so
and buenos dias atlantis uh
uh carlos and about two revs it'll be a
good pass over peru unfortunately it'll
be dark
hey good morning bill and
thank you for playing the national
anthem there i hadn't heard that uh
since i was down there last summer and
unfortunately it will be dark but i got
a good debut
together uh night just before we fell
asleep
okay and i uh mike and i have been
transitioning uh and having some good
pass down mike is very well situated
specters in perfect order
and uh we've i think on this mission
i've done it both ways we've got shuttle
in good order and we also have mike in
good order on mirror
uh we're just doing a few loose ends and
a review of what's already been covered
and so we're in very good shape and good
job everybody on the ground that helps
support that
thanks jerry we'll pass along those
words
joining us from the the space have
module on the space shuttle ten people
who consider themselves among the
luckiest in the world today the joint
crew of mir and shuttle atlantis shuttle
commander charlie precourt ground
controllers ground controllers tell us
both the spaceships are working well
together what's your assessment of the
health of mir now compared to what you
knew about it a year ago
well let's see uh
you know the mirror has gone through a
few uh maintenance problems here in the
recent uh few months as everyone is
aware
i could compare it for you with what i
experienced a couple of years ago when i
docked with the mission of sts-71
i would say that it is not much
different overall and with the exception
that they've added two more modules
they have more volume but they have also
more equipment on board now i'd say the
health is in really good shape at this
point
and they've recovered nicely from the
failures of the last couple of months
well that's that's certainly good news
eileen collins you're the shuttle pilot
getting up and you'll be the pilot
coming down again i'd like your
assessment as uh to how crowded it is on
mir compared to the shuttle and the
place where you are right now is it is
it as much like fiber mcgee's closet
with just uh wires and pipes falling out
all over the place as uh some of the
pictures we have seen led us to believe
well actually beer is a lot more
spacious than the shuttle it has more
interior volume
this shuttle flight the atlantis has a
space tab in the back which adds to our
volume
i would have to say that living in space
whether you're on the shuttle or mirror
you're going to have a lot of equipment
around equipment
for cooling and maintenance of the
spaceship as well as scientific
experiments which is why we're up here
so yes both spaceships are a little bit
cluttered but i would say it's an
environment that i enjoy being in and
i'm having a great time up here and i
know we're contributing
very well to
science uh international science and uh
the health of people around the world uh
with the mission that we're doing up
here
yeah i've got a question for the two
rookie astronauts carlos noriega and ed
lew they have been doing much of the
heavy lifting of equipment back and
forth between the two ships and and both
are rookies the transfer seems to be
well ahead of schedule fellas which
means you're doing your jobs well carlos
i'd like your impressions and maybe then
ed's impressions of launch and your
thoughts today about what you're going
to remember most about this trip
well it's just an incredible feeling
being on our first mission especially
with this group of people here i got a
great crew that i belong to and we got
some great friends on the mirror uh we'd
had a chance to work with them before we
came up here and uh just being able to
renew that friendship continue to work
together it's just great as a
international cooperative
effort that we have here
the reason things have been going so
smoothly is probably because of the hard
work of the other rookie here who's been
in charge of uh the transfer operations
i'll let him talk a little bit
well there's a lot of really memorable
things of course about flying in space
from the launch to looking out the
window seeing the earth go by to the
docking day when we uh first saw amir
from more than about uh 30 or 40 miles
away
but uh surprisingly enough you know what
i think the
most memorable thing about all this is
the people around me the people i've
gotten to work with for the last year
and my friends from russia who we first
met almost a year ago they're a really
special group of people they work really
hard
and uh i'll always remember this just
mostly for the people i think
yeah the other the other day we saw a
picture of all of you eating dinner
together it was a this big international
meal and the microphone was left on
while you guys were there and it was
sort of like a fraternity house party i
mean a lot of whooping and hollering
going on is that really what the spirit
is like when you guys aren't lined up in
