Preflight Interview: Michael Bloomfield

The STS-97 Crew Interviews with Michael Bloomfield, Pilot.

Q: Mike, you're one of five crewmembers on this trip to the International Space Station. I want to find out about how you got to this point. Tell me, why do you think it is that you wanted to become an astronaut?

A. Unlike most folks, it wasn't something I dreamed of as a child. It actually was something that just happened as I went through my career progression in the Air Force. I got to the point where I was looking for something new, something that was a challenge. And I was sitting around one day—and I was flying F-15s at Langley - and I was reading through one of the Air Force magazines there. They said that they were accepting applications for folks to become astronauts. And I read through it, and I thought it was odd that it was just in a blanket Air Force application, that it wasn't like under "For Just Test Pilots Only" or "Scientists Only." So I called a friend of mine who was at NASA as an astronaut and said, hey, I thought in order to become an astronaut you had to be a test pilot. He said, "Well, that's not technically true, but if you want to have a good chance of coming to NASA to be an astronaut pilot, you need to go through Test Pilot School." And so I thought about that for a minute, and then I called another friend of mine who had gone through Test Pilot School. His idea was that he would go through Test Pilot School in order to fly the F-22, and so at that point, I decided, well, I think what I'll do is I'll go ahead and go to Test Pilot School, and if I don't become an astronaut then at least I can fly the F-22. So it's a win-win situation if I can get into Test Pilot School. I was able to get into Test Pilot School, and I was looking forward to going and flying the F-22 and kind of threw my name in the hat to see if [I] would get selected to become an astronaut. And I did. It's kind of funny because, when I came down here to NASA to do the interview - when they called me for the interview - I still wasn't convinced that this was what I wanted to do. "Is that something I really want to do? I don't know." And so I called the guy that was here as an astronaut. He says, "Well, what you need to do is come down for the interview and see if it's something that you like. I mean, talk to the people. Get to know the people, and then that'll help decide whether or not that's someplace that you want to go." So I came down here not really knowing, "Well, yeah, I want to do this or I don't want to do that," but the more I was around here, the more I realized there were a lot of people around here that believe in what they do. They have a dream out there. They have this vision of going out and exploring space, and the neat thing is they're not just experts in one little thing. They're experts in a lot of different things. So you could come here, and you continue to learn. That's primarily the reason I became an astronaut - so that I could keep learning new things, and I could keep running up against new challenges. And it hasn't been a disappointment. I've learned a lot, and there's been a lot of challenges out there.

As you say, there are people here who have very broad backgrounds. Tell us a bit about yours - your educational background and how you got into the Air Force.

Again, I got in the Air Force kind of on a fluke. I went to this school in Michigan, a small school, and I really wanted to play major college football. I wanted to play Division I-A college football. And in Michigan, you could go to Michigan or Michigan State, but they didn't want anything to do with me. I was 6'1?. I weighed two hundred pounds. I ran the 40 in 5.1. I just wasn't fast. I wasn't big. They didn't want anything to do with me. And the football coach at my high school kept getting these cards from various colleges asking about football players, so he kept throwing them in my direction. He got one from the Air Force Academy, and they said, "Hey, you want to come play football?" So I looked at their schedule. They're playing Notre Dame, and they're playing Georgia Tech, and they're playing Boston College. They're playing all the major universities, and I also noticed that you had to have pretty good grades in order to get into the Academy. I said, "Well, that narrows the field a lot, if you have to have good grades and they're playing a major college football schedule." So I went through the application process, and I went to the Air Force Academy knowing that I'd get a good education but also knowing that I would have the opportunity to play major college ball. And so that's what I was able to do. For four years I was able to play major college ball. We played Notre Dame. We played Washington. We played all the big schools, and it was a lot of fun. It's kind of interesting [because], from that point on, I'm in the Air Force now and I didn't know what I wanted to do when I left the Air Force Academy. It's, "Do I want to be a pilot, or do I want to go off and do engineering stuff?" One day - it was my senior year at the Air Force Academy, and I'm really not sure where I'm going to go yet - one of the guys on the team - his dad was a general in the Air Force - [comes] up to me and says, "So, Bloomer, what are you going to do after you graduate?" I said, "Well, I really don't know." He says, "You mean you're not going to pilot training?" I go, "Well, is that something I should do? He goes, "Heck yeah. That's a great challenge. You'll always be challenged by it. It'll be good learning, and anybody that's a linebacker on the Air Force Academy football team needs to be out there flying fighters." And so that's kind of what kind of got me steered towards flying was this guy from the Air Force Academy football team.

