Preflight Interview: Marc Garneau

The STS-97 Crew Interviews with Marc Garneau, Mission Specialist.

Q. Marc, I'd like to start with a couple of more personal questions, one that I'm sure you've gotten before. Why did you want to be an astronaut?

A. Well, it's very simple. I like adventure. I always thought that when I grew up I would want to do a job that involved not only using my brain but also my body. And that's one of the reasons I joined the Navy - because I thought it would be exciting, the opportunity to travel, to work in an environment that is sometimes difficult, always exciting. And from the Navy, the opportunity to become an astronaut seemed like a natural extension.

How did that happen? In your case, as a Canadian, while all the flying in space was being done by people from other countries, where did your opportunity present itself?

In 1983, NASA invited Canada to fly three payload specialists, in part because we had contributed the robotic arm that is used on the shuttle. And Canada decided at that time to run a competition nationwide, and I saw this ad in the newspaper, literally, and I said to myself, "Wow, this is an incredible opportunity. I don't want to miss it." I submitted my name and after about a six-month competition was lucky enough to be chosen as one of the first six astronauts in Canada.

What was it like for you to show up in Houston then?

It was a very interesting experience coming to Houston back in 1984. This is pre-Challenger, the early days of the shuttle program, and to be assigned to what would end up being about the 13th mission of the space shuttle - it was mission STS-41G… Two months before flight is when I turned up, and during those two months, as a payload specialist, I was familiarized with the shuttle to the extent that I needed to be familiar with it - knowing how to prepare meals, use the bathroom, use the communication system on board the orbiter, what to do in an emergency, getting out of the orbiter, that kind of thing. But as a payload specialist, I was primarily focusing on a group of science experiments that had been assigned to me. It was very exciting too. In fact, between the time I was selected and the time I flew only ten months went by. I was also aware of the fact that I was jumping ahead of the queue, to some extent, because some people who had been training here at NASA had been training for many years, and I would have the opportunity to fly. So it made me a little bit nervous, but, as it turned out, everything went very well.

The process, as you've described it, is all very quick. What was the competition like?

The competition was nerve-wracking, as a matter of fact. There were about four-thousand applicants in Canada. A lot of people wanted to become astronauts, and they had several stages in the competition. First of all, the usual thing of submitting a résumé, then writing an essay on why you wanted to be an astronaut and why you thought you would be a good candidate, then the medical exams that you had to go through, and eventually they whittled that down to about twenty people. And then they brought us to the Canadian headquarters, where the astronaut program was going to be run from. During a week, we were interviewed more extensively, and we had to appear in front of a panel - a very serious-looking panel - and give a presentation that lasted fifteen minutes. At that point, when I first applied, I said to myself, "I'll never be chosen," so I sort of didn't allow myself to get too excited. I said, "I have to apply because I really don't want to pass up this opportunity to apply for the most fantastic job in the world," but I knew that if I wasn't selected I could return to my previous job - which was a very nice job, by the way - without too much disappointment. But as the competition got closer and closer and the numbers got smaller and smaller, I realized that, when we were down to twenty, that if I didn't get selected it would really be a very hard blow because, by this time, I had allowed myself to dream that I might get selected. So, I was very nervous at the end, as were the final twenty people who were selected. I was very fortunate to be selected as one of six Canadian astronauts.

You mentioned a moment ago that you were in the Navy. Tell us about your academic background, your career path that led you to the point where you could be selected as an astronaut.

Well, my father was in the Army and we traveled quite a bit when I was growing up, and I thought that I would like to have a military career, although I was drawn more towards the Navy. I went to military college in Canada and graduated as an officer in the Navy but also as an engineer. I wanted to further my education, so I went on to get a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and came back and served about ten years in the Canadian Navy as what we call a combat systems engineer. It's ship duty where you are responsible for the electronics and the weaponry onboard the ship, and I was serving in Canadian destroyers. It was a very satisfying job because, as I mentioned before, I like variety in my job. I like having physical challenges as well as mental challenges. I like the opportunity to travel the world and work in close company with other people. I was very happy in that job. As it turns out, I had been posted to headquarters at that point and was looking forward to that job when this ad came out saying, "We're looking for Canadian astronauts."

