building you can see the
computers and you can see uh the
camcorders which are bringing you
information maybe in the background you
can see all the wires i think ham radio
is part of the integral information that
which we are bringing into the shuttle
which uh and it's a way of bringing a 25
year old technology into this century
senator and former astronaut john glenn
has volunteered to do geriatric
experiments in space although you're at
61 not quite up to mr glenn's age would
you be ever interested in that dr
musgrave
well of course they're doing one on me
right now
what i wanted to ask do you do any type
of
simulations or experiments on the ground
or what possibly could go wrong or do
you just keep your focus on your
objectives for the flight
a good question we spent
about nine months training for this
flight all five of us on the crew and we
trained intensively over the last few
months especially to handle any kind of
emergency especially during the critical
phases of launch
and entry and we often joke once we
arrive in space when things are going so
well as they are on sts-80 here that a
lot of our emergency procedures training
seems to have been wasted because we
arrive in space here and never have to
use all that training that we've uh
spent so many weeks uh acquiring but
really uh that's a necessary uh part of
training for space flight you've got to
be ready just in case something does go
wrong and we view it as an investment in
our own safety and our own success on
this mission i was calling for uh ken
cockrell my brother oh my goodness this
is ken cockrell's brother yeah this is
phil
i believe they selected
uh dr jones and dr musgrave to be a part
of this but i suspect they could relay a
message okay oh my what do we have here
i see on the screen here another person
has entered the picture
hi phillip i'm not part of this event
but uh go ahead with your questions i
just heard about it on the radio the
other day and i thought well i'd give it
a shot and i didn't have a question i
just wanted to relay what uh miriam
thought of the launch
after you had
after about two minutes it passed we
asked her what she thought and in her
four-year-old
mind she just said do it again uncle ken
gosh i hope she's right
i do too i did have one question for you
though okay go ahead i wanted to know if
uh just before launch if you roll down
the window and shout clear
thanks phillip and no
okay that's what i thought
we've
set up a cockpit here we're doing now
supporting our
lake shield ops
got the checklist here
see down here to right on
up here
now this is our
payload 1 up here of course the command
pgs
most of the time we run the event log on
here so we can follow the sequences
command click reference cards up here
the ops concept for signs over here got
a couple blocks in here
the computer down here is uh
the monitor pgsc
back in here i've got all the updates
that came up on the
tips and i got my payload system
back here
that's the way uh columbia's been
setting up to support wakefield ops
and mr elowitz asks how will the orpheus
spies uv observatory complement other
ultraviolet observatories
like fuse and euve
these are other satellites that uh
look at stars and
other
sources of radiation in the universe
that only radiate mainly in the
ultraviolet
and
we can we can't see this radiation down
on earth's surface at most observatories
that we have already built there because
of the earth's atmosphere and the ozone
layer absorbing that ultraviolet light
so we have to build satellites
like the two that mr elliott's mentioned
and orpheus and for example the hubble
space telescope to go above the
atmosphere to look at ultraviolet light
and the advantage that orpheus spas has
in looking at ultraviolet light is that
it has
a wavelength range or a sensitivity to
the radiation coming from these
interesting objects like black holes and
white dwarf stars that's farther into
the infrared uh i'm sorry into the
ultraviolet region
than
observatories like the hubble have for
example so we can see more energetic
radiation from higher temperature
objects that way and also the
instruments on ortho spas have a finer
resolution in other words the
fingerprint of the object they're
looking at an ultraviolet light the
spectrum is much more well defined in
these sensitive instruments on orpheus
we can see more details in that spectrum
or fingerprint and thus understand the
physics and the composition of the
object that we're looking at thanks for
your question
dave also had another question and that
was what role will the space station's
robot r play in the assembly of the
international space station and at what
stage will they be operational
well dave um the rms is going to play a
critical role in assembling the space
station in fact we um hope to fly the
first space station flight the end of
next year in which we will attach the
fgb to the node
on flight assembly flight 2a thank you
for your question and hello to all of
the school children