You've just cited one example. Tell me about the people in your life that you, at this point, look back at and think, "They were pretty significant influences in choices that I made or the things that happened to me," whether it's the Academy or before or after.

Well - I think anybody will agree with this - the choices you make in your life are influenced [a lot] by your parents. I mean, they brought you up. They were a big part of your life, and they got a heck of a job to do. I've got an 11 year old at home, and I've got a 9 year old - Brian and Courtney - and you're trying to do the best job you can as a parent. You don't want to tell them too much because then they don't learn, but you don't want to let them get too far because then they'll stray off. My parents, I think, did an outstanding job. When I was in the third grade, we lived in the city, and then we decided to move out to this big farmhouse on 40 acres. I have two brothers so there's three sons running around out on 40 acres - building forts in the apple tree, making snow forts out there - and we just had a wonderful time running around on the farmland and everything. And they basically let us do whatever we want. My mom didn't want me to play football, and so she got me involved in piano early on, figuring that, "Hey, if he's in music, he can't be marching in the band and playing football at the same time." It [was] a nice plan, but it didn't work. But the point is they got us involved in music. They let us play football. We went on rafting trips, and the idea was to do and experience as much as you can and to try and build as many memories as you [can], rather than to have things. And so they played a huge influence in my life. And then I think, if you look back, there's always one or two people that come out of the woodwork. For me it happened to be the football coaches. I can still cite football quotes. Stuff like, "The hotter the fire, the harder the steel," which is usually not what you wanted to hear at three or four o'clock on a nice, hot day because that meant you were going to run more wind sprints. But the idea [was] that, if you worked hard, the payback would be there. The other one was, "Life's like a blank check. The harder you work, the bigger the payoff," and that's the same way not just in football but in the rest of life. So, I think those would be the big two influences that I had in my life - my parents and then the football coaches. And now, of course, it's my family with my wife, Lori, and the two kids. They have a huge influence on my life.

Your first space shuttle flight occurred just about three years ago, and you were part of a multinational shuttle crew that exchanged astronauts on the Mir space station. From your point of view, describe the development you've observed in working relationships between the agencies and the nations that are involved in the international space program.

I can give you a firsthand example. Before I went up on STS-86, which was in 1997 - about three years ago - we went over to Russia. We went over there for a week and a half of training, and we got over there and the training wasn't near as easy to get done as [when] I was over there a couple of weeks ago. We went over there for some quick refresher training, and the infrastructure there is now - there's more of the personal relationships so that when you wanted to get something done, it was a little bit easier to get it done. And I think that just having spent as much time together as we have now, as an international team - rather than the American team, the Russian team, the Japanese team, having all the players up on the 6th floor here at Johnson Space Center, or having some of us over in Japan or some of us over in Russia - has helped build the relationships that are necessary to make this project work.

You know, unlike some recent shuttle crews you and your crewmates on this mission have been together for a couple of years now, training for this mission. Tell me what that's been like and whether or not it's been hard to keep focused and concentrated as the target launch date kept moving.

It hasn't been hard, and it's partly due to the crew. We have really a good group of guys that work well together. But it's also not been a static mission. I think that if the mission had been defined two years ago and they would've said, "This is what we want you to do," and nothing would've changed, then it would've been hard. But there [have] been a lot of changes. Issues come up about hardware, issues come up about how [we] are actually going to fly this approach. As those issues come up, it's a challenge to go out and try to gather all the information, talk to all the right people, make sure we have all the pieces before we make a decision about how we're going to do it. And Brent, the commander, has done a great job of making sure that we get time off when we need it and that we haven't gone without vacations for two years and that kind of stuff. So, it has not been always working real hard for two years. There [have] been enough challenges out there to break it up, and we've had the vacations to make it a little bit easier.

