Preflight Interview: Brent Jett

The STS-97 Crew Interviews with Brent Jett, Commander.

Q: Brent, you're getting ready to lead a crew of astronauts to the International Space Station…let's talk a bit about how you got to that position. Why did you want to be an astronaut?

A: Well, I can remember as a child I always wanted to fly…and at some point as a, you know, early teenager, I guess, that sort of focused on becoming a Navy pilot, and then I really, my goal was to become a Navy carrier pilot. And that eventually evolved, later in life, to a goal of wanting to be a test pilot. After I achieved that goal that's the first time I actually even thought about becoming an astronaut. I did not dream of it as a child; I think when we saw the Apollo astronauts walk on the moon it just seemed like an unreachable goal for me, as a child. So, it wasn't until I was at Pax River working as a test pilot and had a chance to come down here to JSC, be hosted by the Astronaut Office, and really see up close and firsthand what the job of an astronaut entailed, that's when the desire really set in for me to apply and try to become an astronaut.

I was wondering whether or not you might have been influenced by other Navy fliers who were astronauts. Talk about that and the path of your career that led you to finally becoming an astronaut.

Well, I think my career path was fairly typical for most of the pilots who come here via the military: graduated from the Naval Academy, went through flight training after my first tour of duty in a squadron. I went to the Postgraduate School and Test Pilot program-it's a cooperative program-it's kind of interesting, though, I remember checking out of my first squadron. I was actually walking out the door that day, getting ready to drive across the country from Virginia Beach to California, to Monterey, [when] one of the department heads in our squadron who ran the Administrative Department handed me an Instruction as I was walking out the door. And he said, "I think you're going to need this someday." And I looked at it, and it was the Navy Instruction on applying for the astronaut program. And I hadn't really thought of it up to that point because, you know, I was really focused on going to Test Pilot School and in completing that, but I stuck it in my briefcase and I kept it, and a couple of years later I pulled it out and looked at it and got the updated version and ended up applying. So that was, you know, the first real thought that came across my mind about becoming an astronaut. But I'm very fortunate, you know. The Navy's paid for my training. They've sent me through not only undergraduate school and graduate school but also all my flight training, my test pilot training. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the Navy and the education and training that they've given me.

You've referred to at least one, if not a couple of people-tell me about some of the people in your life that you consider to be the, for lack of a better descriptive term, the most significant influences in your life, in making you who you are.

Well, of course, my parents. My wife, Janet, has had a big influence on me in the last eight years; my brothers and sisters. But I think if you look back in your life there's always a few decisions you've made that sort of shape your life, and maybe at the time you make those decisions you're not the wisest person in the world, and a lot of times other people are helping you or at least giving you some guidance, and I've had a few of those. I think my decision to go to the Naval Academy was a big one in my life…there were a couple of Naval officers that I talked to, one particular one was a professor at the University of Florida. I remember his name-he was a lieutenant at the time-Horton, Lieutenant Horton, and he went on to become a Navy lawyer, I think, later in his career. But he was a Naval Academy graduate, very impressive, and you know, he spent a lot of time with me, sort of convincing me that that was really the right decision for me to go to the Naval Academy. You know, I have had several of my early commanding officers in squadrons…as a young pilot you go through a lot of, sort of ups and downs, you know. It's pretty typical for all the new pilots and, you know, the commanding officers have a lot to do with shaping how you handle some adversity and how you develop in your career, and I was fortunate to have some really great ones early on that influenced me positively and-you know, just as much as wanting to stay in the Navy and not get out and do something differently-you know, those types of influences are very important.

Are they influences that you've tried to apply as you have become a commander?

Well, I think you know, everybody, when they're put in a position of leadership, thinks back on their experiences and the people they have observed and served under, and you try to take those things about the leaders you've served under that worked, or you think would work for you, and incorporate those, and when you see, you know, things that you don't feel work very well and would not work for your leadership style. You try to avoid those so, I think that's fair to say that my leadership style and just about anyone's, would be reflective of their experiences.

You've been the Commander of a group of five men who've had more than two years together now to train for this space shuttle mission. What's that been like? Has it been hard at all to keep your focus or concentration as your targeted launch dates kept slipping further away?