Another question that many astronauts get asked by people like me is about the influences that got them to where they are. As you look back, can you identify the people who were the most significant influences in decisions that were made and choices that led you to be where you are today?

I think that the people who have had been the most influence on me in my life are not necessarily household names. Certainly, I can name people who have been inspirational in a general way, but probably more inspirational to me on a personal level are some of the teachers that I had when I was growing up, the teachers who inspired me and made me feel confident enough that I could do certain things in my life. They felt that I had the wherewithal to do it, if I tried hard enough and if I didn't allow myself to get discouraged, [that] I had the potential to reach a certain level. Those are the people, probably, that inspired me more than anything else, and I probably didn't realize it at the time. I've often thought about some of those people. There [are] only a few. If you're lucky enough in your life to have a handful of really fantastic teachers, you're a very lucky person. Those are the people that inspired me.

The Canadian Space Agency has been involved in the effort to build a space station since back in 1988, when it was President Reagan's Space Station Freedom. Take a couple of minutes and talk about the significance of Canada's contributions to this program - to the International Space Station - from hardware to software to manpower.

Canada and space are a natural fit. Canada's a huge country, so to be able to unite the country through communication satellite technology or to be able to observe it through remote sensing technology from space is a natural fit for a country like Canada. So Canada has had an interest in space right from the beginning, and, in fact, started to work with NASA almost forty years ago. In this particular case, it was all started with scientific inquiries and investigations into the ionosphere and the northern lights and the affect [they] had on communications. Because we formed strong links early on with NASA, and eventually with other countries, it became a natural fit for us to continue to work with them in the area of space technology. And when the shuttle program came along, Canada said, "We can make a contribution here," and actually solicited NASA to allow them to make that contribution - specifically, to build the robotic arm that would be used onboard the shuttle. And NASA said, "Fine. That's great. You design the arm, and we'll use it if it works properly." And it was first tried out in 1981 on the second shuttle flight. It worked very well. It's flown over fifty times and has worked very well every time since then. Because of the experience that we gained with robotics - with the shuttle arm, NASA, when the time came to create the International Space Station program, went back to Canada and said, "We have some more robotic requirements onboard the station. Are you interested in participating in that." Canada said "Yes, we'd like to. We think have some more advanced technology that we can use on the space station for the robotic arms that will be used there." And that is, in fact, the contribution that we are making. Canada's a small country, but we want to be a part of that exploration of space.

As we mentioned, you've been involved with the Canadian space effort since before the International Space Station effort has actually been under way. From that perspective, looking back, and having seen it happen over those years, can you describe the development of the working relationships between and among the various countries that are involved here?

I think it's been a very gradual maturing process in that relationship. NASA - there's no question about it - and Russia were the big boys. They had their own programs that covered virtually every aspect of space endeavor. Countries like Canada or Japan, were newer on the block and, in Canada's case, were not able to make huge contributions but wanted to be involved. I think the crux of the matter was that if we were going to become partners in, for example, the International Space Station, we had to gain the respect of a country like the United States and particularly its space organization, NASA. And I think that is what we have done. I think there are some very good scientists in Canada. I think the astronaut program has acquitted itself reasonably well, and it's through building up that rapport and showing that you're capable of doing the job that you gain respect. I think, through that mutual respect, that you become closer and closer. To the point where, today - compared to when I flew as a payload specialist where I felt a little bit like an outsider, a little bit of an invited guest - the astronaut corps, for example, [is] very tightly integrated with all of the other astronauts, not just the NASA astronauts but all of the astronauts. We really do feel like we're one team.

You have been a part of a team of five that, unlike many recent shuttle crews, has had more than two years together to train for this mission. What has that been like for you? Has it been difficult to keep your focus or your concentration when the goal - the launch date - continues to move away from you?