Let's turn the focus more specifically to what you're going to do. We'll talk in detail, but before we do, if I can get you to try to summarize the goals of STS-97. What is this mission going to do? What's the significance of the hardware that you and your crewmates are bringing to ISS?

We're bringing the electrical infrastructure to the International Space Station. And to help you visualize that, [if you've] ever been on an airplane flying over the United States or someplace at night, and you look down at the ground, the thing that you notice is all the lights. You notice the big blobs of cities. You also notice the little lines that go between the cities, and those are the roads with the cars. And it's all driven by electricity. On STS-86, we used to fly across the United States - ten minutes from the West Coast to the East Coast - and you could see all the cities out there because of all the lights from the electrical infrastructure. Then you'd cross the Atlantic, and you'd get to Europe, and you'd see the same thing. You'd see all the cities with all the lights and all the roads going between them. Then you'd cross the Med and you'd end up in Africa, where they don't have the electrical infrastructure yet, and there's nothing. It's just black. And so what we're trying to do is go up there and take up the first of four major solar arrays. We're going to add the electrical infrastructure to the station so that there's power - so that we can do all the things that we want to do as the station continues to grow.

Let's talk about the hardware itself then - the P6 Integrated Truss Structure. Describe the payload for us and the various pieces of the hardware - the components of the system - that are going to be packed into the payload bay.

At the broad level, you have the actual truss itself, which is just basically pieces of metal welded together so that we have something to attach other things to. And the two things that we attach to it are the solar arrays - at the very top of this truss - and then buried within the truss are all the electronics that are used to make the solar arrays work. So, those are basically the three parts of this P6 that we're going to take up in the back of the shuttle.

You described it, a moment ago, as the electrical infrastructure - the "thumbnail" version of how this system is going to allow this station to generate its power.

When the station is going around the Earth, there's daytime and there's nighttime, depending on where it's at. And when we're in the daytime part of the pass around the Earth - when the station is - then the sun hits the solar arrays, and it converts it to electricity. Then we use that electricity to run all the stuff that's on the station. If there's any excess electricity, then we store it in batteries so that when we get to the backside - when we're in nighttime - we can take the energy that we stored in those batteries and we can continue to run all the equipment that's on the International Space Station. So in a nutshell, that's kind of how it works. In daytime we just use the solar arrays, and then we store the excess. And at nighttime, we go ahead and take it out of the batteries that we've stored during daytime and use it, the idea being to keep a continuous flow of power to all the elements on the International Space Station.

And all of the elements that you've just described are all part of what you're bringing up.

That's exactly right.

As well as components that dissipate heat.

That's true. Whenever you have an electronic device it's going to create some type of heat, and you have to get rid of that heat somehow. And so we use radiators, which [are] essentially like the radiator in your car. You basically run fluid by the hot boxes, it takes the heat from the hot boxes and now we dissipate it up to space. The idea [is to keep] them all in a certain temperature regime so they don't get too hot and they don't get too cold.

Does the addition of all of this hardware make the station electrically self-sufficient?

It is right now. It's electrically self-sufficient even without the P6 up there, but what we're going to do is increase the margin. We're going to basically double the amount of electrical power that's available to the guys on the International Space Station, and we're setting the stage for the next flight, which is going to bring up the U.S. Laboratory. And in order to run all those experiments up there, you need a lot of power. And so, that's what we're doing. We're providing that infrastructure so that, when they bring the lab up and then they start bringing all the experiments up, we can start running all those experiments right away rather than waiting for another set of solar arrays.