Well, I guess I'll wait till you ask the rest of the crew that question and then I'll see how good a Commander I've been. I mean, one of the jobs as a Commander is, you know, to keep your crew focused, make sure you don't train too early, peak too early. Preparing for a shuttle mission is a little bit tricky because you know towards the end of your training flow there are going to be a lot of things that are going to be required to be done late, and there're going to be a lot of changes so you need to, just like a team-a football team or a basketball team-as you're going through the season you need to make sure you're really on your game at the end. So, with our crew we have, like you said, five individuals who have fairly similar backgrounds-all of us have military backgrounds-and we all get along really well. There hasn't been a huge leadership challenge of trying to make sure people get along or make sure people do their jobs; obviously everyone on the crew is so highly motivated that sometimes it's telling them to go home and you know, not be at work [that] is really part of my job. But the challenge really has been to make sure that we are ready at the right time to fly. And I'll be interested to see what the other guys have to say when they come in.

In your history as an astronaut your previous shuttle missions have had heavy international involvement-both in Japan, in the case of your first flight, and Russia in the case of your second-and you spent time in Russia as Director of Operations before you began training for STS-97. From that background, how have you seen the relationships evolve between and among all of the different countries that are involved in ISS?

Well, I'd have to say that the relationship I've had the most opportunity to observe closely is the relationship between NASA and the Russian Space Agency having been over in Russia and spent some time there; I was there at a time when we were pretty much transitioning from the end of the Shuttle/Mir Program into the ISS Program. And, to be honest, it was a little bit of a growing pain for us at the time. During Shuttle/Mir the Russians were used to doing things a certain way, and as we progressed to ISS we knew there were going to be changes in the way things were done. And I think that is the biggest improvement that I've seen, and the biggest change, is how the two mission control centers work together. The relationship between our flight directors and their flight directors is very strong. I think there's a certain amount of trust that exists now between the two control centers, and I'm convinced that if we had not done Phase 1 and built those relationships with the Russians and the Russian Space Agency, that we wouldn't be nearly as successful in ISS as we have been at this point.

Let's talk about this specific mission. And we'll go into more detail but, first, can you summarize for us the goals of STS-97: what is your mission going to do? What's the significance of the hardware that you and your crew are bringing to orbit?

Well, that's an easy one. We have a very specific goal: we're going to deliver, assemble, and activate the U.S. electrical power system for the station. It's a critical capability, it's needed to continue the [building] of the station, and it's also going to be needed to keep the crew up there because we will be unable to keep the crew up and continue to build the station without the electrical power from P6.

"P6" is the piece of hardware-the P6 Integrated Truss Structure. P6 refers to a location on the station, or its ultimate location on the station?

It does refer to its ultimate location on the station, and that's just the name that's been sort of adopted for our payload.

Let's talk about the cargo and the components thereof. We are going to end up seeing huge, giant-choose your "large" adjective-solar arrays that are going to be the first step in the system of providing electrical power. Can you walk us through that and describe how the parts that you're bringing are going to supply, are going to create this electrical system?

Yes, that's a good question. I like to think of P6 in terms of how it operates. You can describe all the hardware and where it is and what it's attached to, but I like to think of P6 as two power channels and a thermal control system as well as a couple other auxiliary pieces of equipment which we can talk about later. But two power channels- each of those power channels consists of a large solar array wing; that wing is over a hundred feet long, actually it's about a hundred and seventeen. That solar array wing collects energy from the sun, converts it to electricity…at that point, that electricity can be used by the station and it can also be stored into three, well, actually six batteries per channel. We like to think of them as three battery sets, but it's actually six batteries. Once that power's converted and used, any time you generate power you have to dissipate the heat that comes along with that, so along with the two power channels is a a Thermal Control System. It's called the photovoltaic thermal control system, or PVTCS, and this Thermal Control System specifically cools the hardware that is associated with generating the power-it doesn't cool any of the hardware, other hardware associated with station. So, I mean that's the easiest way for me to think of P6: it's two big power channels and a thermal control system to cool the equipment.

You mentioned a moment ago that this is required in order to be able to keep a crew on board the station all the time. Is this hardware, is it right for us to think of it as something that makes the station self-sufficient, forever?