It is a challenge to have your launch date slip continuously. When I trained for my first flight, I trained for two months as a Payload Specialist. For my last flight, it was a nine-month process, and that is really an optimal process for a shuttle stand-alone flight. Now, of course, for the station, it is more complicated, but two years is more than you normally train. It is a challenge in the sense that NASA, over the years, has developed a training system and a training rate and rhythm that [are] optimized towards peaking at the moment of launch, and if you find that the goalposts are continuously moved to the right you have to recalibrate yourself because you don't want to peak too early. Because then you run the risk of burnout or fatigue or being less than at your optimum capability. So, yes, it is a sort of a readjustment every time it comes, as well as being, naturally, a disappointment. We have a feeling at this point, though, that the goalposts aren't going to move very much anymore, so we're very excited. And I think we have adjusted our training so that we will peak.

Let's get into the details, starting with something of a summary if I could. Summarize the goals of STS-97. What is it that your mission is going to do? What is the significance of the hardware that you are bringing to the International Space Station?

STS-97 is one of the assembly missions of the International Space Station, and, in our particular case, we are bringing up the first pair of large solar arrays that will be used on the station to power it. Up until now the station has been - if you look at it - a series of modules. When we bring up the first pair of solar panels, you're going to see a remarkable transformation in the appearance of the station. These solar arrays really do look like large wings, and they will supply approximately twenty kilowatts of power to the station. The station is primarily designed to be a science laboratory. It needs power to perform the experiments and for the housekeeping to keep that crew alive and well during the time that they're up there. They need power. We are bringing up these first solar arrays. They will be placed on a structure called the P6, which is a truss structure, and that will be in our payload bay. We will rendezvous with the station, dock with it, use the arm of the shuttle to take the P6 payload out of the bay, and we will position it directly above another part of the station, called the Z1 structure. And at that time, two of our astronauts will go out and do a space walk, and they will sit at the corners of the interface of the P6 with the Z1. And they'll say "OK, bring it down. Bring it down. Bring it down," and I will be operating the arm. I will bring it down, and they'll say "Stop." Then they will literally connect the four corners. Now, at that point, you've got a physical interface, but it's useless to you unless you connect all the cables, as well, between the two structures. So, during two EVAs, my colleagues, Joe Tanner and Carlos Noriega, will go out and do space walks and connect everything up together. And then after that's done we'll have a short visit with the crew that will already be on the station, and that'll be very interesting because we'll be the first visitors to an inhabited station. And then shortly after that we'll have to say goodbye. We'll undock, and we'll come home.

You started to do it. Let me get you to expand a bit on the hardware itself, the P6 Integrated Truss Structure. It has a number of components within it. Tell us what they are and what part they play in providing electricity to the station.

OK. The P6 structure - P means "port," by the way, because, if you've looked at a picture of [the station], there's a huge truss structure that goes from the left to the right, or port to starboard, and spans the entire width, if you like, of the station, and each segment has a number, and we are "port 6" - so that segment is the one that we are bringing up. Now, it has an Integrated Electronics Assembly, which essentially is the solar panels that I've mentioned to you, and their job is to take that solar energy and make it available to the station. Now, of course, when you're up in space, you go into night, and you go into day. And when you're in, at night, you're not going to get the sun's energy, so what you have to do is, during the day while the solar panels are being inundated by the sun's energy, you're also at the same time charging up some batteries. And there's a huge number of batteries that are on this structure which will be charging up during the daytime, so that they, then, can take over during the night and supply the necessary power. Well, all of this requires some fairly sophisticated electronics. There are some computers that do that task of taking care of charging and discharging the batteries at the right moments and also pointing those arrays so that they're always facing the sun. At the same time, on board the station, you have to concern yourself with excess heat buildup. Later on, when the Lab is attached on the following mission, they will have a laboratory that will be generating a lot of heat. To get rid of that heat, which is extremely important, you have to use what we call Thermal Control Systems. We use radiators to do this, a little bit like the radiator in your car, which draws the water that circulates through the engine in your car, goes back to the radiator, and the radiator gets rid of that excess heat and the process continues. Well, we have to do the same thing with the Thermal Control Systems that are on the P6. They have ammonia, and their function is to draw away the heat from other parts of the station, pass them through the radiators, and the radiators, which are like big fins, will radiate it out into space.

