Preflight Interview: Joe Tanner

The STS-97 Crew Interviews with Joe Tanner, Mission Specialist.

Q: Joe, let's start with a couple of personal questions: tell me, why did you want to become an astronaut?

A. I guess I've wanted to become an astronaut since I was eleven years old and Alan Shepard took his first flight into space, and I looked at that as the ultimate human adventure. And always having been an adventurer, I strive to do that myself.

Fill that in for me—at eleven years old how had you always been an adventurer?

Well, I was interested in exploring, of course; I think most 11-year-olds probably are. And when I lived out in the country, and we had free rein to explore a hundred-and-twenty-five acres of land and…I had four brothers-I have four brothers-and we'd go out on adventures and spend all afternoon out building a fort or just, you know, playing games out on the land so it's in my family…I think we're all adventurers at heart, got it from our parents, most likely, and the next step seemed to be, you know, to fly airplanes, and I did that in the Navy. And then the ultimate aviation job in my opinion was to fly in space, so I pursued that.

In fact, you came to work at NASA before you became an astronaut.

That's right. I came here in 1984 as an instructor pilot, research pilot, at Aircraft Operations Division here at Johnson Space Center, and I worked there for exactly eight years before I got selected as an astronaut.

There's a wide variety of backgrounds among the people inside the Astronaut Office. Give me a sense of yours, and your academic background and your job history, your career path that got you here.

Well, my career path is a little bit different than many. I had a time where I was out of aviation, when I lived in Colorado for about four years and did some different things. I guess that helped me put my life in perspective a little bit and helped me to define what I wanted to do-really wanted to do-for a living and for a career. So, I'm a little bit different than the people who stayed focused that whole time. I think everybody has a time in their lives when maybe they lose focus a little bit, but I retired, I guess, a little bit early for a couple of years, but then I came here in 1984. So my career path is a little bit different; academically I'm not quite as qualified as most of the people in the Office; I guess I have to rely on my job experience.

It's an example of the fact that a list of degrees as long as your arm is not absolutely necessary to be an astronaut.

Well, I guess it's not absolutely necessary; certainly good to have, and I would certainly encourage anyone who wants to be an astronaut to achieve academically as much as they can. But I guess I'm an example that a few people slip through the cracks here and can make it into the Astronaut Office, you know, on their work experience and history.

As you look back at your own life, are there certain people that you can identify and say, these were the people who were really significant influences in decisions that I made and the things that happened that got me to where I am?

Well, I think, of course, the most influential people in my life have been my family: my parents, you know, my brothers, and now my wife and my children, and I rely on them for support, and they've always been supportive. My parents never pushed any of their children into any one area, but we always knew that anything that we wanted to try to do we had their support-total support. So, I'd have to say that is where my major support comes from, and of course, my major support right now is from my wife and my children.

[They're] pretty excited about the mission that you're about to fly?

Well, this particular mission being my third, lacks some of the drama of the first, and maybe even the second because my second mission was going to be my first EVA or space walk. The time between the second and the third is approaching four years now, and so I think particularly my children have matured and they take it a little bit more, with a cavalier attitude than they did for the first one.

Unlike some of the recent shuttle crews, you and your crewmates on STS-97 have had more than two years to train together for this mission. What has that been like? Has it been hard to keep focused and concentrated as your goal-your launch date-has moved away from you a few times?

Well, actually, Carlos and I have been training together, or working together I suppose is a better word, on this mission for three-and-a-half years. The EVA crews on the first seven missions were named quite early so that we could work the hardware issues that came up, and there were numerous issues to work. So we've been together for a long time. And I have to say that, you know, it's been enjoyable. Now we weren't devoting 100% of our time to this mission for three-and-a-half years; we both had other jobs…as a matter of fact, I was working and he was working in another job until just a little over a year ago when we devoted ourselves full-time to training. But it has been a little bit difficult as the launch date kept changing and we knew when we were assigned that the date would probably change. And, we have a record of it on our board-I think we're up to our eleventh launch date for the same mission! But, we know that this is a tremendously challenging effort that this agency is undertaking, and so we don't let it get us down that the date keeps changing. We're just going to hang in there until we get to do the mission. And we're thankful that it's approaching.

