it's not a news you want to be loved by
anyone
it's not unusual to have fun with anyone
but when i see you hanging around with
it's anyone unusual to see me cry
i wanna die
it's not unusual to be mad with anyone
it's not unused you want to be sad with
anyone
but if i ever find that you changed at
any time
good morning endeavor from the planning
shift it's great to be with you
we're also known now as the atlas flight
as you know paul hill is our planning
shift flight director and this is his
first official mission and earlier today
he chose the name atlas for his flight
good morning houston and good morning
paul
dr thomas will you will be the seventh
and final u.s astronaut to live on the
russian space station in view of the
well-publicized mishaps with the aging
space station last year are you in any
way apprehensive about the next four and
a half months
uh no not really i don't think that
there's
safety issues that i need to be
concerned about i think the russians
have done a very good job of stabilizing
the situation on mir following some very
serious situations last year
my concern more is just learning to live
and function for a long time on a
day-to-day basis in conditions which at
times might be difficult it might be
difficult temperatures and
hard work and so on and i think those
are the more realistic concerns that i
have
dr thomas we should point out is an
australian native who has undergone
training at the gagarin cosmonaut
training center in russia how is your
russian
well it's better than i ever thought it
would be then again i thought i would
never need to learn russian
i enjoy learning it i wish it was a
little better i don't have the
spontaneity of language that i have
obviously with english but
i think i can communicate and i can
understand what's being said and that's
the important thing
you've also worked in in your career at
the jet propulsion laboratory do you
have any messages you want to say hello
to any of your friends in pasadena
oh yeah i still have a lot of friends
there it's a number of years since i
worked there
but i enjoyed the time i had there very
much it was a fascinating place to work
and a wonderful place to live and uh i
hope the people there are watching this
flight unfold
very well sir commanding the mission is
marine lieutenant colonel terence
wilcott colonel this is your third
shuttle mission you've already logged to
more than 500 hours in space it's a
little different than flying combat
aircraft isn't it
yes quite a bit as a matter of fact we
don't have anything on here to do any
combat with thank goodness
and uh we'll hope that it continues that
way is it still as thrilling as it must
have been the first time you lifted off
absolutely you can't i think story
musgrave
put it right when he said that he hated
asset but he loved being in space it's
it's definitely a thrill and i think we
all
view assen as
something we have to go through to get
into space where we do our work
this is air force major michael
anderson's first shuttle mission uh
major describe the liftoff for us and
tell us how it was to to lift off and
then have to go to sleep so quickly
well actually i was pretty surprised by
the launch it was a lot smoother than i
had expected there was a little bit of
noise a little bit of vibration but not
nearly as much as i had expected from
watching launches from outside the space
shuttle overall it went by pretty
quickly and uh it was a real nice ride
um getting up on space we had about five
hours before we had to prepare to go to
bed it was a real busy five hours and as
you can imagine when it was time to go
to bed it was very difficult to do
but i grabbed myself a bite to eat and
sat in the commander's chair and looked
out the window and watched the world go
by and eventually managed to catch a few
hours of sleep
also on board his cosmonaut salazan
sharapov uh cosmetic is this your first
trip into space and then what are your
impressions
my presence is very great
because
it's very interesting work with
my american colleagues and
in every step every day every hour
i see that american authors can work
hard and they always
show me that americans the best than
russia but
i want to say that
russians the same
good guys and
do you speak better english than dr
thomas speaks russian
i believe sir
we'd like to go back to colonel wilcott
now colonel you're 48 years old older
than the others on the flight i believe
but you were just a kid when john glenn
made his first space flight how do you
feel about having him back in the
program
i think it's great that i would love to
fly with him
he was at the uh the launch last night
did you get to meet him
no i have met senator glenn before uh
when he came to houston and received a
lot of briefs on the science that we do
on the shuttle that he and he took that
information back to washington to share
with the other senators
so i've met him he's a very fine and
distinguished gentleman
although it's been said that sending