The station that has been flying has solar arrays on it right now. The solar array wings that you're bringing [are] immensely bigger. Is it right, do you think, to say that [the addition of that capability] would make the station electrically self-sufficient for research and for life support?

The solar arrays that we bring up to the station will supply about twenty kilowatts of power. And in supplying the Lab, which goes up on the following mission, yes, we could say, in a sense, that the station of that size will be self-sufficient because this is an enormous, incremental addition of power for the station. So, yes, if the station stayed that small that pair of solar arrays plus the solar arrays that are on the two Russian modules would probably do the trick. However, the station's going to grow, and eventually, three other similar pairs of solar arrays will be added to the station during its five-year construction.

Of course, in order for you and your crewmates to successfully complete the goals of your mission, you've got to bring Endeavour and the space station together on orbit, flying a rendezvous that is different than previous rendezvous to this station, and even docking in a different place. You will be the first. Talk us through what happens on rendezvous day, and talk about what part you play as part of this team on board Endeavour.

Rendezvousing with the station is, of course, a critical prerequisite to doing all the work that we want to do. We have to dock to the station before we can do anything else. It's a real challenge. In my particular case, it'll be my first time actually docking to a station. I have rendezvoused, on my previous mission, with a satellite that was sitting there and grabbed it with the arm, but this time we have to very precisely connect with the station, and the tolerances are very small. Fortunately, we have a really top-notch commander and pilot who are able to very precisely fly. Remember, the station and the orbiter - the shuttle - are moving along at about 18,000 miles an hour, so what we have to do is very precisely guide the orbiter to come up underneath the station and very slowly connect to it. They're going to be connecting at about a rate of about 0.1 foot per second. That's how that final sort of closing in is done, but you've got to be precisely aligned in terms of what we call yaw and pitch and roll so that the interfaces will properly mate together and we won't have the possibility of bouncing off, which wouldn't be a good thing.

What's your part? What will you be doing?

My role during the rendezvous will be to operate a system that we use on board called RPOP, and essentially what it does is it uses sensor data that we have. We have a radar on board to help guide us to the station, and we also have a laser system on board, one that is handheld and one that is automatic and works in the cargo bay, and we use that laser to measure our distance and our speed relative to the station as well as our angular attitude or position with respect to the station. All of that sensor data is brought into a small laptop computer, and a pictorial display is provided to the Commander and the Pilot so that they know exactly where the orbiter is relative to the station. My job is to keep that laptop up to date, so that they can continuously refer to it, and it helps them as one of their guidance tools to come in and do the docking.

You made a reference earlier to the fact that [when] you arrive at the station, there will be a crew on board it for the very first time. Do you have any thoughts about the historic nature of, when it happens, that first on-orbit handshake between a space shuttle Commander and an ISS station Commander and of being there to see it?

You know, I've thought about the name "shuttle" many times over the years. The name "shuttle," I think, was originally chosen because it was meant to represent a "shuttle" going from Earth to a station, and an inhabited station. So in a sense this will be the first time that the space shuttle is shuttling between Earth and an inhabited station where we're going up to help reprovision them while we're also building the station. So, in a sense, it's the beginning of what the shuttle was originally intended to do, which is to go up and shuttle between the Earth and a space station.

And yet it's somewhat ironic that while there will be a crew on board the station for the first time, for most of the time that you're there, the hatches between the two vessels will be closed. Explain the reason for that.

A lot of people ask you, why is it that you don't open the doors as soon as you get there and spend your whole time going back and forth between the station and the shuttle, and the reason is very simple. The pathway between the orbiter and the station involves the airlock, and the airlock is where we put our space walkers - our crew members who are going to go out and do space walks - when we need to send them out to do some work outside. And, of course, that airlock goes from ordinary pressures, such as the ones we are living at inside the shuttle, down to [the] vacuum of space. And so, it's not practical for us to keep repressurizing that and reopening hatches continuously throughout the mission. It's better for us, in our case, to get the two EVAs done and then, once the airlock is repressurized for good to a normal pressure, open up all the doors.

