okay jim do you have a short opening
statement before we begin
yes thanks for the opportunity welcome
on board columbia well we're just over
the middle of the atlantic ocean headed
toward africa at this time
and as everybody knows by now this is
our next last day in space we'll be
coming home early because of the fuel
cell degradation
but i think the message that we want to
leave everybody with from here on board
columbia is that uh in the short time
that we've been here thanks to the hard
work of the payload people on board
columbia plus at huntsville
we've been able to put together a good
science program that we're going to
bring back some meaningful science in
the short period that we will be we have
been here it's true that everybody is
disappointed that we are going to have
to come home early not only the crew but
the investigators and the researchers
who science that we were up here to
accomplish
but still i think we packed a lot into a
short period of time with that is our
kind of our theme i'd like to open up
for questions at this time
uh did the shuttle crew have any sort of
a
a role or a voice in the decision that
was made and if you did
could you describe that please
well mission control has a lot more
insight than we do although we could
tell from our information here that fuel
cell 2 was suffering some degradation
and it's really based upon the greater
level of understanding of information
and expertise to be honest with you that
the mission management team acted upon
uh based on the input from the flight
controllers and the engineers and the uh
the
people actually built a fuel cell but
the decision to come home early was made
okay and from the ground the perspective
of course has been that this has been a
a really a pretty orderly
uh
event it's unfolded with a lot of
deliberation
i just wonder though from your
perspective is there any sense of risk
or danger added because of the fuel cell
problem
well certainly we understand that this
is one of the original electric
fly-by-wire airplanes that is we depend
upon electricity for this airplane to
fly therefore when you lose one-third of
your electrical producing capacity
you have to consider that
so as a result after we had to say fuel
cell 2 we uh we had a little uh powwow
here on the flight deck we made sure we
understood all the emergency procedures
as as modified by the fact that fuel
cell 2 had been shut down so i don't
want to convey the opinion that we
thought we were in imminent danger
certainly not we felt that the situation
was well in hand but on the other hand
we want to be prepared for the next
possible failure we feel like that's
where we're at right now
this is marcia dunham the associated
press for the commander
that same fuel had trouble during the
countdown and the shuttle program
manager now admits it should have been
swapped out before flight how unsettling
is it for you to be in this situation
now considering you could have had a
full flight if that fuel cell had been
replaced before flight
well certainly hindsight is always going
to be 20 20.
but this is a situation where with the
best information that everybody had in
hand at the time the decision was made i
believe it was a correct one at the time
to go ahead and launch
after the problems developed on orbit
the decision was made again i believe
the correct one based on additional
information and also degradation and
fuel cell
to take the safe path and bring us home
early so i think everybody's acted in
the best interest of the crew and the
best interests of the program
and have
tried to make the right decisions based
on the information that you had at that
time
so we have no hesitation about the
people who are helping us out on the
ground
we had an exciting time yesterday going
through all the procedures
but uh i felt we were in sync 100 with
the ground they were helping us out
every step of the way and we have total
confidence in the people in mission
control and in the mission management
that are making these decisions
to stephen young with reuters i was just
wondering what kind of extraordinary
measures you've been taking to try and
squeeze as much power out of those last
two fuel cells to use uh for the science
i think i heard some references last
night to people working by flashlight
for example
yes um what we did was we powered down
all non-essential equipment including
most of the lighting on board
and only turned things on as we needed
it
this enabled us to continue powering
experiments in the lab
and staying under
the
required amount
of power
running only two fuel cells
thank you and um for whoever would like
to take this i'm just wondering if this
incident gives any of you a heightened
sense of vulnerability of space flight
i would say from our perspective
we all understand from the very
beginning how complicated a piece of
equipment this is and how many things
have to be working just right
we also know simultaneously how many
levels of redundancy and backup systems
there are in order to keep us safe even
though things
go wrong and things malfunction as they
do on earth
this is seth bornstein from the orlando
sentinel we heard commander haasel's
reaction yesterday when
you were told the news
about the shortened mission can we can
the other three of you tell us what went
through your mind when that was radioed
up and how did you tell the blue who
told the blue shift and what was their
reaction
yeah i was disappointed when i got word
that the mission would be shortened
we've been training for this mission for
uh over a year and a half or so working
hard on the science the people on the
ground at the marshall space flight
center and the principal investigators
all across the country and around the
world they've been working on this
mission even longer so it was a big
disappointment to to end the mission uh
but we've been working uh as hard as we
can working double time up here trying
to to make up for what we're losing by
shortening the mission and
uh two of the crew members i told on the
blue shift when they woke up
and uh they were it was a shock and
disbelief at first because
nobody anticipated that we'd be coming
home so soon we thought we were going to
go for the full 16 days
cool of course i was uh disappointed as
well that the mission was cut short