Let's talk about the mission. Start by summarizing for us the goals of STS-97. What is this mission going to do? What's the significance of the new hardware that you folks are bringing to the International Space Station?

Well, we are bringing the electrical power to the station and the station already has life support, if you want to call it that, from the solar arrays on the FGB and the Service Module, but there's not enough excess power, really, to power the Unity, the Node. We're bringing up power for the rest of the station that's coming after us, particularly the U.S. Lab module, Destiny. And without that power, the module would be dead…so we feel like our mission is critical in the assembly sequence to bring the power to the station.

OK, before we discuss the sequence of events of what you're going to do during the mission, let's get familiar with the hardware in question. The P6 Integrated Truss Structure…which we've found is not easy to say…could you describe the payload for us and the various components of the hardware?

Certainly. P actually stands for "port" as opposed to starboard which means it ends up on the left side of the station. 6 is a number in numerical sequence, as opposed to 4, which is the module, the photovoltaic module, that's going to be closer to the center of the station, and there's a 4 and a 6 on the starboard side also. So, that's why it's called P6. The most visible element of it will be the solar arrays, and they are huge- full wingspan when deployed, in the neighborhood of 240 feet; they're eighteen feet wide, the pair of them, and they're just gigantic. And they will increase the brightness of the station-as a matter of fact, we just learned the other day-to be the third brightest star in the heavens as it goes over. So, the appearance will change dramatically once we have deployed the arrays. The whole purpose for the arrays, of course, is to collect the sun's energy, and then the structure itself converts that energy into electrical power. We charge batteries; there are twelve batteries on board. There are units that control the charge or the discharge of those batteries-of course, during the daylight hours, the batteries will charge, and of course we have to go through a nighttime cycle on every orbit. During that cycle you can't collect solar energy so the batteries discharge and provide a constant stream of power to the station. And there are other boxes that control that switching between charging and discharging. There are boxes that convert the high-voltage, 160-volt, electrical power that the solar arrays collect into more usable convertible power of 123 volts or so, and then there are wires that feed the power into the Z1 structure that we're bolted onto, and then subsequently into the station. We also have, because the boxes generate heat as they operate, we have a photovoltaic solar array to reject that heat into space. And then, we also have two more radiators that aren't going to be used-they'll be functional but not used for anything after our mission-but they will reject the heat loads that are generated by the Lab when it comes up on 5A.

Is it right to think of this in the sense that the addition of all of this hardware, once the Lab comes up, allows the station to continue to be electrically self-sufficient?

Well, that's certainly true. And if we are able to generate, you know, the full potential output of the arrays, the station will be able to stand on its own and you know, carry it through the nighttime passes without any concern for the amount of electrical power that you're using. You know, here on [Earth], we plug into the outlet and we just assume the power's going to be there. In space, you know, you have to plan ahead and guarantee, of course, there's not going to be any cloudy days, but if for some reason the station had an attitude problem and you couldn't point the arrays right at the sun, you may have to sustain an orbit where you don't get full power generation. You need to have the capability, you know, that little surge capability, if you will, to cover those periods of times, and that's why the batteries are robust and are able to make up that difference even if you do have a bad pass. But, the station will stand on its own and be able to sustain its own power systems, by the time we leave.

Of course a big step in the success of this flight is bringing Endeavour and the International Space Station together on orbit. And on your mission, the shuttle is going to be approaching the station differently than previous shuttle missions have approached this space station; you're also going to be docking to an entirely new place. Talk us through what happens on rendezvous day, and give me your "bird's-eye" view of what's going to be going on as you describe what you're going to be doing while Brent Jett flies the orbiter up to the station.