Well, I don't really think of the station as self-sufficient…you know, it requires resupply. There are…actually until we get to the end of Phase 2, I would have a hard time saying the station is self-sufficient. It's a critical capability in getting towards that goal of, at the end of Phase 2, where we have a viable station other than, you know, resupply of food and some water and those types of things. It's fairly robust in its ability to handle failures. It has an excellent science capability at that point. So I'd say it's a critical, you know, P6 is a critical capability which is required to reach that goal of self-sufficiency at the end of Phase 2.

Is it fair to say that it makes the station self-sufficient in terms of energy generation?

Well, with the current configuration that we're planning for Phase 2, it will provide more than adequate power. Now, as we expand and bring up other modules-the Japanese module, the European module-then we need to bring up the other six power channels. But for the Phase 2 configuration, it is self-sufficient for power.

A large step in the success of your flight is getting Endeavour and ISS connected together on orbit, and you're going to be approaching the station differently than the Commanders who've flown previous ISS missions have done-you're even going to dock to a different place. And I say "you" because you are going to be at the controls of the shuttle at the critical parts of this. Talk us through the plan for rendezvous and docking-describe what's going to happen and what you will be-and with highlight, if you will-of what you will be doing during that day.

Actually, the rendezvous we're going to fly, the rendezvous profile we're going to fly was actually flown during the Shuttle/Mir Program so we have some history with that. It's different than what has been done on the previous ISS missions, so we're actually digging out some of the old, old procedures and going back and dusting those off and tweaking them, updating them a little bit. The biggest difference that you'll see in our rendezvous from the last few missions as we approach the station from below instead of initiating a maneuver to take us around to the top of the station to dock, we will essentially swap ends of the orbiter. We will, instead of flying nose forward, we will maneuver and do a maneuver that puts the tail of the orbiter forward, and that orients us, puts us in the proper orientation for docking, and then we will just continue up from below the station to dock to PMA-3. The way we will be handling things in the cockpit is pretty standard for most of the crews. I will take over manual control of the vehicle at about two-thousand feet from the station, and from that point I'll be flying the vehicle based on what I see out the window and what information I'm getting from my other crewmates. I'll be getting range and range rate information through a laser-a trajectory control system laser-that if it's working gives us very precise information. If that's not working, Carlos will be operating a handheld laser in one of the overhead windows, and he'll be able to give me range and range rate information as we close in. And those are the two things you need. You can see, you know, range with your eye, you can see closure with your eye, but our profile is very demanding-we are looking for very specific ranges with specific closure rates all the way up to docking. And that's where my job comes is to make sure that happens and then make sure we get docked successfully.

As we on the ground watch it, it appears as though the two ships in question are not moving 17,500 miles an hour, it's just a question of how closely they move together. Is that, in essence, what you need [to] concentrate on as you do this?

Exactly. It's very similar to flying formation in an airplane on another, close formation on another airplane: it doesn't really matter how fast you're going. It's how fast you're going relative to each other. Things happen fairly slowly…it takes us you know, a full day to execute that final portion of the rendezvous. But you know, we have a lot of success with it, and all the other Commanders who have flown before have made it look extremely easy. One of the first things that got my attention on this mission, you mentioned we were docking to a station to a different place; what I think is very unique about where we're docking is the fact that, as we close in and actually make contact to get capture with the station, the CG of the shuttle is not going through anywhere close to the CG of the station. If you think about momentum and mass and velocity and in all the other dockings we've had as the shuttle's approached and actually made contact with the station, the CG of the shuttle was pretty close to being in a line through the CG of the station…not exactly, but there was a significant amount of mass along that line. In our configuration, the CG of the station is way out over the nose of the shuttle, and, of course, our CG is back in the payload bay. So, you can imagine, if you took two objects and had them close together and then they just made contact at the tip, the post-contact dynamics could be substantially different whereas if you took those same two objects and had them connect in this manner. So that has gotten the most attention in my mind in terms of what does that do to our probability of capture-we don't want to be the first shuttle ever to bounce off the station and not capture…and if that happened, not understand why, exactly why we didn't capture, that would be even worse. So that sometimes keeps me up at night.

Along with all of that that is new, that you've described, another thing that will be new for your rendezvous and docking is that the station is going to have a crew on it at the time. What are your thoughts about the historic significance of the first on-orbit handshake between space shuttle and space station Commanders, especially since you're going to be one of them?

