so
bonjour atlantis another great day in
space
all the team on the ground uh what a
nice touch for the french guy on board i
was really
thrilled listening to this music on
board the complex
now living with
all this international crew on board
sometimes i wonder if i am a french
european or just
citizen of the whole world
this is really a very very exciting
experience here
is
the shuttle is here
is
he decided when he was 40
to quit
um
okay
um
this is a great picture
videos
right there
um
foreign
okay thank you chris and to the fourth
air expeditionary wing and qatar
and to my good friend carl tim cantwell
especially who set this up for me to be
able to talk to you
representing
the air force with the crew of
atlantis currently dr mayor myself and
lieutenant colonel eileen collins
we're real proud to be able to talk to
you we're real proud of you
representing the air force in qatar to
general smith
over there leading the forces
we are
very happy to be able to talk to you
today as we orbit the earth with our
friends from russia on the mir space
station docked at 200 miles flying over
qatar at this point in time looking down
on you
really proud to be part of the air force
especially in this 50th anniversary year
and part of the work that you're doing
there
i'm going to let eileen collins
lieutenant colonel and our pilot
say a couple of words to you
congratulating you on a successful
completion your deployment my
understanding is that you're headed back
home tomorrow
after a long time there in qatar and
hello this is lieutenant colonel eileen
collins aboard the space shuttle
atlantis currently docked with mir
and just like to thank all of you for
the great work that you're doing to
defend our country
and we're proud of you and and what
you're doing we're also proud to be part
of the air force and happy to celebrate
this 50th anniversary
so keep up your good work and we're
thinking about you up here on the
shuttle atlantis
and to the folks of the fourth air
expeditionary wing as you deploy back
home
uh you probably won't get quite the same
view of the earth that we do but i'm
sure you'll be able to appreciate the
vastness of our globe
how close we get together these days
with
our improvements in communication how
much better our relationships are with
people around the world here on
the mirror and the shuttle today we have
folks
on this crew that represent
many different nationalities we have
a frenchman aboard the uh the crew of
atlantis we have uh two folks that are
making their first flight one who was
born in peru another who is uh
his parents immigrated from china
and of course we have the russians on
the near side of the hatch as part of
the shuttle crew we also have a russian
woman elena kondakova who is on an
exchange with us and it's just a
wonderful thing to see
a multinational effort like this come
together and i can tell you most
assuredly that the work that the air
force has done over the last 50 years
has made something like this happen you
folks over there qatar keeping up the
work that you do keeping up the
tradition great with the air force
you've made missions like ours in orbit
possible and it can only get better from
here we salute you guys
happy 50th anniversary to everybody in
the air force especially to you that are
deployed all those others that are
deployed around the world great work and
hope to see you soon when we're back on
the ground together in our home country
the usa
safety please
safety here is always a concern as it is
on any space vehicle
and
we are doing our utmost utmost to keep
things safe here
the russians have done an outstanding
job recovering from more than usual
number of failures you can see we're all
doing just fine here and we're enjoying
our time working with our colleagues
jerry's ready to come home mike's ready
to take over uh as for micro meteoroid
hits nothing while we've been in space
here
during our stay
yes i'd like to ask jerry lenninger
what's the most interesting weather
phenomena he saw in his uh four months
in space and what he thinks the rocket's
chances against the jazz are
uh most interesting weather formation i
guess just watching some tropical storms
i can't really pick out one in
particular
and also some sea currents and looking
at sun glint and the different uh
patterns and swirls on the ocean in the
middle of the ocean
along uh
islands things like that are always
amazing uh i'll say gold rockets and i
think the rockets have a good chance of
winning it all although i haven't
watched a single game because i've been
up here since january yes i was
wondering if uh while you're staying
long term in orbit if you can detect the
effects of solar flares or solar
radiation either on your on your cells
or on the motion of the vehicle in orbit
actually that's been quite noticeable
this uh last trip every flight i've been
on this is my first flight i have
noticed um
flashes at night when i'm sleeping in my
uh in my field of vision
and those are caused by uh very very
high speed particles mostly from the
cosmic ray background radiation but also
during solar phase you get uh these
these light trails in your visual field
you know you're just looking at
basically darkness of course as you fall
asleep and you'll see these little
flashes and different points of your uh
peripheral vision well recently on this
play
i think and the other fascists mentioned
this to me as well that um
there's a lot of activity going on right
now and i think jerry also did a spit
and so we're actually seeing trails in
our visual field almost like meteor
trails and
i tried moving my head around the other
night and it changed the orientation of
the trail so i was pretty sure it was
localized you know it's a stream coming
through the spacecraft
are you more or less spiritual than when
you first went into space
now
i think the same way as everybody else
who has been to space
you enrich yourself
you're so far from earth you begin to
love it even more and then when you look
in the window
you
stop thinking about all the
orders about conflicts on earth why the
earth is won
it's so little
we have a very
thin layer of atmosphere
which protects us from radiation from
the sun
and you begin to forget about small
earthly problems and you start thinking
about different things
and i think facilities answer could be
given in any language around the world
from anyone who flies up here we all
feel pretty much the same way
hello from the space station near my
space shuttle atlantis for all of you
who are viewing the imax film mission
tomorrow for the first time we welcome
you and we share with you the thrill of
a great mission with our russian
colleagues in space
i'm commander charlie play court of
arrest us-84 crew and we are fortunate
enough to be docked right now on onboard
the space station near with the mir 23
crew and we're in the process of
continuing the mission that you're about
to watch on the imax theater it's a
tremendous opportunity for us we'd like
to connect with you as you have the
opportunity to share our journeys here
in space
and we are fortunate enough to bring
enjoy renting your home from space after
his stay on board the mirror moving mike
fall as his replacement what you're
seeing is continuing today as we speak
to you as you sit there ready to watch
the imax we are continuing to fly in
orbit with our colleagues from russia