A very big step in the success of your flight, of course, will be to get Endeavour and the ISS connected on orbit and on this mission the shuttle is going to be approaching the International Space Station differently than it has on previous ISS missions. Talk us through what the plans are for the shuttle's rendezvous and docking, and, as you do, point out what your part is going to be as part of the team on the flight crew. What are you going to be doing?

Well my job, primarily, during the rendezvous, is to run the checklist. So, what I'm going to be doing is, we've got a checklist that says, this is how you get from three thousand feet from the International Space Station to dock to the International Space Station, and there are certain steps that need to take place. Now, Brent's going to be in the back flying it, so he doesn't have time to read a checklist and fly at the same time. So I'm going to be running the checklist. I'm going to be calling out certain things for Brent to make sure he gets done. I'll also be calling them out to other members of the crew to make sure that we don't miss anything on the checklist. So, that's my job. And also, if there happens to be something - a malfunction on the orbiter as we're starting to do the approach - if it's something minor, then my job is to try and run the procedure, get the system safe so that we can continue with the rendezvous and still dock with the International Space Station. The rendezvous that we're doing, actually, is very similar to what we did on STS-86. We're still coming from below, and we'll actually do what they call a "tail forward" maneuver to align everything when we get about six-hundred feet below. And the big difference that is going to happen on our flight when we dock is that the two centers of masses of the International Space Station and the shuttle are going to be offset. On previous dockings they've been pretty much on centerline, and so you don't have any chance of tipping off, if you will, the different docking apparatuses. On this one, we're going to have this part of the shuttle docking with this part of the International Space Station and the CGs are over here so when they hit there's going to be a tendency to tip, just like two teeter-totters hitting. And so, Brent will have to make sure that everything's lined up exactly so that the mechanisms can capture each other as we dock.

Even as you showed it in the example with your hand, the station is going to be oriented differently than in past - if you will, horizontally rather than vertically - and you're going to be docking to some part of the station that has never been docked to before.

Right. In fact, it's called the PMA - a Pressurized Mating Adapter - and all it is is a hatch. And that's going to be left up there by the 3A crew, which is getting ready to leave here in a couple of weeks. So we will be the first one to actually dock to that particular part of the station, and then we will also be the first ones to pressurize it - to make sure the seals are good on it.

Can you sort of talk us through what highlights we should be looking for as you approach in the last few thousand feet or so. What are the big steps?

The big steps are: we stop at about a hundred and seventy feet. By that time, we've done all the "tail forward" maneuver, and we'll be looking at the International Space Station. And we'll [be] making sure that the solar arrays are feathered the right way so that we don't accidentally get plumed by some of the jets being fired by the orbiter. And we'll make sure that they're in the right attitude, and then Joe and Carlos will take the time to power up our docking system and make sure that everything's all right. And then, we have to dock. We're currently required to dock over some of [the Russian] ground sites, which means we have to be over Russia when that happens. So it becomes a timing issue. Not only do we have to dock, but we also have to dock within a certain window, [and] we don't know how big that window is right now. It may be ten minutes, it may be twelve minutes long. And so, we'll start to press in from a hundred and seventy feet at a certain rate so as to arrive at the station. We'll actually stop again at thirty feet, and we have a centerline camera that allows us to see a target that's on the docking module. And we'll go ahead and make sure that everything's lined up perfectly so that we don't have any misalignment that could cause us to bounce off, and Joe and Carlos will be looking at the monitor and doing that fly out. And then I'll input the numbers into the shuttle's computer, and we'll make sure that we're perfectly square, if you will, before we start the approach.

The tolerances, then, in those two surfaces must be pretty small.

It's within a couple of degrees, so it is pretty small.

There is another thing about the station that will be new and different on your mission, and that is that there will be a crew on board the station when you all arrive. That's going to be a first. Do you have any thoughts about the historic significance of being around for the first on-orbit handshake between a space shuttle commander and an ISS commander?