Well, you know, we sort of had that "first" back on STS-71 so, to me the significance really is…I don't mean to sound very pro-American but I think it's significant that we have a station crew up there being commanded by an American; I think that's something that's extremely significant. Bill Shepherd is not only a captain in the United States Navy but he's a good friend of mine. So, I think that part of it I'll find a little bit more significant than just the fact that you know, that we have a shuttle visiting a station and shaking hands with the Commander. Shuttle flights to the station are going to get really… I don't want to say "routine", but they're going to happen at a high frequency and I think you'll see a little bit of a downplay of a ceremony in terms of opening the hatch-you know, we're going up there to do a job and our job is to help the station crew to help advance the station and give them a critical capability so…I'd like to think of it more as being significant that we have a American in command of the space station.

I think that it's interesting to note, too, that, even though this is the first time a shuttle will dock to the station while the station has a crew on board, that for most of the time you two are docked the hatches between the two vessels are going to be closed. What's the reason for that?

Well, the primary reason is we would like to have the shuttle at a lower atmospheric pressure than the station. Specifically, we would like to be at approximately 10 psi, and the station needs to be approximately fourteen-and-a-half psi. The reason we need to be at 10 is so that we can be much more efficient getting our EVA crewmembers, or space walkers, out the door. If we were at fourteen-and-a-half psi we would, the space walkers, Joe and Carlos, would be required to breathe pure oxygen [and] go through [an] extensive pre-breathe period before they could actually depress the airlock. Our EVAs are so busy and those EVAs days will be so long that we felt it was not something we could do. We could [not] afford to keep the shuttle at 14.7 psi. Since you need different pressures in the two vehicles, the hatches have to stay closed.

You've made reference to the space walk—let's go on and talk about that. The day after you dock is the day that the first of two scheduled space walks for this mission is scheduled for you to deliver the primary payload. Tell us about what your job is going to be on board Endeavour during the space walk, and describe the plan of action for what Joe Tanner and Carlos Noriega are to do once they go out the airlock door.

Sure. Actually, the jobs inside during the space walks…actually we change jobs depending on which space walk you're talking about. And it's primarily, this is all primarily driven because we're only a five-person crew, and with only three people inside we have a lot of activities going on. Before the first space walk, that morning Marc and Bloomer are going to be up on the flight deck, and their primary job that morning is going to be to move P6 from its overnight park position into its pre-install position, and that requires both of them to be up there. My job that morning will be to help Joe and Carlos get suited up and get out the door. So we're all pretty busy, and then once we get Joe and Carlos in the airlock I'll go upstairs [and] I'll assume the role of the IV-the person who essentially directs the EVA. Marc will be working the arm, of course, with P6, and Bloomer is working what we call the SVS system- Space Vision System-which is going to be Marc's primary guidance for lowering P6 so it can be attached to the station. When you think about, when I think about EVA 1, I think about getting P6 attached, getting its power and data cables attached, getting all the mechanical systems deployed, and getting it to the point where P6 can generate power for itself; that is essentially the goal of EVA 1. To do that, Joe and Carlos have a whole lot of stuff they are going to tell you about, and in excruciating detail, about all the different mechanical things they have to do. Inside Marc will be, you know, focused on attaching P6, and then, once P6 gets attached we kind of do a little shift inside: Marc moves over and assumes the role of IV, so after P6 is bolted down, I'll hand over the IV job to him. He's been training as the backup EVA crewmember on the flight, so it makes sense for him to sort of direct the EVA because he is much more familiar with it than I am. Bloomer at that point takes over the arm-he's been trained as the backup arm operator, so now during the EVA he will actually be primary for any type of interaction with the EVA crewmembers, and there's quite a bit. At that point, my role changes from IV crewmember to…I'll be backing up Bloomer on the arm-I had arm training on one of my previous flights, which came in handy. I will also be responsible for any commanding that's required to be done to the station through our computers on board, and I kind of become just…any other problems that come up fall on to me. It's a nice place for a Commander to be: I get to observe more so than be directly involved, back up the other two crewmembers, and then, with only three of us, you know if somebody needs a break or needs to run to the bathroom or get something to drink. We have to be ready to jump in and take over and help each other out. So, we'll be busy inside-not quite as busy as Joe and Carlos are outside-but we'll be busy trying to stay up with them.