Now, shortly after the docking is completed work is going to begin on board the shuttle with the payload to, in fact, raise this P6 structure out of the payload bay with you at the controls of the robot arm to do it. Tell us, first, the reason for this activity to occur at all. And then, what do you have to do? What's going to happen that day for you to complete this task?

Very shortly after we rendezvous, my job will be to take the P6, with the arm, out of the payload bay and position it overhead in what we call an overnight park position. And the reason for this is thermal in nature. There is a possibility that we will exceed certain thermal limits - temperature limits - on the P6 if we just leave it in the bay. And so, in a sense, positioning it directly above the bay in this overnight position - because it's only the next day that we're going to connect it to the station - is a way to keep its temperature within the required range so that we don't damage any of its components.

As we try to think about what this looks like, is it a simple matter of you, at the end of your virtual arm, reaching in and grabbing this and plucking it out of the payload bay?

Moving the P6 - unberthing it and positioning it in its overnight park position - is a challenge because you can't just lift it vertically up. If you lift it vertically up, you're going to bang into the station, and we definitely don't want to do that on our mission. So, in a sense, I refer to it as taking your foot out of a shoe. You actually will lift it up a little bit, and then you will take it in a curved path away from you and tilt it up so that it clears some structure - what we call the PMA-2 on the station. Then you'll be in a position to put it in its overnight park position. But it is a more difficult maneuver because of the fact that there are obstructions there, and it's also very new in the sense that it's a very large structure that you have to move very slowly.

The first of those two EVAs comes the day after docking, as you and your crewmates deliver and install the primary payload of the mission. I want you to, first, tell us about what you're going to be doing during the space walk, and then, second, take us with you and talk us through what's going to happen and the different tasks that are to be completed during that day.

When EVA day one begins, the P6 will basically be in a position about three feet above the Z1, three feet above the place where it's going to be mated. It'll be sitting there and waiting for Joe and Carlos to come out the door and go and position themselves there so that they can help guide the P6 down to its proper interface. At that point, I will still be operating the arm, but as soon as it's brought down and Joe and Carlos have had a chance to bolt the four corners, I will switch into a different role. I will become the IVA person. IVA, in NASA terminology, means intravehicular person. What it really means is that I'm the person up there helping to guide Joe and Carlos through their EVA because they can't take their procedures out with them. Now, if everything goes well they can do their procedures by heart without me saying a thing, but if we fall behind in the timeline or if we come up against some problem that we hadn't planned for and we have to recalibrate certain things in terms of schedule or reprioritize, that's where I'm going to earn my dollars because as soon as you start that EVA, the clock is running. You have a fixed amount of time that you can be out there, and if you fall behind the time schedule, you're going to have to, perhaps, drop something in favor of something else. They may also want to call me to ask me, "Well, what's the setting for this tool?" And I've got that information right in front of me. "OK, where do I go next?" or, "Are you ready for me to do this?" I'm sort of their voice, their contact person on the flight deck as they perform their EVA tasks.

OK. Let's begin as they've gone out the airlock and you're at the controls of the arm with the P6 hovering above the station.