I really haven't thought about it yet. We've visited other stations before. We visited Mir on a pretty regular basis. I think Shep and the boys will be happy to see us. I mean, they will have been up there for four weeks at that point, and it'll be good to see another human face, I think. After we leave it's going to be another month and a half to two months before they get to see somebody different again. So, although we're only going to have the hatch open for a couple of days, it's going to be fun to see Shep, and I think he'll be happy to see us as well.

You raise a point that I want to ask you about, and that is that, for most of the time that you're docked to the station, the hatches will be closed and there won't be interaction between the two crews.

Right.

Can you explain why it is chosen to do that?

Yeah. Joe and Carlos are going to go out and do a space walk, and so what'll happen is the [air] pressure inside the shuttle will be less than the pressure that's inside the International Space Station. We'll actually lower the pressure in the [shuttle] to 10.2 psi, while in the station side it'll be at 14.7. And we do that because Joe and Carlos are going to get in their spacesuits, and when they get inside their spacesuits we lower the pressure even more. We run the risk of there being bends, and so we can make [the preparation for] our space walks much more efficient if we can lower the pressure. And because the pressure is different in the two vehicles, you can't open up the compartment between the two while we're doing the space walks.

Shortly after the docking occurs, work's going to begin onboard the shuttle to use the robot arm to raise your payload - the P6 structure - out of the payload bay. Tell us, first of all, why you're going to do that, and second, what you're going to do.

Well, we have the P6 back in the payload bay - this big truss with all the electronics on it and stuff. It is temperature-sensitive. It has to be maintained within a certain temperature region. When it's attached to the International Space Station, we're drawing power, and so we can maintain things at certain temperatures. But while it's back in the payload bay, it doesn't have any power to it, and so the way we maintain it in a certain temperature range is by exposing it to the sun at the right angles. And so we basically have a time limit - from when we're docked to the International Space Station we have to take the P6 out of the [orbiter's] payload bay. And we have to move it to a position we call the overnight park position, and we have four hours to get there. And so Marc - after we're docked and everything's settled down - [is] going to go into the payload bay, and he's going to grab P6. He's going to go through a series of maneuvers, and he's going to lift [the P6] - eighteen tons, thirty-six thousand pounds - out on the end of the arm. It's just going to be hanging out there overnight before we go out the next day for the EVA. And so I'll be backing Marc up on that. I'll be running the cameras to make sure he can see what he's doing. I'll be monitoring the arm on the computer to make sure it's moving the way it's supposed to be moving, and I'm basically backing him up during that whole procedure.

And, as you referred to, there is the first of two scheduled space walks that is to occur the day after you're docked to the station. And for a good portion of that space walk, you are going to be at the controls of the robot arm.

That's right. After the P6 is mated to the International Space Station, then we'll disconnect the arm from the P6. And now what'll happen is I'll get on the controls for the arm, and we'll actually put a foot restraint on it. And for the first EVA, Carlos will get into this foot restraint, and he's going to connect all the cables between the International Space Station and the P6. There [are] a lot of power cables. There [are] a lot of data cables, and it's all along one face of the International Space Station. And so, Carlos will get into this foot restraint, and then I'll just move him. He'll go down, and he'll pick up a cable. I'll move him back up, and he'll be able to attach it. And so, we'll work all the way around this face, and we'll get all these cables connected during the first EVA. On the second EVA, Joe has some big antennas to move around. He has some ammonia quick-disconnects that he needs to connect. We have a couple of other connections we need to make that are very difficult for them to reach just by free-floating while they're doing their EVA. And so what'll happen is they'll jump into this foot restraint we have on the end of the arm, and then, hopefully, I will quickly and efficiently move them to a position where they can do their job.

Let me get you to go back to the first space walk - and even before Joe and Carlos get out of the airlock. There's activity going on in the actual installation of your primary payload, and I don't want us to gloss over that. Describe what's going to happen that day.

