i think i'm gonna be sad i think
she's got a ticket
that's living with me
she would never be free
she's
atlantis mayor houston we're sure john
has his ticket for the ride home good
morning
good morning houston i'm sure john's
looking forward to it
space have atlantis fo 11 alpha
is complete step 10 is complete
we copy jeff and while you're there if
you could give us
some close-up macro
video of gravit 3 and gravit 4 the pi
would like to see
what the results look like there
there i would like
to ask a question of michael baker
on the space
station meal and what's your main task
what what you have to do
the main purpose of our fight was to
pick up john blaha
and
deliver
jerry lenninger to space station mir and
of course in the process of transfer
their experiments would take john
some of john's experiments home and all
of his results
we're dropping off some experiments for
jerry
and also some supplies for the mere
space station including water clothing
food
and
some other hardware
this is mark caro from the houston
chronicle for john blaha
before you went on this mission you
spoke of a personal and professional
desire to make a long
space flight and i just wonder if your
experience has met your expectation and
what you found most satisfying about it
uh you're right it was a good question
in 1991 when i attended a congress of
cosmonauts and americans in berlin
i saw some video and heard through
translators because i spoke to russian
then about the mere space station and
set a goal to play on it
and
now i've had the opportunity
um yes it it has met my expectations i
learned many new things there are a lot
of things very different about
a space station and working on it than
there are on a space shuttle flight and
uh i'm kind of a dumb person i'm not an
engineer i'm not a doctor
so i'm not a real smart person but the
way i can contribute to the space
program is as an operator and i know if
i wanted to continue to work in the
space program i needed to experience
this myself so that i could contribute
and yes it has met those expectations
for john grunsfeld so we can give
somebody else a chance with the mic
from amateur astronomer to professional
astronomer have you had a chance to look
at the comet yet uh take a photo of it
any impressions of it from space
we've gone to the flight deck a couple
of times and tried as you know we've
been really busy this flight and haven't
had a lot of opportunities and a couple
of times we've tried the problem we ran
into is that the sunrise comes so fast
that we our eyes have adjusted uh to
darkness just in time to see the sun
rise and so we haven't been able to see
that yet
for mike bake
we did watch comets last year we
had two of those last year
one of them
went behind the sun and is coming up now
and we're hoping to
watch it several times
it's an outstanding comment
and he was always receiving this
information and finding them and showing
them
so he's done very well with spotting
those kind of things in space during our
long fight
this is phil chan again for jeff
what can you discuss the problems you
had setting up the tvs experiment before
your docking day and uh what kind of
confidence do you have that you're going
to be able to set it up on on the post
on docking day uh faster smoother better
faster better cheaper than you did
previously and get the science back
the problems that we had when we
originally set it up were some knit
problems getting power to it and uh some
problems getting the data recorded we
think we've resolved all those and
obviously having been through it once
now it's very fresh in our memory how to
put it all together and how to stow
things on board so we think we can be
quite efficient the second time around
and with those problems now behind us we
expect it to go pretty smoothly and to
get a full data take for the folks on
the ground and i think it'll be very
worthwhile
and i guess brent you're the only one we
haven't heard from yet uh any uh hope to
get uh an extra day in space uh so you
can get additional tvs data
well phil i think uh
all crews will tell you that uh if
they'll take an extra day in space if
they can get it
you know being up here is a real special
experience and and the chance to have an
extra day is one one you'll always jump
at
um but we're happy to do whatever we can
you know to keep the program on track
and and to give us get as much data as
we can for tiva so if it means uh
running to you just one or two days
we're happy to do whatever it takes and
uh you know eventually we'll get home
and we'll have a successful mission and
we'll be glad to be back when we're back
like the ones before
uh it will be part of history
we are very proud that we have the order
of participating in this flight
thank you very much
for your hospitality
as i have said many times i'm very glad
that i have had the opportunity to
participate in the joint
program with the russians
on the shuttle
and this
program is not only important for space
exploration but also for the
relationship
between the countries i started working
on my russian
two years ago and i came to train
for a flight
we my wife and i
met and befriended many russians and it
was wonderful
and
our relationship with the russians
uh continues and will expand
it has been wonderful thank you valeria
thank you sasha
i think that uh the mirror station is an
excellent station and i admire
the workers that
build
these stations that built this one it's
wonderful
i've worked with sts-81 crew
unfortunately we are saying goodbye to
the excellent atlantis crew sts-81 crew
that performed a wonderful docking
and we have completed all of the program
that was planned and we're seeing them
off now and we
wish them a safe landing
and
a successful completion of their tasks
we are also saying goodbye to our
colleague the american astronaut john
blaha who spent four months with us
aboard
we have worked a lot we have had
problems
but despite anything and everything we
have
remained friends and we have completed
our tasks
uh we will be we will miss john but we
have a new crew member general inger
no less responsible and important tasks
and i hope we will be as successful as
we were as
john thank you very much
uh have a safe landing all the best
i would like to simply say that i'm very
glad to be here on mir and i'm saying
goodbye to my crew
sts-81
thank you very much
until we meet again
on the ground and in orbit
thank you
uh
commander mike baker shaking hands with
his uh commander counterpart valeri
corzone aboard mirror
go ahead
thank you ma'am i look forward to
reading it
it's in the mail copy
commander mike baker now closing the
hatch on the atlantis side of the
interface the orbiter docking system
hatch
that coming at 6 46 this morning central
time as the atlantis mir complex
approaches
the equator on a southeasterly swing
traveling down the middle of the
atlantic ocean