mr golden uh columbia is ready go ahead
sir i have a question
what are you doing with this atomic
oxygen experiment i noticed that you're
going to be doing an atomic oxygen
experiment before you reel in the wake
shield
satellite and do a free flyer activation
hanging out
on the end of the arm at a certain angle
which will let the ram uh atomic oxygen
impinge upon the substrates
and that is a way of uh
it's a way of almost like a micro lathe
to clean off the top of the substrate
i see i see
however how much more work do you have i
i guess you folks want to stay up an
extra day to make up for the day that
you lost
you're reading your mind sir um
we've got quite a bit more work to do
two more evas two ebas as you know on
flight days 10 and 12 and then we have
to retrieve orpheus spas on
flight day 14 as it's currently planned
and plenty of other science that's in
the mid deck
on columbia that we'll be working uh in
the hours in between those activities
you know i just noticed uh uh looking at
the schedule while we'll all be eating
turkey and relaxing on thanksgiving
tammy and tom will be doing the space
walks
at least you'll get a chance to work off
your holiday meal what do you plan to
eat for thanksgiving
mr gold mrs tom jones the
ms2 aboard and we'll be hitting the deck
running that morning when we wake up on
eva day on thanksgiving and so we'll
jump right into our eva uh
uh underwear if you will and get right
into the space you check out we'll have
a breakfast a quick one before we get
into the suits
and it's about a six and a half hour eva
and when we get back inside believe me
uh we'll be hungry for that thanksgiving
turkey we've got some
uh
off-the-shelf
kind of supermarket
room temperature stabilized turkey
dinners
uh that we'll be uh digging into right
after i get out get that helmet off when
they come back in from the eva so i'll
be hungry and we'll all be uh i think
anxious to have a meal together after
that hard day's work
you didn't make it sound too appetizing
one has to make do with the resources at
hand sir
hey story i tell you uh we're all very
proud of you
i think that what you're showing is
it is not
a chronological age that counts
it's what's in your heart your mind and
your body
and you're doing a terrific job up there
you're setting the record for the oldest
astronaut in space
and i i think this is just wonderful i i
i congratulate you and uh i stand in awe
of what you've done
thank you very much sir it's been a
incredible privilege and experience to
have been able to follow my calling for
30 years
i think that's the important thing uh
it's not just in a mold although in my
60s
i do feel really privileged to get to do
these kind of things i think the
important thing though is that i have
had the opportunity to follow my calling
over about 30 years
you know one other thing that we noticed
that uh both you and tammy
are joining the thousand hour club in
space
and uh this is another notable
achievement
and again i stand in awe and i i gotta
say i'm a little bit jealous i'd like to
get just two hours in space but it
doesn't look like it's going to happen
for me
hi mr gold and i i think that your
feelings are shared by a lot of people
on the ground we wish
this opportunity was widely available to
everyone i hope that's coming in the
next
few years with uh commercialization of
space maybe even some tourism but i'll
tell you the two hours that you should
pick to have in space and not the first
two hours you should choose ones on
about flight day five and everyone's
feeling terrific and
adapted to the environment
you all look terrific
keep it safe
we're very very very proud of you i
think this is just a wonderful mission
you look very relaxed
and i'll be watching you on nasa tv over
the holidays and when you eat the turkey
uh i'll recognize what you're doing
you're wonderful you're the america's
best congratulations we're proud of you
thanks for the kind words mr goldman and
it's a pleasure talking to you today
the next step in columbia's mission is a
spacewalk scheduled for thanksgiving day
mission specialists thomas jones and
tamara jernigan will spend six hours
walking in space thursday with the start
of construction on an international
space station just one year away nasa is
anxious to learn as much as possible
about zero gravity working conditions
joining us this morning from shuttle
columbia are three nasa crew members
they are pilot kent rominger commander
ken cockrell and mission specialist
story musgrave gentlemen good morning
from nbc nightside
good morning from columbia
cockrell all the delicate maneuvering
during satellite deployment and
retrieval takes time as we have seen in
the past now you had to pull the
wakefield
facility satellite early to avoid a
possible collision was that a close call
well there's nothing close really about