Well, the rendezvous day starts with a bang—we get up and immediately go into the rendezvous timeline, and the rendezvous timeline has to be followed precisely because you have to do certain maneuvers, certain attitude burns or propulsion burns at specific times during the rendezvous so that you catch up to the station, and we're in a process of catching up from the moment we launch. The burns are designed to get us to exactly the right point in space below the station at exactly the right time so that we hopefully perform our docking over a Russian ground site, so we'll be over Russia someplace. During this whole time, you know, mostly Brent and Mike Bloomfield and Marc Garneau are very active in following the rendezvous and running the rendezvous checklist; Carlos and I have other duties, you know. Carlos is working with the computer program that is displaying the rendezvous. I'm not terribly involved initially until we get within sight of the station-at that point my job is one of the best because I just take pictures of it until we get inside about fifty feet. At that point Carlos and I work together to determine if our attitude is correct for the docking and recommend suggestions to Mike to adjust the attitude. And, historically, we haven't had to do that so, hopefully, we'll just be verifying that we're in good attitude. From thirty feet on in, Brent will be flying the approach precisely with help from the rest of the crew, and my job now is to monitor the docking system, for any anomalies that might affect our ability to dock. As soon as we dock, Marc and I get very busy monitoring the activities of the docking system and assuring that we are hard-docked and then assuring that all the hooks close and that we have a good seal between us and the station. So, I'm not very busy initially; very busy right after docking.

We mentioned that you're going to be docking to a piece of hardware delivered by the STS-92 crew; that's going to be a first. Another first is that this is going to be the first docking to the station when there's already a crew on board the station-Bill Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko, and Sergei Krikalev. Any thoughts, on your part, of the historic significance of this first on-orbit interaction between shuttle and ISS station crews?

Well, we're pretty excited about having the crew there; you know, it'll be more interesting to us, of course, to go to the station when somebody's on board. The fact that these three men are good friends of ours makes it even more special. But, when we first were assigned to the mission there was not going to be a crew, and we were very glad, you know, when the crew was going to be there before us later on because it does add a little bit more excitement to the mission-of course certainly more media interest-in the mission, and I think we all want to see the public excited about our space program and that certainly helps, but I think being able to approach this station and look at it and know that somebody's up there. Somebody's in that and they're watching us come and I know that they'll probably be glad to see us, just as we'll be glad to see them. So, I think it makes it more interesting and more exciting with them there.

And yet during most of the time that the shuttle is going to be docked to the station on this mission, the hatches between the two vessels are going to remain closed; can you explain the reason behind that?

Well, the real reason has to do with the space walks…the EVAs. We need to depress the atmospheric pressure in the shuttle down to 10.2 pounds per square inch, and of course normally we're at 14.7; the station is always at 14.7. If we stayed at 14.7, Carlos and I would have to do a pre-breathe in our suits before the space walk that would be four hours long; well, that would just kind of blow your whole day. If we depress at least twenty-four hours prior to the EVA to 10.2, then we only have to pre-breathe for forty minutes. So you can see the huge advantage of being at 10.2 psi versus 14.7. So we'll do that. [We'll] depress actually about thirty-six hours prior to the EVA, and that means that we cannot open the hatch between the station and the shuttle until after the EVAs are complete, when we can safely go back up to 14.7, when Carlos and I aren't going to be doing any more EVAs. So that's the reason.

Just a short time after you folks dock to the station, some of your crewmates are going to start work with your primary payload, to lift it out of the payload bay, where it'll stay overnight. Would you describe what happens there, and why it's done?

Well, we are very concerned about the temperature and the stabilized temperature of the payload, and in order to make sure it stays at a temperature that it can not get too hot and not to get too cold, we have to pull it out of the payload bay and put it in the position known as, I guess we call it overnight park, where we can guarantee its thermal stabilization. And so Marc and Mike-we may slip and call Mike "Bloomer" sometimes, by the way, you're probably going to hear it…his last name is Bloomfield and so we call him Bloomer a lot and you'll hear that on the radio-but they will work together to unberth P6, and this is very challenging because the clearances are extremely tight. Marc will be doing the majority of the arm work at this point, and you can't lift P6 straight up because if you did it would hit the station on the way out, and you don't want to do that so he has to go through some maneuvers to get it clear of the station and clear of the orbiter tail and then lift it up and put it in this "parked" position. So, this is a maneuver that they're going to be doing, you know, shortly after we dock and before we go to bed-it's a very packed timeline in the EVA, or the rendezvous day is extremely tight from start to finish. And we're going to be, I think, ready for bed after the end of that day!