The P6 is hovering three feet above the Z1 interface, and at that point, Joe and Carlos are at the corners. And they say "OK, bring it down." I very slowly, controlling the arm, will bring it down. Now, if there are any necessary corrections because it's not perfectly aligned, they will say, "You need to bring it to the right," "You need to bring it to the left," [or] "You need to pitch it down or pitch it back." And, in fact, if it looks like the alignment is really quite poor, we have decided we will stop twelve inches above that interface, let things settle out, make the final corrections because twelve inches from that interface it's easier for them to tell precisely how much misalignment. It's a little more of a challenge for them to do that when it's at three feet, but they essentially will be guiding it down. We will also be using the Space Vision System to help us do it. If it works properly Joe and Carlos will have virtually nothing in terms of corrections to add to the process, and we will be able to just bring it straight down. It'll work perfectly. We definitely want them there to say, "Stop!" because we don't want the P6 to hit the station. We want to stop it three inches above it. At that point, when we reach that, Carlos will go and close a claw, which will grab a bar on the P6 and cinch it down, if you like, to mate the actual interface. This is a very slowly closing claw that, in a very controlled way, brings the P6 down to mate with the Z1. Then, they will go to the four corners and literally bolt the four corners. Those are the principal interfaces. Once they have done that, then we can say the P6 is mated to the station. However, none of the cables that join the two are mated, so that's one of the tasks that has to be done during the EVA. And then Joe and Carlos will go right up to the very top of the P6 and they're going to, in Joe's particular case for example, unbolt some bolts that are holding the blanket boxes in place. Blanket boxes contain the solar panels. To get you through launch, you have to bolt these things down very solidly because of the tremendous launch loads that you have to survive. Once you get up into space, you have to remove all these artificial restraints that have been holding down the blanket boxes. So, they will go and remove the blanket box bolts so that now the blanket boxes will be free to move, and then there're also some other restraints on what we call the beta gimbal assemblies, again for launch purposes. They will remove those bolts, and then we'll be in a position to launch those blanket boxes out and, in fact, open them up so that they're facing in the proper direction. And then our Commander, Brent Jett, will actually be able to, through a laptop computer, deploy these solar arrays. So, without Joe and Carlos removing all those launch restraints and putting the blanket boxes in position, there's nothing that we can do in terms of deploying the arrays.

Do you have any sense of what it's going to look like from your vantage point on the flight deck at the time these wings are deployed?

It's going to be an absolutely incredible sight. Unfortunately, we don't have a direct sight because we look out through our upper windows, and we're looking at [the] station. We have no direct viewing, so what we depend on are two cameras that are at the back of the payload bay that we will point up towards the structure. We will also have a big IMAX camera - a three-dimensional IMAX camera - in the back of the bay that will also be looking at this, so it should be a tremendous photograph when these very large arrays. We'll do one at a time, and it takes about thirteen minutes for one array to deploy itself. The arrays themselves are really gigantic. Tip to tip, we expect a span of about 240 feet. Nothing like this has ever been done. I think, as I say, the station will look tremendous. It'll be visible from the ground as a very bright object in the night sky.

While you all are doing this job, there are crew members on board the station. Do they have a role to play during this space walk as well?

Absolutely. There are certain functions that are performed by the crew on board the station and certain functions that are performed by the ground, and certain functions are performed by the crew on the shuttle. The principal tasks that we perform on the shuttle are those where we're the only ones who really have the the necessary views. For example, deploying the solar arrays, deploying the radiators, we're the only ones who can directly see it and stop it if a problem occurs. However, the whole process of getting ready for using those solar arrays to provide power to the station is a very complicated one. When you first deploy those solar arrays, you have to then start the process of charging the batteries and enabling all the circuit paths that are going to be required to make it operate properly. And because these solar arrays will belong to that station crew after everybody's gone, they have to be very familiar with how to operate [them], and they're going to do quite a bit of that job of getting the whole thing to work properly.

On the question of working properly: despite all the work and the planning that's gone into this, there's always the possibility that something may not go exactly as it was planned. Arrays may not deploy or not deploy fully or whatever. What are the critical failure scenarios that are considered here, and what are the plans for responding to them?