front of tv cameras like this and
everybody has to be on their best
behavior
well john that was uh
initially intended as a home movie but
we had such spontaneous good time with
our international colleagues that we
thought we ought to share it with
everyone
we worked pretty hard up here and we
asked the timeliners for this mission to
set aside a couple of hours where we
could have an international meal and our
crew prepared a lot of different types
of foods from around the world to bring
up and share with our russian colleagues
and jerry and
they managed to find the time for us so
we went over and relaxed for a little
bit and we turned on the video camera
and let it run and we wanted you to see
that uh life in space can be enjoyable
even though we're doing a lot of work uh
folks need to take a break from time to
time to keep their energy up and that's
what we were doing we wanted you to see
that yeah well charlie the thing that
everybody is saying in this interview is
uh how well everybody's getting along
together despite the fact there are
different cultures represented there on
the spaceship and that party sort of
indicated that to me i want to talk to
jerry lenninger and mike foale next the
two of you have traded jobs this week
lenniger moving to the shuttle crew for
the trip back home and paul joining the
mir crew for another long duration stay
in orbit jerry you and i have talked a
couple of times during this mission
about your family your personal life but
we haven't talked uh directly since the
fire and the series of equipment
failures tell us about mir is it working
as well today as the day you arrived
more than four months ago
we've had difficulties throughout those
four months but i think we've overcome
it and i think it's uh at this point
yeah i'd say we're back to the uh the
condition uh that we were at when i
arrived
on the other hand i think mike is going
to have a challenge ahead of him and uh
you know it's part of the exploration
process out here we're pushing the limit
and it's uh tough being out on the
frontier so mike's got a challenge ahead
for him yeah jerry before you hand the
mic over to uh to mike foley what what
was the best advice that you think you
gave to uh
to mike foale as he came aboard or in
the few days you've had to sort of cross
pollinate
mike's really experienced courageous uh
you know well-traveled space travelers
so uh i guess that
the thing i
did more for mike is just show them
around show them where the equipment is
some of the little things that i learned
over the uh four or five months up here
and just giving him little pointers that
i think a month from now he'll say oh
yeah i remember jerry telling me
something about that and and just make
his life a little more pleasant up here
by learning some little tricks of living
in space yeah mike paul a couple of
weeks ago you told us you were much more
worried about the shuttle lots than
about a long time stay on mirror uh has
anything happened in the past few days
change your opinion of mir for better or
for worse
oh
you're quite right
the biggest risk that we all went
through was launch and that includes the
cosmonauts also
but uh now i've been pleasantly
surprised here in fact i'm now realizing
rapidly that the uh the food is even
better than i first thought it was going
to be so i'm enjoying very much just
having regular meals with the city here
and sasha across there from elena
and
we have a very relaxed and easy-going
relationship i think um
when you're on board a space station
rather than a space shuttle you
basically live and so you have to have
regular meals and you i i've noticed the
difference even already
the shuttle guys are having to work to a
timeline that's compressed they have to
get back on earth
and um
the beauty of being here with
a long-term cruise is you get to relax
and uh think about the long term and
enjoy your meals enjoy your
conversations taste your work out
and so it's uh actually quite a new way
to work and uh i'm enjoying this
transition
and mike one last question what is the
best that you can accomplish in your
four and a half months on mir what do
you think what what's the best you can
do while you're there
well i just start flipping but i'll say
it have a good time i really think
that's the most important thing here
i'm quite effective deficient anyway
getting my uh scientific work done and
i'll do that anyway the most important
thing is that
all of us the three of us on board the
station and the uh the three new guys
that come up uh in august that we all
get along together and uh enjoy each
other's company atlantis mere crew thank
you
foreign
and for all those on the american side
we're uh wishing luda nicolaiva a happy
50th birthday today she's the russian
timeline has worked so hard to put our
schedules together up here and make them
work jointly between the u.s and russian
sides
luda
values
dania
you