Because the next day is the day that you and Carlos are scheduled for the first of the mission's two planned space walks. First of all, you made two space walks on your last flight-you referred to the Hubble Space Telescope; how does the experience of having done space walks help prepare you and, perhaps, your crewmates for the job of this mission's space walks?

I think experience in doing anything is critical: I think most people will always do a better job the second time they try just about anything. And, having already done two space walks and then having, unfortunately, almost four years to think about what you did, I think helps because you look at the tasks that you're asked to do on this mission with a slightly different slant. You know, the difference between water, you know, being in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab tank, we practice under water; you know how that feels versus how that same activity would feel in space, you know what works and what doesn't work so well, and you know what to expect. I think knowing what to expect when you stick your head out of the hatch really, really helps. I know my second launch was a whole lot less stressful than the first because I knew what to expect, I knew what changes my body was going to go through, so having that experience has been real valuable. I've tried to pass as much of that on to Carlos as I can. He's flown before, but he hasn't done an EVA before, and hopefully, you know, my experience will help him just a little bit, too.

OK. Let's get to what I'm perhaps assuming-hopefully correctly-is one of the highlights of the mission for you, the first of these space walks. Take us out in the payload bay with you and describe the steps, the tasks that are on the schedule for you and Carlos on the first of these two space walks.

Well, the first EVA is obviously critical to our mission; every task on the first EVA is a required task that we have to do to say that we've had a successful mission. The first and most critical task, of course, is to physically secure P6 to Z1; you know, if we can't do that then we've either got to bring it home or throw it away, and we don't want to do either one of those. The first task is to make sure that P6 is in its pre-mate position, and we work together with Marc and Bloomer, and then Carlos and I are out there to make sure that the optical system that they are using to guide P6 onto Z1 is working and functioning correctly. And we actually even tell them when to stop, when they bring it down. And this will be an exciting moment because, you know, this is adding the next building block on top of the station, and it will be, you know, very exciting for us. We've trained for that quite a bit in the Virtual Reality Lab and some in the pool, but mostly in the VR lab. So when we get it down and close enough and we tell them to stop, then Carlos will drive a mechanical latch that will pull them together tight and have a little bit of a pre-load even on the connections. And then we secure four bolts…they're fairly good-sized bolts. Carlos does two, I do two, and when we are successful in getting those fully torqued then P6 is one with the station, but it's not electrically connected, and so the next series of activities involves making the electrical connections, and Carlos will do that. Simultaneous with his activities, I'll be preparing the solar arrays for deployment. And there are pretty hefty locks that are attached to the blanket boxes to hold them in place during launch. I have to remove those. By this time Carlos is done with his tasks, and he comes up and deploys one solar array, and I'll deploy the other one. And then, perhaps one of the most dramatic events of the mission is when each of us, in turn-he goes first and then me-climb up to the top, the very top of P6, on top of one of the canisters, and swing the blanket boxes out. They have to swing out 90° each, and it's a totally manual task, and there's no motorized backup or anything-if we aren't strong enough then we aren't strong enough, although we don't think it's going to be that difficult. So, individually we swing these blanket boxes out and secure them in position and then we'll call the crew module and say, you know, the arrays are ready to deploy. And, if the commanding goes well on the ground and in the crew module, then hopefully we'll be actually [on the] EVA while the solar arrays are deploying. And they'll deploy one at a time. And that's going to be really dramatic.

Are you still going to be on the top of P6 as they start to push out?

Well, there is a chance that I could still be on top when the first array goes out because we have to do these in sequential order. Carlos is, in the timeline, is there first so there is a possibility that I could be, you know, actually on top of my canister while the other array is deploying. I hope!

With a camera?