john glenn back into space is not an
effort to give the u.s space program a
boost has it had that effect though
i think so uh
literally 100 of the people i've talked
to think it's a good idea so i think
that but you know nasa we're on sort of
a role anyway we've had with the mars
exploration the shuttle science the mir
program the international space station
uh getting ready to crank up so i don't
think that we really needed the boost
but uh flying serger glenn if that gave
us one then i'm glad to get that one too
briefly can you give us an idea of what
some of the supplies are that you have
on board that you'll be taking to the
mirror
well i'm one of them actually i'm one of
the main things that they're going to
transfer to mia and i'll be on mir for
uh four months so to support me in that
period
uh they're taking obviously a lot of
food a lot of water clothing some
equipment that i'll need uh on mir uh to
operate
with the russian systems but also uh a
suite of experiments that i'll be
operating during my time on mir since
that's one of the main functions that
i'll have while i'm up there
the sight of earth from from space uh
we've seen pictures and we know
something of what it looks like but
still nothing of what it feels what did
it feel like for you
well it's breathtaking uh pitchers don't
do justice to lay the earth looks uh
with your own eyes from this vantage
point you know it's just a beautiful
place it's just a wonderful creation and
that when i first got my glimpse of
earth from up here it is just
impossible to describe it's a fantastic
view
not i imagine not many um
african-american youngsters when you
were a child actually aspired to
to space travel or space work um how did
you come upon this desire this
aspiration
well you know i think for me it was a
combination of a number of things my
father was in the air force so my
exposure was to a lot of
high-tech things a lot of airplanes and
a lot of the gadgetry that the air force
had at the time
and also just a uh an interest in
science fiction i was a big science
fiction fan as a kid i watched all kind
of television shows like lost in space
and star trek and i think just from
watching those shows and seeing what
those people are doing and from going to
work with my dad and seeing what he did
just kind of developed a natural
interest in me to want to do something
like that
wonderful commander wilcott this is of
course the third space mission for you
does it get
repetitive for you or does the
excitement recur each and every time
we only get to do this about every
year and a half
if you're lucky enough to do that and so
it certainly never gets repetitive it's
exciting every single time
and how did you come to the space
program
well uh
sort of the same way i also i guess was
always interested in uh in space just
from the uh the science fiction the
movies whatever but i was nearing my the
end of my tour as a test pilot and i was
thinking about what i wanted to do next
a good friend of mine that was already
in the astronaut program
asked me if i would be interested in
that and it seemed like a way to
continue
uh really the work that you do as a test
pilot and you get to work with a lot of
very very bright young engineers and
scientists and and so it seemed like
something i'd be interested in
dr andy thomas you're uh
as i understand it the last person the
shuttle will deliver to the space
station mirror before the construction
begins on the on the new international
space station what exactly will you do
or will be doing between now and then to
prepare for the construction uh of uh
of the new state space center
well you're correct i will be the last
u.s representative on the mere space
station following six predecessors who
have
all done very good jobs under some
sometimes very trying circumstances i'll
be spending my time on the mere space
station
uh
running a suite of experiments that are
from u.s sponsorship uh looking at the
effect mostly of long-duration space
flight on
the behavior of the human body
and i'll also be supporting the
cosmonauts in operating and maintaining
the space station and
keeping it flying so i expected to be uh
pretty busy during my time there and
that kind of experience obviously is
going to feed directly into the
international space station because it's
going to give us guidance on how you
should operate one of these large
orbiting vehicles
major anderson back to you again if
there is one space mission either
conceived or yet not conceived that
you'd like to be on
and you'd like to be a part of what
would it be
i think that's an easy question for me i
always thought it'd be nice to uh to go
to mars and that's something that i
think the space program is going to be
looking uh rather closely at very soon
here and that's something that i think
every astronaut in the program would
really like to be a part of you know a
trip to another planet to explore that
planet and see what's out there is
something that would be very exciting
for anyone
you