There are going to be three other people in the neighborhood. What are the Expedition crewmembers doing on board the station while the EVA is going on outside?

You know, that's interesting. It becomes fairly complex because you have two vehicles which are essentially running their own timelines simultaneously, and those timelines and activities need to be coordinated at certain points. We will be running the EVA timeline, obviously, talking to the mission control team, the shuttle control team; Shep and his crewmates will be running the station timeline doing activities that are associated with what we're doing, and they will be talking to the station control team, and at various points throughout the EVA, both EVAs, we will be talking to each other making sure that we're staying in sync with all our activities. You would think that if you put everybody under one control team that it might work better, but the biggest problem with that is during the EVA there's so much communication between the shuttle crew and the EVA crewmembers, who are hot-miked the entire time so every time they breathe hard or you know, say, "Oh darn," you know that's going to come over the air-to-ground frequencies. So what we've done is, we've actually split out you know, the shuttle runs their jobs on 1, air-to-ground 1, and the station's working air-to-ground 2 with their control center, and we try to stay tagged up. It's been a challenge in sim, in our simulation, so far…but we, you know, we're getting better at it, and even with a lot of failures we're still able to stay in sync well enough to get the job done.

By the time the space walkers finish their work, the next step, or almost the next step, is the actual deployment of the solar array wings—

Right.

—that we referred to, hundred and seventeen...

I think they're one-seventeen each, approximately.

They're big.

Maybe a hundred and eleven; I can't remember.

They're very big. Describe what's going to happen then. What's that next step, and what do you expect that you'll be able to see from your vantage point?

Actually, we're going to try to get the wings out, at least the first one, while Joe and Carlos are still outside. The reason for that is, we require some visual verifications on some of the mechanical mechanisms before we can actually deploy the arrays. So, we unlatch, when we unlatch the blanket boxes, for example, we need to get a visual confirmation that those latches are indeed fully open before we try to deploy. When we deploy the solar array we need a visual confirmation that the solar array is indeed fully deployed before we attempt to tension it. If everything works right, we will probably get both arrays out before Joe and Carlos come inside, and that's the goal. The other reason we're trying to do that is in case there are any problems, that they could, as an EVA crew, help us with, and there are a few that we've thought of and trained for, we'd still be able to get an array out-at least one-that day. The actual, all the preparation for deploying the array, configuring the power channels, doing all the necessary power-ups and warm-ups is going to be done by the mission control team and the ISS crew. The shuttle crew, we get sort of the lucky part…our participation actually comes to sending the command for the deployment. The reason for that is because we're moving a mechanical system, we want to have someone who has at least a camera view of that mechanical system while it's deploying so in case it needs to be stopped or, you know, if there's any problems, ideally you would want somebody who can actually see what's happening rather than someone issuing commands in the blind. So we'll actually get the privilege of unlatching the blanket boxes and sending the command for the arrays to deploy, monitoring what's happening, and then tensioning the blankets. I think it's a little bit unfair…it should be something that the ISS crew gets to do, but unfortunately they just have no way of seeing it while it happens so…it's a big moment, I know…Joe and Carlos kind of wanted to, I think Carlos really wanted to be the one to send the command-he's been following this hardware for a really, really long time- but if he's outside then that'll fall to me and I'll be the lucky one to get to do that.

From your vantage point, will you be able to see it go? How fast will—

It takes about eleven…well, on the ground it's been taking around eleven minutes, they say eleven to thirteen to fully deploy the array. We won't be able to see it…we'll have a camera on it, of course, camera C from the payload bay will be watching it. We'll be able to see the initial movement with maybe the forward payload bay cameras, but we're essentially watching the TV monitors trying to get some good videotape of it-hopefully, if there's downlink available the ground will be able to watch it as well. We also have an IMAX, 3-D IMAX camera back in the payload bay which, if everything goes well that will be part of the 3-D IMAX film that comes down, too.

You made reference to this so let me ask you to address it a bit more. Despite all the planning, all the hard work, there's certainly the possibility that things won't go as expected on this…contingencies like the arrays not deploying, or only one of them, or whatever. What are the critical failure scenarios here that you folks have trained for, and how have you trained to respond to them?