When NASA prepares for a mission, it spends 90 percent of its time agonizing over the "What if this happened?" types of problems, and obviously, from our point of view, there are a number of critical stages - milestones - in terms of doing our mission properly. The first is having the requirement to bolt the P6 to the station. We need to have bolts that line up properly between the P6 and the structure to which it's going to be mated because of the fact that once it's connected, you fire thrusters on board the station to reorient it. It's got to withstand those loads. We don't want to have a shaky interface. So the precise alignment of all those bolts, so that we can properly torque them down to the proper values, is the first big, critical milestone. The second one, obviously, is the fact that when we come to deploy those solar arrays, we need them to deploy. If [the solar arrays] don't deploy completely, there's been a huge amount of studying done to see whether a partly-deployed solar array can withstand the thruster firings that exist on board the station because, when we properly deploy them completely, we actually tension them. So, they're quite taut at the end of their deploy sequence. If they're not fully taut, then there's a certain amount of slop in them, and we worry that we could damage them with thruster firing. So, there has been a lot of analysis done to do that. More importantly, if your solar arrays only deploy 50 percent, you have got a considerable reduction in the power available on board the station, so if we are actually in the situation where we can't deploy, we run into a problem. It stops. There'll be a lot of troubleshooting done - probably an attempt to re-stow and then re-deploy - and, if that doesn't work, then we're going to have to be looking at some in-flight maintenance. We have some procedures in our back pocket, if you like, for the EV crew members to go up and do certain things, if necessary - for example, if the blanket boxes don't open up properly to allow that deployment. But the connecting of the P6 to the Z1 and the deployment of the solar panels are probably the two items that preoccupy us the most and that could have some very serious implications if they don't work. If we can't connect the P6, we have to bring it back.

The day after that first space walk, there is not a space walk planned but there is a lot of activity for you and your crewmates on board. Talk about the jobs that are scheduled for that day, in between the space walks.

Well, after the first space walk, we will be spending time getting ready for the second space walk, and, when you've finished an EVA, you don't just hang your suit up and walk away from it and jump into it the next day. The next time you do an EVA, you have to properly recharge batteries. You have to clean it out. You have to basically fix it up so that it's going to be ready for the next one. And there are also some new tools that will be required on the second day that weren't required on the first day, so it's very much a day when you, essentially, address yourself towards preparing for the following EVA. It also allows the crew who've done a space walk, which is very tiring, to hopefully recharge their own batteries so that they won't be too fatigued when they go out to do that second space walk.

Let's talk about that second space walk, planned for Flight Day 6, which involves further connecting some of the hardware that you have brought up. Again, talk us through that day. You said, I think, that you will not be operating the arm on the second space walk. What will you be doing while Joe and Carlos go out for the jobs of the second space walk?

When the second space walk occurs, my job is purely the IVA crew member, so I'll be doing the talking with Joe and Carlos as they go through the various steps - the various procedures - on their second space walk. One of the big jobs that they have to do is to reposition an antenna which was brought up by the previous crew and left on the Z1 structure. And they will actually take that structure and move it all the way up to the top of the P6, and they'll do this by means of a handover. Joe will initially disconnect the antenna from the Z1, and he'll be on the arm. The arm will stretch as far as it can go vertically, but it can only go partway up the structure. Carlos will be waiting for him at that point. Joe will hand the antenna over to Carlos. He'll then get out of the arm, and then he'll help to rotate Carlos, who's facing down towards the Earth holding the structure, to face up towards the heavens. So, he'll actually rotate him in this foot restraint and then he'll get into another foot restraint a little bit further up, actually, in the final position. And they'll do another handover to each other until they're at the very top of the structure. It must be an incredible view from up there, but they're focusing on their job. And Joe will actually connect the SASA antenna, to the structure up there. That's one of the important jobs that they're going to do. They also have to do some cable repositionings between PMA-2 and the Node. PMA-2 is going to be removed by the crew that follows us, and they're going to use the arm to do it. Well, when you disconnect a PMA, you don't want a whole bunch of cables still connected to the station. So Carlos will be disconnecting a lot of those cables so that the follow-on crew - mission 5A, STS-98 - will be able to just grab it and essentially move it to another position. So they've got that kind of a job to do as well. There are some smaller jobs, such as connecting cables in various places, closing an equalization valve, that kind of thing, repositioning a bag full of contingency cables. [There are] an assortment of different jobs and, if they're ahead of the timeline, some jobs that will make the next crew's job a little bit easier.

On the next day, the day after that second space walk, is the time when the hatches on both sides of PMA-3 are scheduled to be opened and for the two crews to be together. You guys have anything special planned for that?

