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this mission has quite a quite a history

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uh it was originally planned to launch

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about uh 2004 or five or so

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but then the columbia accident occurred

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and the administrator at the time

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decided that this would not be

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a safe thing to do

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because what most people don't realize

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is every time the shuttle launches it

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goes someplace now it goes to the space

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station it's a different inclination of

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orbit

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to go to hubble you go to a different

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orbit

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and if something goes badly on this

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mission you cannot get to the space

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station there's no

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the shuttle people to their credit found

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a way to make this a safer mission and

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that is the way you do that is have a

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second space shuttle on the launch pad

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ready to go and rescue the astronauts if

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it's determined that there was a problem

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with the first orbiter some debris hit

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or something that would

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risk the

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their lives coming back in into the

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atmosphere so that's why you'll see two

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lyman spitzer dr lyman spitzer

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uh he's he's called the father of the

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hubble space telescope because he wrote

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a paper back in 1946 which was published

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uh he was working at the rand

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corporation at the time during the war

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just after the war

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and it was a paper looking at the german

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v2 rockets and saying you know with this

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capability of launching things into

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space wouldn't it be great to launch a

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telescope into space and get it above

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the atmosphere and not have the

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atmosphere mess up the images and be

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able to see ultraviolet and x-ray light

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i first got involved with hubble it was

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actually called the space telescope in

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those days back in

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1976

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when i uh took my first postgraduate job

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at princeton university and worked for

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lyman spitzer the father of hubble

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uh and i wasn't working on hubble in

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those days lyman spitzer was but i was

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involved in lunchtime conversations so i

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got sort of a dose of hubble from 76 to

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78.

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then i joined nasa headquarters in the

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astronomy program and shortly thereafter

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in 1979 i became the chief scientist on

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hubble

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and i filled that role basically from

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that point on until i started getting

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promoted but i've never been in a job

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since then where hubble wasn't under my

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purview so to speak so i guess 31 years

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of direct purview and three years of

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of

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1990 and uh and i'm positive that if we

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all had written down the 100 most likely

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problems with the hubble space telescope

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if everybody involved with hubble had

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written down those top 100

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not one of them not one of them

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would have listed the mirrors the wrong

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shape

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so

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that that's not a positive story it's uh

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it's kind of a weird story but it's a

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true story

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and that led to the

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that led to three years of absolute hell

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hubble became

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it was in the press all the time with

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the problems it was a billion dollar

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mistake uh

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people in the press call it a

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technological disaster a national

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disgrace late night comedy hosts were

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making jokes about hubble cartoons would

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appear with mr magoo as true inventor of

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the hubble space telescope nobody really

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in the meantime the hubble team we

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worked quietly for three years we

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promised back in 1990 that we had a way

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to fix it

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uh

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and we put a new camera in with

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corrective optics in it that would cure

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the optical problem nobody believed us

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but we promised that we'd do it and

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would do it by december 93.

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and we launched the uh the mission sm-1

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on december 2nd i'll never forget that

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day

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1993

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and after five evas spacewalks

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the astronauts came home and about two

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weeks later we took off the bandages

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from our eyes and suddenly hubble was

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hubble you know we knew hubble was going

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to be important even before it was

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launched because it represented a factor

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of 10 10 times more power

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to astronomical capability in terms of

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resolution how sharp the images in terms

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of how faint you could see

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than any current ground-based telescopes

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back in 1990. 10 times doesn't sound

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like a lot but it's a huge number in

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astronomy the last time we went a factor

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of 10 in capability to see the sky was

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all the way back in the 1600s when we

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went from the eye to galileo's telescope

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that represented a factor of 10 increase

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in capability

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well was that important well let's see

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before galileo we believe the earth was

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the center of the universe and

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everything rotated around the earth and

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nothing could go around any other object

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they all had to go around the earth

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uh galileo one of the first things

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galileo did was pointed his telescope at

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this bright light in the sky he didn't

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know it was jupiter but it was jupiter

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and he saw four dots and the next night

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he saw that they moved and then after

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night after night he saw that they went

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around jupiter

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well this can't be this is not what our

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textbooks say

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it basically led ultimately to the

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copernican revolution the renaissance

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and the way we look at ourselves i mean

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it had profound effects on society the

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way humans looked at themselves it was a

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scientific a philosophical psychological

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we knew hubble would have some effect

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uh but nobody could have predicted

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it becoming an icon a world icon in

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terms of science

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in terms of education you can't pick up

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an astronomy textbook any place on earth

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i maintain if it's been published in the

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last 10 years

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it doesn't matter if it's published in

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arabic english spanish lithuanian or

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whatever

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i guarantee you that book will be filled

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with hubble images because they have

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in addition hubble's been adopted by the

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american people especially school

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children when when the final servicing

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mission was canceled a few years ago

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kindergarten kids grade school kids were

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writing in postcards saying please save

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the hubble save our telescope

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it's just become part of american

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society

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i maintain that the average the 300

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million americans

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if an america if the average american

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knows or has heard of one scientific

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project

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or instrument in their entire lives if

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it's only one i'll bet you that would be

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i've seen all of the uh hubble hubble

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launches i've seen a lot of shuttle

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launches but the hubble launches of

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course are special

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knowing that this is the last one

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knowing that i've spent an entire

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lifetime on this

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uh it'll be a lot of nostalgia

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but i i won't feel any pain because uh

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there are many things that people can

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work on in their careers

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uh

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fields i could have been an engineer and

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maybe maybe my contribution to society

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is

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i could have designed the first cell

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cell phone that broke the three ounce

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barrier

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you know and only weighed 2.95 ounces

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in a hundred years from now maybe my

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grandchildren would consider that a

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major breakthrough

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i have a feeling 100 years from now

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hubble's still going to be in the

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history books

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and knowing their granddad

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worked on hubble and was heavily

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involved in it i think

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leaves a legacy that i'm kind of proud

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proud of

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t-minus six

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five four

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three

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two

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one

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and liftoff of the space shuttle

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discovery with the hubble space

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mission control houston

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overall program

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looks good

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and as the crew just confirmed we're

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seeing both blankets beginning to unfurl

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on the port side solar

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so far we see

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to go ahead and

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do rms fire down so we get the guys out

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there like that

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but that's at your convenience team

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but once we do have the rms stowed then

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okay um

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i'll tell you what we'll spend just a