For EVA 1, I would say that the critical scenarios are the failures of the latches to unlatch fully. Obviously we have some procedures…that are developed completely for failures we consider somewhat credible. If it's a failure that is possible but very, very unlikely, we have at least an idea of how we would attack that failure. We may not have exactly all the procedures laid out but any of the mechanical systems-you know, blanket boxes unlatching, mast fully extending for the solar array- obviously those are critical. There are a certain number of electronic components in each channel that, if one of those fails, we could have a problem deploying the array. if the electronic control unit, for example, if the ECU fails…that's a bad day, and Joe and Carlos would have to do a lot of work to manually get that solar array deployed. I mean, it would be several hours worth of work. So, those are the big ones that we're worried about on EVA 1. EVA 2's a little different, and we'll probably talk more about that one.

You anticipate my next question, that…after a day without a space walk the second EVA of the mission is planned. So, would [you] again, talk us through, as you did on the first one, what's planned for this second EVA? What are the tasks?

I like to think of…we talked about EVA 1, you know, just getting P6 attached, getting all the mechanical systems deployed-the radiator, the solar array wings, that type of thing. EVA 2, I like to think of it as reconfiguring the power system. At the end of EVA 1, P6 is providing power, but only to itself; it's charging its batteries, building up a good, you know, fully-charged battery sets on both channels. It's got its Thermal Control System operating, keeping itself cool, but it's not helping out Shep and his crew at all, at this point. So, I like to consider one of the biggest, most important things we're going to do on EVA 2 is reconfigure the power system to route that power into the station. The second most important thing that we're going to do on EVA 2 is to relocate the S-band communications antenna and put it in a location where the station can actually use it and now activate an S-band communication system which significantly increases their capability to talk to Houston. So, those are the two things that EVA 2…I mean, I look at it as extremely important to completing all of our mission objectives. Inside things are going to be a little different than they were on EVA 1-we're not going to have to do this little juggle of jobs. We get up in the morning; there isn't a lot of activity so we can sort of all help get Joe and Carlos out the door, and that'll make things a little easier. We'll probably actually get them out the door a little earlier than we did on EVA 1. Marc will assume the IV role from the very beginning, Bloomer will assume the RMS role from the very beginning, and I'll assume my watch-those-guys-do-their-jobs role. But actually there is a lot more commanding which has to be done through the computers to the station, and I'll be commanding from the shuttle. Shep will be commanding his own some systems, and the ground, we'll have three different groups of people actually commanding, sending commands to the station at different times. And all that has to be really well-coordinated. So EVA 2, while it might not look as dramatic to someone watching on TV, it's actually more complex in terms of a coordination standpoint between the shuttle, the ground, and the station. And it's just as important in terms of getting power to the station as EVA 1.

It sounds like with the activation of that power system and the S-band communication system, that at that point, really the station is reaching another milestone.

Yes…a milestone? I tend to think of "milestone" as Phase 2 complete but I guess that's just how you want to define milestone. Again, I like to think of it is as a critical capability. You know—power systems, you need them to stay. S-band communications is something that, when you have, as you expand your systems you need the ability for the ground to monitor them so I mean I just think of both of those as extremely critical to the development of station and getting to Phase 2 complete.

The day after the second EVA is the time when the hatches on both vessels are to be opened for the first time. You said earlier that you don't think that this will be a large, elaborate greeting or ceremony, but do you folks have anything planned for this first handshake between shuttle commander and station commander?

Well, we might have something planned…Shep and I have talked a little bit about some of the Navy traditions and whether or not those would be appropriate to establish for the space station; we'll, you'll just to have to tune in and find out what happens. We'll, of course, do our best to get TV down during that, because we know there's a high amount of interest in that particular activity, but you know, our main goal is just going to be to get in and start you know, see Shep and his crew and give them a chance if they want to come over to the shuttle for, you know, for a little more room than they've had on station to do that as well. So I think it'll be interesting.

Timeline currently calls for there to be two full days of, I guess, call it joint operations, where all eight of you are involved in both vessels. What is it that's scheduled to happen that day—is it transfers of supplies, or equipment installations—what goes on?