Well, a lot of the activity actually happens after the P6 is attached because we're going to bring new power into the station, and in order to do that we have to kind of reconfigure the electrical system on the International Space Station. And Brent will primarily be doing that. He'll be going and making sure that the connections - we don't want Joe and Carlos doing any hot connections, and so we'll have to make sure that we power certain things down so that when they connect the wires there's not any electricity flowing through them. The other thing that'll be happening is we have a system on board called the Space Vision System, which allows us to see two objects using those cameras we talked about. And if you look at the station you'll see all these dots that are all over the place. Those are used by that Space Vision System to precisely locate where a certain payload is or where a certain structure is, and then using that information we can make sure that the pieces are lined up when Joe and Carlos are out there so that we can tighten 'em down. And I'll be running that system while Marc is attaching [the] P6 to the International Space Station.

There is another group of people who'll be in the neighborhood at the time. What are the Expedition [1] crew members doing on board the station during the space walk?

We're working in conjunction with them. I mean, we have a radio so we can talk to them, and we also are looking at the same laptops so that we can see the International Space Station systems - so we understand when they turn something off. We can also look at our laptop and say, "Yeah, we agree that that system is off or that that connector is unpowered."

As a part of this space walk - I guess it's still the space walk if this happens while your colleagues are still outside the airlock - [you] intend to actually deploy these solar arrays, [which are] more than one-hundred feet long. Continue the story, then, and tell us how that [occurs], and from your perspective, what do you think that's going to look like?

Well, once we have everything hooked up, we have to go through a long series of making sure that the arrays are ready to come out, that the boxes have unlatched, that the pins [held] everything in place during the launch because during this whole thing, this whole P6 has to be able to withstand the launch loads of three g's and so everything's held very tightly in place. And that's primarily what Joe and Carlos are doing is disconnecting all of these restraints, if you will. And once we're convinced all the restraints are disconnected and that we've got power running to the right boxes and that the computers are ready to go, then we'll go ahead and push a button to unfurl these huge solar arrays. Now it's going to be interesting. We're not going to be able to see it looking out the windows, like I described already, because we're going to be looking at Node 1 or at the docking mechanism. And so, we're going to be watching it on TV, just like everybody else. And I expect it will be this beautiful sight to see these huge solar arrays come out that will just dramatically change the external appearance of the International Space Station.

Is this something that is going to happen in a matter of minutes? Hours?

The actual deployment should take minutes. It's not going to take hours, and it's not going to take seconds. It's a nice, even pace all the way out. My analogy is they're the width of a football field, so it's just going to take a while at a pretty good pace to get out there. But it's not going to take hours once you start the deploy, and it won't take seconds. It'll be a couple of minutes for it to go from fully retracted to fully extended.

We know that no matter how many years of planning and hard work [go] into getting ready for a mission like this, there's always the possibility that something's not going to work the way you'd planned for it. There could be - in this case I guess - contingencies like the arrays not deploying or maybe only one of them deploying. What are the critical failure scenarios that have been considered for this, and what are you folks prepared to do to respond to them?

Well, part of what we're trying to do - and Joe and Carlos would know more of the specifics about what they can and can't do with the hardware - is we're trying to find out what is out there that could go wrong. And the way you do that - and the reason we're trying to deploy the arrays as early as we can - is it buys us more time on orbit to try and fix the problem. One of the schools of thought was, "Well, let's wait overnight, and we'll deploy them the next day and make sure that they work." The other school of thought was, "No, let's get them out right now so that we know that if we have to work any issues, we have time to do it because we have a limited amount of time on orbit, and then [we've got to] come back home." And so, the idea is to try and get as much done as early as you can so that you have more time later in the flight to try and fix the problem.

There is not a space walk scheduled for the day after the day we've been describing, but there is a lot of work to be done inside. Describe what's on the schedule for that next day of the mission.

It's actually a pretty easy day. We're going to do some loads analysis of the station and the shuttle together. We'll have the solar arrays out, and so, we'll take our cameras and point them at the solar arrays. Then we're going to fire some of the jets that are onboard the orbiter, and we're going to induce some loads into the International Space Station. Then we're going to measure how much deflection we see in those solar arrays, and from that we'll be able to see whether or not the models that we have here on the ground on how strong or how flexible the solar arrays are is accurate. And if it's accurate, great. If it's not, then we can go back and revise the model so we better understand the mechanics of the International Space Station. And that's the primary job that we're going to do between the first EVA and the second EVA.

