Early Edition

NASA Astronaut Dr. Daniel Barry Discusses Planned Discovery Mission to International Space Station

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LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: As we said, tonight's planned liftoff of the shuttle Discovery is to set the stage for man's permanent presence on the International Space Station.

Joining us from the Kennedy Space Center to talk about this important mission is NASA astronaut Dr. Daniel Barry. Now he's been up there on previous missions and Dr. Barry knows exactly what's involved on this mission.

Good morning to you. Thanks for talking to us today about the mission.

DANIEL BARRY, NASA ASTRONAUT: Good morning, pleasure to be here.

HARRIS: First of all, explain one thing those of us who are uninitiated: What in the world is a Z-1 Truss?

BARRY: A Z-1 Truss is a structure which will support a lot of other structures. It will carry -- ultimately will carry solar panels for power. It has communication antennas. It has devices, gyros, which will orient the space station to keep the right attitude in flight.

HARRIS: About how big is that whole structure?

BARRY: The structure, if you take a look at the back of the payload bay of the space shuttle, you could pretty much fit a Greyhound bus in there. And that structure takes about the back third of that payload bay.

HARRIS: OK, now, in terms of intricacy and trickiness, how would you rate this particular mission?

BARRY: This is a very difficult mission. We will be doing four space walks to hookup all the different components. And in addition to that, Koichi Wokata will drive a robot arm to attach to the components on to the station. That is a difficult process, particularly on space station where you can't just look out the window and see everything you need to see. We will relying on cameras and some special technology that Koichi will have to use to do some tricky robot-arm maneuvers.

HARRIS: That is amazing. This is me talking, a guy who can barely load a camera down here on Earth.

Let me ask you about the fact that this is the 100th mission that we're looking at. I have been hearing that folks at NASA really have not been making a big deal out of that? is that true or not?

BARRY: Well, I think we try to focus on each mission being important. Number 100 is a landmark, but right now we are so involved in trying to set up the space station, a whole series of rapid-fire flights, that we're really just focusing on the mission and the accomplishments that are involved in that, as opposed to the number. Nevertheless, it is a milestone.

HARRIS: Will there be any celebrations of any kind at all?

BARRY: I think that -- again, people are focusing on getting it off the ground. Once it is gone, I think, yeah, there will be a lot of celebrating.

HARRIS: Of course, we'll all be waiting to see that. That is the first things first there. Doctor Barry, we thank you very much, and we wish you luck. Take care.

BARRY: Nice to be with you this morning.

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