There's not a lot of equipment installations…the flight plan you're looking at shows two full days; depending on how things go we could probably have as little as a half a day of joint operations. If we need to do a third EVA that would cut significantly into our joint operations time so, we're trying to build our joint ops as being fairly flexible in terms of what tasks we need to do. if we get the two full days we'll probably have a significant amount of time where we're just there, you know, to help the ISS crew, be an extra pair of hands. We have some more transfers we need to accomplish. We have a couple of activities that need to be done-there's a Centerline Berthing Camera System which needs to be checked out, and that needs to be done for the installation of the Lab, so we'll be doing that; we have some DTO activities which need to take place; but in general those days should not, if we get the full two days, won't be, you know, heavily scripted… if we're down to one or a half a day then it'll be really, then it'll be tight getting all the activities done.

Regardless of how long that period extends, it will come to an end, and so will the time that you're docked together. Describe for us the scenario of what happens the day you leave, when the shuttle undocks and takes a look at the station as it leaves. What happens that day?

Well, you know, this is Bloomer's big day. I remember it, on 81, when it was, it was my chance to maneuver the orbiter in close proximity to another vehicle, and it is a great learning experience for the Pilot. Now, Bloomer's actually done it before, he did a flyaround in the Phase 1 program during his Mir flight, so we had to do something a little different, make it a little more challenging for him. Actually, there's really good reasons to do flyarounds, if you have the propellant, if you're able to save the gas during the mission to do a flyaround. We've just put up a new piece of structure on the station, and the first thing we want to do is fly around it and photo-document the condition of the station-you know, what does it look like now that P6 is up there? Is there something we're not able to see from the orbiter? From where we're docked we have only, we can only see certain sides of P6, you know, we can't see it completely. So the first thing we'll try to do while Bloomer is flying around is photo-document the station. The other thing we'll do is try to get a nice IMAX 3-D picture of it, of the station, with its new solar arrays. And as large as they are and as dramatic as that could be, it might be a very nice picture to bring home. I think, you know, Mike, having done a flyaround before he's done it extremely well in training. We don't need to save a lot of prop for him; just a little bit of gas will be enough, and you know, he'll be a Commander on his next flight. It will probably be a station mission, so the more experience he gets actually maneuvering the vehicle, the better prepared he will be.

With the delivery of the solar array wings, this whole structure…

It's tough to say, isn't it?

…it is…STS-97 is a very important step to get the International Space Station ready to do science, once the Lab comes up in the subsequent mission…sets the stage for the delivery of that extremely important component. From your point of view, talk a bit about what ISS offers us as a laboratory in space, as a home in space, as a way to test how we can go off into space.

Well, of course, it's going to be a great science platform. I think there are people that are a lot more qualified than I am to tell you, you know, the ways that we can use the research facility in low Earth orbit, in microgravity, to help the human race. The one that you talked about last is the one that I think is often overlooked in the benefits of station. If you look back at…I look back at [the] Phase 1 program, for example, and I think about what we're doing now with the station, and I sometimes think that, boy, I'm not sure if we could've ever done this if we hadn't done Phase 1. You know, I'm not sure we would be as comfortable-I know we wouldn't be as comfortable-and it would be much, much more difficult to try, you know, to build a station without having that experience behind us. And I kind of project that same feeling into the future, or that same progression into the future, and I think, well, you know, when we go back to the moon or when we go to Mars, I think we will say the exact same thing: boy, you know, we never would've been able to do this if we didn't have the experience of building the space station in low Earth orbit and discover, you know, all the things of how difficult it is to put together a large structure far away from home or only being able to get there with a launch vehicle. So, I think that's one of the really…it's one that's not often mentioned because there's not a direct pay, you know, payback-there's not that immediate science that can come back and say, hey, this is what we learned. But that experience is going to be invaluable as we eventually go back to the moon and on to Mars. The science will be awesome, and I wish I was smart enough to tell you about all the great science they're going to do. And the folks who are going to go live there for a long duration they're going to learn so much because before you send somebody to Mars for six months to a year, I mean, you have to understand, really, what it's like to be, you know, to be in low Earth orbit for four to six months. So I think that's the really exciting part of space station…the experience we're gaining just building it. I'm one of these "destiny" people: you know, I believe it's our destiny to explore and explore our solar system, and I think we're going to go, maybe not…you know, I'm not going to be the one that goes, unfortunately-I wish it was-but…I'm happy to be a part of it. It's a real exciting time, the next year or so at NASA is going to be, we're all going to be really busy, and I think we're going to see some tremendous things.