Earlier you made some references to the second EVA and what's involved. This one involves not only connecting up the power supply but also some work configuring communications systems and setting the stage for missions to come. Let me ask you again to talk us through what's planned to occur during the second space walk.

The most important thing we're trying to do on the second EVA is relocate a communications antenna. It will have been down on the Z1 truss, real close to the Node, and we want to move it all the way up on top of [the] P6. And so, to do that we're going to use the arm. We'll get Joe on the arm, and he'll reach down and grab this thing and disconnect it. And once again, there's a time limit from when we disconnect it to when we have to have it reconnected, for thermal reasons. So, that's the major thing that we're going to do - the first thing that we're going to do - on the second EVA. Joe's going to have [this SASA antenna] on the end of the arm, and then he'll get on the elevator and ride all the way up the stack of the P6 and hand it off to Carlos, [who's] up there at the top of P6. And then they're going to reattach that stuff up at the top of P6. And then the next thing we need to do is, there's some ammonia lines that needed to be connected on the aft part of P6, and I'll have Joe on the arm, and I have to reach all the way around the stack. In fact, I can't even see him. I have to rely on him to make sure I'm not hitting structure. And Joe will be on the end of the arm, and he'll do all these quick-disconnects. Then I'll bring him down, and there's a centerline camera cable that needs to be connected that there's no handholds nearby for him to do that. So he'll use the arm, and he'll go ahead and connect the cables. And then the next thing they need to do is come back to the front of the P6 [where there are] these cables that they've been routing. But now they've got to get them out of the way for the 5A crew that's coming up. So they'll be making sure all the cables are tied down where they won't interfere with the folks on 5A, who are going to put the Lab on the end of the Node. And then after that, there's another Pressurized Mating Adapter, and there's a valve in the back of it that needs to be turned. Joe can't get that by climbing out and trying to reach in, and so we'll bring him over on the arm. And he'll reach in with his long arm - Joe's got real long arms - and he'll turn the valve real quick. Then from there, I'll drive him down into the payload bay, and he's going to pick up a bag with a bunch of electrical cables [in] it. Then he'll tie off that bag onto the end of the arm. And then he'll go up, and I'll meet him up on top with the bag. And he'll take the bag off the arm, and that's basically it. There's a lot of stuff going on, and I guess my job in the whole thing is to make sure that I don't slow those two guys down. We're on a timeline here, and they have to get in within a certain amount of time. And I don't want to be the reason that they're late, so I'm trying to learn how to do it the best I can, the most efficient way, such that they can do their job and not worry about whether or not I'll get them there on time.

I'm aware that in the vernacular, it's known as flying the arm.

Yes.

Is it like flying an airplane?

It's not like flying an airplane because when you fly an airplane, if you move the stick, you actually move. But this, I think, would be very similar to flying a remote airplane in that you're looking out the window, and you have a stick that allows you to do the rotation and a THC - something that allows you to translate into different directions. So, as you're looking out the camera, you can say, "Well, I want to move up or down or in and out and left and right," and so, it would almost be more like flying, I think, a remote airplane than it would be flying an airplane yourself. But it does require you to try and think in three dimensions and say, this is where I'm at, and this where I want to go. How can I get there the most efficient way.

The normal schedule for this mission calls for there to be two days of activities with the hatches open on both sides and the two crews interacting. Just in general, what goes on here. Is it supplies transfers, or more equipment to be installed?

I think that's the general idea is we've got the hatches open if they need some new supplies. They're not up there yet, so they don't know what they need. They'll get up there, and they'll figure out, "Oh geez, I wish we would have brought this," or "We could really use that," or "This piece of equipment broke." And so, we've got time during the two days to transfer stuff over there. If they need to change out some equipment and we need to bring something home, we have time to do that. And that's kind of what the time is scheduled for.