With a camera. And since you mentioned camera, we're going to be the first flight of the wireless video system. We've had an EVA cam before, many, many years ago, but this is an improvement over that. It's a new system and I think it's going to be exceptional. We'll have three focal length cameras mounted on our helmets; it's, you know, it's much like the camera in the race cars, and I guess they have the "referee cam" now at the NFL football games, but, it's going to be very much like that. We'll have a wide-angle lens, a 3.5mm lens, a 6mm lens, and a 12mm lens that we can choose from. Actually, the guys in the crew module will select the lens. But if there's live downlink, at that time, the people on the ground are going to see exactly what we see, and so my view will be your view and I think it's going to be spectacular!

I take it then that as the arrays begin to deploy, you and Carlos are done and head back inside?

Yes, we have a little bit more activity to prepare the photovoltaic radiator for deployment; we don't anticipate being outside when it deploys but we have to release the launch locks and pull a couple of pins on it; about thirty minutes worth of activity, and that completes the first day's worth of work, unless we're way ahead, which I seriously doubt we will be, but because it's a very full day, we might try to, you know, fit in a couple of small tasks before we come in.

While you are outside-and we understand about the support you're getting from inside the shuttle-what's the Expedition 1 crew doing?

Well, they are, of course, watching what we are doing. There's more activity required for them on the second EVA day than the first. Mostly on the first, they're just watching and probably worrying about what we're doing. I don't know how good their view is going to be; we'll try to keep them informed of our progress. And they have been trained, actually, to do a number of the tasks that we could potentially leave undone. For instance, the bolts that secure P6 to Z1-referred to as RTA, or Rocketdyne Truss Attachment System-they are trained to finish up any of these activities that we may not finish if for some really remote reason we would have to leave halfway through that task. And everything else that's on our EVA timeline, they have also been trained to do.

You made reference to the fact that there's always the possibility that something may not go exactly the way it's been planned; despite all the planning and the hard work, it's always a possibility. What are the real critical failure scenarios that are involved here, and also, tell me how you and your crewmates have trained to respond to them?

We've been thinking about what could go wrong for three-and-a-half years, and I fully anticipate that all of the mechanical deployments will go just fine. But you can't not have backups. So, the first thing that could go wrong, of course, is the RTA's attachment system doesn't work right; we have a series of troubleshooting steps to go through, and we have backup bolts in case the primary ones don't work. If for some reason we couldn't get the launch restraints off-you know, that would be bad, because we can't deploy the solar arrays with the launch restraints still in place-we have ways to help get those off, and we've worked very hard with the Boeing engineers to develop a good system that we're sure that we can get off, and I'm very confident that we can get it off. I wasn't at one point, but I am now. The solar array, the canister deployment…that's a fairly simple task; we do know that we may have to help it along just a little bit-there's a spring that causes the beta gimbal assembly to deploy, but we're not sure it's going to be strong enough, especially if the temperatures are cold. And we have other plans, if, you know, if it doesn't lock completely in place, we have other plans to handle that contingency. We've done a lot of work on the blanket boxes-they have to unlatch successfully, and if they don't you can't deploy the arrays, and everyone's worked real hard-the whole team has worked real hard-to work on contingency approaches to that malfunction. Once again, I think everything's going to work just fine.

After the first space walk there's a day with no space walks, but still a lot of work to be done inside the space shuttle. What's on the schedule that day? What are you going to be busy with?

Well, the first half of the day is involved with a test…261, I believe, is the number, and that primarily involves, Mike and Marc's doing some of the documentation and Brent, firing thrusters and watching the dynamics of the stack of the P6 and the solar arrays to see what impact a thruster firing has. And this is a critical activity for control of the station using the shuttle, and also what we think the impacts are of docking loads and so forth are going to be on the station. And the whole morning is taken up with that. Carlos and I will be preparing our tools and doing some minor work on our suits, in preparation for the next day, and then we get a little bit of relax time, even in the afternoon; and then by late afternoon we'll start preparing, mentally, for the next day's EVAs. We have a tag-up the night before each of the EVAs, where the whole crew will sit down, so to speak, together and go over every aspect of the day's activities ahead.