particularly from the perspective of the
scientists who've been waiting and
working so long to try and get these
experiments in space
on the other hand in just a few days
that we've had we've managed to get
results that were described to me by the
investigators they told me before the
mission hey look if we get a single data
point we'll be ecstatic because these
experiments are so difficult to do and
they've never been done before that that
result in itself will make us very happy
and we've gotten that many times over in
just these four days so on one hand i'm
disappointed but on the other hand i'm
very happy that in the short time we've
had we've gotten them some good results
that'll move them on into the future
uh bill harwood cbs with uh i guess
maybe another question for dr william
terrace along those same lines i mean
if that's the case i mean you're only
getting a four-day flight you would plan
16. i mean you can't call the flight
it's not a failure obviously but it's
not a success either where do you how do
you characterize the the results of this
mission
yeah for sure you can't cram
16 days of work into four days but we're
doing our best at it
one of the experiments that i've been
working on is called cslm coarsening of
solid liquid mixtures
and in this experiment in the glove box
we've processed 72 of the 81 plan
samples
in the large isothermal furnace the
japanese facility
we processed uh i think it's uh six or
seven of our plan 25
runs that we're doing
phase which is the the physics of heart
spheres
part of our express rack we processed
one sample successfully and throughout
the lab
most of the experiments have been able
to get at least one or two runs in so
we're bringing some science back to
almost all fields up here astro pgba
we're growing our plants we've been
growing the protein crystals up here so
we're hitting the full gamut of it but
you know for sure we're not bringing
back 16 days worth of science but we're
really proud of what we do what we are
bringing back
this is marcia dunn of the associated
press for dr linterus please
we've just heard your blue team was
shocked when they heard the news and as
a non-career astronaut who may be making
their one and only flight were you
shocked when you heard the news and are
you still in shock perhaps
i think shock is not the right word uh
certainly surprise and disappointment
might be accurate
i certainly expect it to go the full 16
days i'd say the
thing that i'm most uh troubled by is
that after a few days of getting used to
this new environment i'll have to come
home and that's sort of sort of
saddening but maybe there will be a
second chance for me to fly we'll see
commander this is jay barbary with nbc i
was wondering if you and pilot uh still
there if you would felt a little better
if you could have come home today having
a fly-by-wire spacecraft you're down to
two fuel cells if you lose another one
you're really in trouble would you like
to come home this afternoon instead of
waiting until tomorrow
the people on the ground that made this
decision thought it through fully and
what they were trying to do is give us
enough time to make an orderly close-up
of the lab
and plan our de-orbit and our landing
accordingly had we tried to rush to come
home today things wouldn't have been as
orderly and so i think that they made
the right decision
in bringing us home on tuesday
so that we could have everything
prepared for the re-entry and the
landing
this is bill hubshere with way tv news
in huntsville
the question i have is is pretty much
for anyone who would like to answer it
you must be obviously pretty pleased
with how the microgravity mission went
thus far only after four days but do you
think this hurts the the future of such
missions or do you think that all the
rest of them that weren't quite
completed will just be put towards space
shuttle space station
i think
this mission is not over yet these
experiments will be reflown sometime in
the future we have a facility on board
called the express rack and this is
called the it's the expedited processing
of experiments for space station and the
actual rack that we have on board today
is scheduled to be on one of the first
utilization flights for space station so
many of the facilities that you see here
are going to continue flying up both on
the shuttle and space tab
maybe orbiter or middeck experiments and
for sure
in the future on the international space
station
this is seth bernstein from the orlando
sentinel again commander also
can you tell us what
instruments are going to be powered down
that you wouldn't normally have power
down on landing uh tommy yesterday said
there might be one or two things that
might be reduced uh on
on entry
is how is it going to make gentry
different let me talk to uh let me let
you talk to my expert on the electrical
system susan standby
basically most of our equipment will be
running that we require for landing what
we'll be doing is turning them on later
in the flight perhaps turning them on
sometime after the de-orbit burn and
just prior to coming down for the final
part of the landing
some of the environmental systems
may be turned off which might make it a
little bit warmer once we land but the
crew should be
comfortable throughout the reentry and
the landing phase
bill harwood cbs again for dr lanterris
uh
rena the flight gets re-manifested or
not is an unknown at this point of
course and your nasa colleagues will
look forward to other flights down the
road but for you and dr crouch
this might be it for you i was just
wondering i mean in terms of
the science aside the experience of
space flight and all of that how
disappointing is it to
to do all this work get up there and
then have to turn right around and come
home
well it's disappointing from a science
perspective no doubt but from a personal
perspective the experience of learning
about the nasa training the experience
of going to space and and experiencing
this completely new environment with all
it has to offer in terms of teaching us
about our life down on earth has been
phenomenal and is something which i will
treasure regardless of whether i fly
again regardless of whether it was five
days instead of 16.
greg that was the cm1-3 data cue card
that's correct
you