it the two satellites were about 14
miles apart when we flew between them to
retrieve
uh it's just a question of uh
making sure that we have proper
clearance in case we
uh
for
inaccuracies and in our sensors or
anything other going wrong we should
deviate from the straight and narrow as
it turns out we were very accurate and
and what we thought the satellites were
and we flew about seven miles away from
each one of them
story musgrave could you tell us a
little bit more about the uh the wake
shield what it does and how we will
benefit from it
the purpose of lake hill time is to grow
some
as perfect as possible semiconductors
electrodynamic materials
classically as you know silicon has has
been the
material of choice
we're using more advanced materials such
as arsenic gallium
aluminum
and what we're doing is molecule by
molecule we're making perfect layers in
a vacuum which is about 10 to the minus
14
versus 10 to the minus 6 which you can
make down here on earth so there's no
contaminating molecules in those layers
we go up there with a substrate that has
a certain form
we inject layers of molecules on top of
that form they replicate that form in
layers
and that's what we're up to is exploring
the possibility of making perfect
semiconductors up there
not only uh studying commercial
viability but also if you do make
perfect uh
materials
um how much better are they than the
ones that are made down here so it's a
very state-of-the-art uh exploration
uh pilot kent rominger the orpheus
telescope which has also been deployed
from the shuttle how does it function
and what can it see that the the hubble
telescope for instance cannot see
on the orifice it's primarily looking at
uv and it's really there to study not
only stars which is hubble's primary
focus but also the medium the
interstellar medium the medium out there
in between the stars and being a pilot i
didn't realize there was really much in
that great vacuum but the
astrophysicists on board have educated
me that in fact
there is material in that medium in
between the stars and the interstellar
medium
and from that we can learn a lot about
the history of where the world came from
uh curiosity question for anyone who
wants to answer it in zero gravity there
is is no up or down your heads up to the
camera relative to the camera but the
shuttle might be upside down relative to
earth how do you how do you deal with
that how do you adjust to that
tom i think you go into space uh
the best way to adapt is going to space
with a totally open mind to go into
space realizing you've been created and
evolved with this gravitational field
which has designed you and designed the
senses with which you perceive your
environment
now you're in a totally different kind
of environment and i think an openness
to the possibilities
that at times the floor is down at times
the ceiling is down being able to put
that perceived down direction in any
direction you'd like or do away with it
to expect some kind of illusions where
you're felt the body sense of what is
going on is very different from the
abstract intellectual knowledge of what
is going on if you can live comfortably
with conflicts between those two and
different sensory conflicts coming from
different sensors such as the vestibular
system the joints and muscles the
cardiovascular system then you're going
to be a lot more comfortable a lot
faster
story this is your final nasa mission
i'm just wondering if there are any uh
any pangs of sadness creeping in as you
wrap up a glorious astronaut career
absolutely none and i think you said it
exactly right it has been a glorious
career
the important thing is i've had the
privilege an opportunity to follow what
is a calling uh for 30 years
uh nasa has told me not to expect
assignment to another mission um
medically physically ability perform i
could go on and do more but it may be
the right decision at the right time
they and other people do know that i'm
unable to walk away from this kind of
thing i still love it too much i would
keep on doing it forever until someone
were to tell me it's about that time
and so there are aspects such as that uh
you want to share space flight with as
many people as you can i've had a
privilege of
six flights a lot of time a lot of very
good missions
and i've run a i've run a wonderful race
but there are people waiting for the
baton you also want to be sure that you
leave this kind of job when you're at
your peak and i consider the last
initial hubble repair mission in this
one i'm really about it might be
so there are
there are factors in the entire equation
which which maybe would support this
decision
but no i have no regrets at all i look
as you said at the glory of a fantastic
career the important thing is that
whatever hand i got dealt i made the
most of the opportunity
you