We do have something that we want to do. We haven't fully fleshed it out. This is an historic moment. We are going to be the first to meet up with an inhabited station. The crew, hopefully, will be very happy to see us. They'll have been up there roughly a month, and so, it seems to me - and we all agree - that we must do something special. We haven't fleshed it out exactly. It'll probably be something fairly low-key, but something that, possibly, might even start a tradition.

The schedule, as it exists today, calls for two days of joint operations inside the shuttle-station complex. At this point, what's planned to go on - specific activities, general activities, flexible time?

In terms of specific activities, during the time when the airlock is open, there are relatively few things to do. We will have transferred a lot of things on Flight Day 3 into PMA-3 for the crew to get access to. They will have a bunch of things that they will want us to return, which, because the station has a tendency to get cluttered if you're not careful, they will want us to bring back down to Earth. And some things are actually on the transfer list, specifically, for us to bring back. So, that's a relatively small thing. There will also be an opportunity to do a little bit of filming - from our point of view - to film the inside of the station, and also for the ISS crew, perhaps, to film us talking and working together. The reason it's a fairly large period of time is because of the possibility that we could unexpectedly have to do an additional EVA, so it's not a fully-structured period of time because of the possibility that it could be cut short. So, because we will have done most of the transfer on Flight Day 3, we expect that our time in the station after the second EVA will be a fairly relaxed time.

And when that time ends, six days of docked operations are over and it's time to separate these two vehicles. Describe what happens as the shuttle departs the station and flies around it, and talk about the value to be gained from flying around and looking at something you were just docked to.

When we depart the station, we do what we call an undocking maneuver, and this is like the rendezvous, where you come up and dock to the station. In this case, you're going in the opposite direction, and we now do what we call a flyaround. A flyaround essentially is separating from the station and going down perhaps 400 feet and then staying in an arc about four-hundred feet away from the station and going all the way around it. It's a good opportunity for us to have a good look at certain parts of the station that we cannot see in any other way, for example, perhaps the tops of the solar arrays - parts of the solar arrays, that kind of thing. [We] just generally look at it, but, to be honest with you, it's also a fantastic opportunity to get some great film, to show what the station will look like. And it will look dramatically different when we do that flyaround because suddenly there'll be these enormous solar arrays sticking out, perpendicular, so there'll be three dimensions to the station as opposed to it being a series of modules. There will now be a big P6 structure on top of it and spreading out. Perpendicular to the modules will be these large solar arrays. So, one of the main reasons we're doing this flyaround is to take that opportunity to capture, on film, the newest look of the International Space Station.

STS-97 is a very important step in getting this space station ready to do science, inasmuch as it sets up for the arrival of the U.S. Lab on the mission that follows you. Finally, I'd like to get you to talk about what you see ISS offering us as a laboratory in space, as well as a home in space and a place to learn about how to move out into space.

When I think of the International Space Station, I think that its greatest role will be as a science laboratory, and I say this because people often ask, "What is the purpose of the International Space Station?" You're going to have a crew up there all the time. You're going to have a bunch of scientific experiments. The analogy I like to give is that I think we all have this stereotypical image of a laboratory down here on Earth where people in white lab coats are working twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week, continuously, sometimes, for years, before they come up with a product that is truly innovative and that is useful to mankind. If you look at pharmaceuticals or other areas - process materials, that kind of thing - it's a continuous process. If you went inside a research laboratory where this goes on, you'd see that there are many more failures than there are successes, but eventually it leads you down the right path. Now, on board the shuttle you can perform certain experiments and learn things in a short time frame, but what we really need - and what I think was the main impetus for building the International Space Station - is a laboratory that can work on a continuous, round-the-clock basis for a long period of time, where there is interaction directly between the scientists on the ground and the crew members helping to perform the experiment. But primarily, what is driving the experiment is the brain of the scientist back down on the ground. That, to me, is what we really want to obtain with the International Space Station, and I think that is what we are going to be able to do. Of course, what is unique about space is microgravity. You can't get it anywhere else, and so to have this permanent laboratory up in space, I think, will lead us to some very important discoveries.