At the conclusion of those two days, whether they're all in joint operations or not, the six days of docked operations will be over, and it [will be] time to separate the two vehicles. The shuttle [will] let go and fly around and, as has become the custom, the Pilot will be at the controls. So you'll get the chance to fly the shuttle for - I guess - the second time in your career. Tell me about what goes on that day and the profile for the undocking and for the fly around, and what's the value of flying around a station you were just attached to?

Well, the first thing you want to do on the undocking day is make sure you have all the right people on the right side of the hatch before you close it. That's probably the most important thing. And then, for the undocking on STS-86, the reason we did the undock and the flyaround [was] they just had the collision between Progress and Mir, and we were trying to isolate where the leak was in Spektr. And so we did a flyaround. And basically a fly around is you fly the orbiter all the way around the top and back down to the bottom [of the station]. And we did that, and we were trying to take pictures to figure out where the leak was. Well, the primary reason that we're going to go ahead and do the flyaround here, on the International Space Station, is to document - for future flights and for future reference - what the station looks like. It's also to try and get a neat picture for the IMAX camera that we're taking up. We're actually taking up an IMAX camera, and it's going to be in the back of the payload bay of the orbiter. And so we're going to undock, and we're going to go down to four-hundred feet And then the goal of this whole flyaround is to get over here, on this side of the International Space Station, and we'll have the Earth back over on this side. We'll have the camera pointed just the right way where you have the Earth here, you have the International Space Station sitting here, here's the orbiter, and then we want the sun over in that direction. So, we get this big picture all lined up. And so that's what the goal of the whole flyaround is, and that's what we're planning it on. Now, we'll be able to take pictures of the International Space Station as we go all the way around it. We'll take pictures here, and then when we get to the top, we'll be able to pictures of the International Space Station against the Earth. And this one's kind of neat because on most flyarounds you can control it the whole way around. I mean, you can look out the window and you can say, "Oh, I need to be a little bit further out in front or a little bit further behind," and you can kind of adjust where [you are]. Well, with this flyaround - when we get around to about this point right here - we're going to go hands-off. And hopefully the whole thing will be set up such that, when we get out here, the orbiter will be pointed the correct way where we can pick up the International Space Station just as it breaks free from the Earth. So you'll see the station going across the blueness of the Earth, and then it'll get to the edge of the Earth and then you'll see the blackness of space between the Earth and the International Space Station. And with the sun back over here, we'll be able to see these bright solar arrays out there, and, hopefully, it'll be a really nice picture.

Your mission is a very important step to getting the International Space Station ready to do science, inasmuch as it's setting the stage for the delivery of the U.S. Lab on the mission that is to follow you. Finally, I'd like to get your thoughts, then, about the value of this station. What is it that you think that ISS is offering us as a laboratory in space, as a home in space, and as a place to test how we will go away from Earth in the future?

Well first, you have to step back, and you have to look at this whole project of building an international space station. When you stop and think about it, right now it's going to take sixty flights to get to the end of the International Space Station, and we're going to do those sixty flights over five years. So, we're talking, between us and the Russians, basically a flight a month up to the International Space Station for the next five years, which is a pretty ambitious goal. And it takes a lot of dedicated people and a lot of smart people in order to pull that thing off. Now, once we get up into space and we have this International Space Station built, we're going to have laboratories - a European laboratory, a Japanese laboratory, a U.S. laboratory and we'll also have the Russian laboratory. So we're going to have laboratories essentially from around the world working in an environment that we've never had the opportunity to work in before. And the potential for medical breakthroughs, for technology breakthroughs, for just working-with-other-people breakthroughs, is tremendous. And so we're going to, hopefully, harness that over the next five years, and nobody knows what will come out of this. We have some good ideas, and we have directions that we want to go. And so we're going to go test those theories and see if they work. We'll gather more information, and we'll make another decision about which way we want to go. But in the end, I think everybody here on Earth will be better because we've taken the time - the next five years - to build this huge orbiting laboratory.