Let's move on then to the next day's activities—the second space walk, involving connecting up power supplies and configuring [the] communications system, helping set the stage for the missions that [are] going to come. Once again, talk us through the events of the second space walk.

OK. We're going to switch roles a little bit on the second EVA. On the first EVA I'm going to go out first and Carlos will come out second; on the second EVA day we'll switch that and he'll go out first- you know, on his next mission he's going to be the lead EVA person and I felt like he should have the experience of doing all those activities, you know, once before he has to do it, as the lead. So he'll go out first and configure the safety tethers for him and for me, and then…on the first day he rode the arm, on the second day I'm going to ride the arm for a part of the time. And, the major activities are configuring; the most critical activity probably is configuring the Z1-we call it a patch panel- so that the electrical power that's generated by the solar arrays can actually get into the Node. Prior to this reconfiguration we can generate electricity but it's not plumbed, if you will, to get into the Node, so Carlos will be making those connections, you know, while I'm preparing the arm so that I can ride on it. The next, major task is to move the S-band antenna from its stowage location on Z1 to the very top of P6. This is farther than we can reach with the arm- almost twice as far, as a matter of fact-and so, I will carry it as far as I can, and then I hand it off to Carlos and then I get out of the arm, you know, spin him around in his foot restraint, and then get into a foot restraint myself, receive it from him and then we'll install it, and then make the electrical connections. At this point then, you know, we'll give the guys in the crew module the call which will, in turn, go down to the ground that says the S-band antenna is ready to be powered up, and we'll go through some self-checks then to make sure its electrical connections are good. And then we do some preparations for the next mission-our friends on 5A crew-preparing the PMA-2 for removal. The 5A crew will de-mate PMA-2 from the Node and temporarily stow it on Z1, so that they can put the Lab on that same port, and then they will take the PMA-2 off of Z1 and put it on the end of the Lab. Well, we have to prepare the cables, we de-mate the connections that the 2A crew made between PMA-2 and the Node, and we stow them back into their launch configuration. And we do a few other smaller items. We connect the camera cable that will allow the centerline berthing system to work so that Marsha Ivins, when she's docking the Lab to the Node, can look through the window in the hatch on the forward side of the Node and actually see the Lab come in and judge her alignment with that centerline berthing camera. A real critical step for the Lab is one that I do next that connects the fluid lines-the cooling lines…it's actually ammonia- between Z1 and P6. And that allows the radiators-the two extra radiators that are on the P6 module-to flow ammonia that will allow the Lab to control its temperatures. So these are critical connections; there's four of them. The lines are pressurized to 250 psi and the connectors are fairly complex and so that has to go well. And then we finish up with some smaller prep items: we move a foot restraint for the 5A crew, and there are a couple [of] other items that are in the development stage right now that may or may not make it on to our flight, so we'll have to see how that develops. I'm not sure yet how it's going to end up.

It's a lot of work over six hours or so…and after you and Carlos get back inside, get undressed and cleaned up and get some sleep comes the big event the next day, and that's the first time both hatches on the PMA will be opened to an inhabited station; is there anything special we're going to see as this historic event unfolds?

Well, we're going to try real hard to make this a live event. And we're going to, hopefully, have cameras on both sides of the hatch, that as soon as we have the hatch open, we'll be working so that you can see what each group is going to be seeing. And, this will be, you know, a challenge for us to make sure all the connections are made in a timely manner, but we want the show to be good for the people on the ground. We don't have anything other than, you know, just a warm greeting planned-at least that I know of-right now. But we think it's going to be a great reunion.

The agenda as it stands today, as we talk, calls for two full days of joint operations…it's all eight of you inside both vehicles. What is going to be going on during this couple of days?

Well, I think that first of all, we want to go in and see what the station feels like. We want to get in there and just get the atmosphere of the place and…I didn't get a chance to go to Mir, on my other two flights, and Carlos and, I think, Mike and Brent have all been there, and so I want to see what a station is like, you know, from a personal standpoint-I want to look at very inch of it, every cubic inch; I want to be in, just for a little bit. So a lot of that is going to be exploring. We're going to be, you know, allowing them to show us around. I hope that they will let us help them with some of their housekeeping and help straighten up the place if it needs it; I know they've got a lot of work to do and they will have been there, you know, maybe three weeks before we get there, so if there's anything left over, I want to help. Try to, you know, get the place in order. We have some transfers to complete: we'll bring over more water, we'll take the equipment back that they are done with and put it back on the shuttle for return to Earth, and…I think, we'll just be enjoying their company a lot. I know there's a lot of things that are going to come up between now and then, so we have a lot of time in there, you know, to take care of these things that we know are going to come up.

When whatever happens happens, and that time is over-six docked days together-it'll be time for you and your crewmates to leave. Describe what happens that day, as the shuttle departs and flies around the station and then and waves goodbye and heads off.

All right. Well, of course, the hatch closing, and we'll try to document that, live if at all possible as well, will be, I think, a bit of a sad moment. Of course, you know, you really enjoy being in space, but there's something about saying, OK the mission's over, and hopefully we'll be successful, and there's an excitement about coming home and seeing your friends and family, too. But, I think the, you know, the hatch closing will be sad, because, you know, this portion of our flight, something that we worked for so long for, now is going to be over, and, of course, I'm sure, Shep and Yuri and Sergei will be sad to see the company go, but, the undock day is, you know, preparations for the undock are not particularly strenuous, I suppose, but need to be done precisely. And we'll, at the moment of undock, we start a flyaround maneuver and Bloomer's going to be controlling the shuttle at this point. Marc and I will monitor the undocking sequence; Carlos will be working with the handheld laser, and then he and I will pick up cameras and document every square inch of the station as we fly around it. Then we back out to about four-hundred feet and then do a complete circle around the station at about four-hundred feet. We have an IMAX 3-D camera on board; we're going to try to take a very dramatic shot of the station as it crosses the Earth limb with the Earth, at first in the background and then as the station breaks the Earth limb, into the black of space. So it's going to be, you know, a beautiful sight-I just know it-with the solar arrays out; we have our simulator pictures here that are pretty accurate and it's beautiful in the simulator, so I know in real life it's just going to be awesome.

STS-97 is a very important step in getting the space station ready for science in as much as that it sets the stage for, as you've mentioned, the arrival of the Lab on the mission that follows you. Finally, give us some of your thoughts about what the International Space Station offers us as a lab in space, and as a home in space, and as a place to learn how to move off into space.

Well, I think it's a critical next step in our research of the galaxy, if you will. And there are a number of things that we need to learn about long-duration space flight that we can only learn in an orbiting laboratory. Now, the Russians have got a tremendous amount of experience in long-duration space flight, and it's really good that we're partnered with them so we can gain from all of the things that they have learned. Our only real excursion prior to this was the Skylab, and that was, you know, many years ago, and we gathered good data, but there's more to be gathered. Just on the human body alone, there are countless research items that we need to do before, and answers that we need to have before we attempt a mission to Mars. The human body may be the most critical link in that mission, in how you're going to withstand the potentially months of weightlessness if you can't generate an artificial gravity, you know, which is doable but complex. So, we need to understand how the human body behaves in weightlessness before we send somebody off on that kind of a mission. And of course there's many Earthly applications to the research that we do to help us…osteoporosis patients, for instance, can benefit greatly from what we learn from bone decalcification. The Lab and the ability to change out experiments, you know, will allow us to do these kind of experiments, and I could go on and on from a technical standpoint of the things that we can do there, but the fact is now we have a platform that is designed to do science. The Lab can operate twenty-four hours a day if we want it to, if we want to staff it to that level and we can, in later-on years, and we can be doing active science for 365 days a year, twenty-four hours a day. We never had that before, and the station will allow us to do that. And I think we don't even know all of the research that we're going to do yet. Things are going to do, you know, we can learn a whole lot more if we can take this into space and leave it there for a while and say, oh yeah, we have this laboratory; we can take it up there and we can do that. So, I think this, you know, is the dawn of a new era for NASA and NASA's ability to do meaningful research in space.