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Space Shuttle Atlantis Now On Way Back to Earth
Aired April 18, 2002 - 10:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Something else we've got going on this morning, we didn't mention at the top of the show, but we are mentioning it now. Space Shuttle Atlantis is now on its way back to Earth this hour.
Miles O'Brien is checking in with a very special guest segment here.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, we've got seven special guests who are hurdling above us right now, some 250 miles to be exact at nearly 18,000 miles an hour. But once we take this picture, you will see they are no worse for the wear. There they are, the crew of the Space Shuttle Atlantis.
Let me introduce who we have here. Upper left, Jerry Ross, there is Ellen Ochoa, the robot arm operator extraordinaire, Rex Walheim, spacewalker, Steven Frick, the pilot who gave us this excellent TV picture, Lee Morin, space rookie and now a man who knows how to do spacewalks. There is the commander, Mike Bloomfield, a good smile on his face, and then, Steve Smith, the second most experienced spacewalker on this particular mission -- good to see you all, folks. We appreciate you being with us.
Mike Bloomfield, I am just curious about a special announcement, which came down while you were in orbit, a big moment for NASA. Barbara Morgan, Christa McAuliffe's understudy, will in fact be flying to the space station, where you just were, in two years. I am curious what your reaction is, and in particular, let's point out the fact that she goes right to the head of her class, if you will, and will become the first mission specialist to fly in her class. Is she deserving?
MIKE BLOOMFIELD, SHUTTLE COMMANDER: Barbara Morgan is an outstanding person, and she is going do a fantastic job. All of us here have had the opportunity to go out to schools and to talk to students at the various schools around the nation. And one of the things that you realize very quickly is that space really captures their imagination, and it sets a fire for them that make them sets goals for themselves.
And Barbara knows how to do that. She knows how to do that extremely well. And she is going to do a wonderful job, and we are just thrilled to death that she was named to fly in 2004. And I know that she will have a wonderful time and be able to take that information back to all of the kids in all of the schools and get them fired up, where they'll go out and set high goals.
O'BRIEN: All right. Commander Bloomfield, if you would send that microphone, float it on up, upper left to the grandpa there, Jerry Ross, one-half of the silver team, now has seven shuttle missions to his credit. Jerry, I have got to ask you the question. I know you want flight number eight, but there are an awful lot of astronauts who haven't had a chance to fly. I know you have you unique qualifications, but given the fact there are a lot of people waiting in line, are you at all ready to step aside or do you want to go for number eight?
JERRY ROSS, MISSION SPECIALIST: I will leave that up to the managers to decide how they want to play that.
O'BRIEN: How was it on number seven? Compare them all.
ROSS: Actually, that's very hard to do. They all have unique qualities, and at the same time, many things are very similar. But I felt the same on this one as I did on the first one. Totally entails the entire experience, great crew to fly with, an incredible mission to perform, totally excited about the entire event. And the spacewalks are indescribable, and they all, what we were doing and the view we had while we were doing them.
O'BRIEN: All right. Let's send it down to Lee Morin, your spacewalking colleague. And we had a series of E-mail questions which came in. We are only going to be able to get a few on, but let's take a look at this one, and it's actually a pair of questions.
The first one comes from Daniel Shoop: "How did it feel to be building a new railroad in the way the original railroad pioneers of the 1800s could never have imagined? He is talking about that truss, which you installed.
And then, the next one from David Hannon (ph): "I would like to ask the guys on the space station how emotional things are on the station looking down at a beautiful seemingly peaceful planet knowing what turmoil is currently happening in the Middle East. Lee, take that one if you will.
LEE MORIN, MISSION SPECIALIST: The railroad question, it was exciting to lay down the first tracks in space. And in fact, recently I did a public relations thing out to the Firecall (ph) Plant where they build our solid-rocket boosters, and in part of that tour, we went to the Promentary (ph) Point, where they had the first training across the United States. And at that time, I bought a souvenir railroad spike that symbolized that joining, and I have that spike, not here, but I think that at some point we will share that with our Russian colleagues. And we put down the first bit of track today, and in a few years, the first train will be fully functional, and we will use that to complete building the International Space Station in just a few years.
O'BRIEN: All right. Send it over to Steve Smith. I will let you take that first question, Steve, which was, did you ever get a chance to think about what was going on, on the planet? Specifically the question from David Hannon is what is happening in the Middle East. You look at a peaceful planet and what you see belies the reality, unfortunately.
STEVE SMITH, MISSION SPECIALIST: Oh, absolutely, Miles. I think every time one of us looks out the window on this flight, we have really strong feelings about the earth. It really is hard to not be affected by flying in space. I think anyone who has flown in space has a different perspective on a lot of things.
A couple of them for example, one is you look back at earth, it looks very fragile and very beautiful. It's a small, blue marble in this big, black ocean. And I think you come away as more of an environmentalist when you come home. You are much more sensitive to how fragile the earth is and how important it is when you live on an island to conserve resources and things like that.
And the second is, I think when you look back at the earth, it does look like one big community. It looks very peaceful from up here. And it really is hard to believe that there is strife in different places on the earth. So I think we are really good ambassadors when we come back about being good to the environment and promoting peace, and not just on the global perspective, but even in our local communities.
For example, when we are driving down the road, if someone cuts us off, instead of getting up with some road rage, it is nice just to let the other person go on their way. So it really changes your life to see the earth from space.
O'BRIEN: Steve Smith with a cure for road rage. All right, my apologize to three members of the crew, Ellen Ochoa, Rex Walheim and Steve Frick. They are pulling the plug on me, guys. I'd love to talk to you more, but they are just squeezing me into too much time here. It's not CNN fault, I should point out. It's NASA's fault. But nevertheless, you guys have a great rest of the mission. We'll see you on the earth tomorrow.
Leon, it's always a treat talking to those guys.
HARRIS: Now, you have talked to them before, haven't you?
O'BRIEN: Yes.
HARRIS: Have they talked to you at all about issue of the space tourists and whether they think it's safe for them going up there?
O'BRIEN: Yes, yes. The interesting thing is that the astronauts initially had some problems with it, because after all, there is a limited number of seats that are available. But after they started thinking about it and realizing the possibilities, bringing space to more people and getting people engaged in it, I think generally there is a lot of support for it.
HARRIS: Yes. I bet they would go back as tourists if they had a chance to.
O'BRIEN: Oh, yes. If they could come up with a scratch, yes.
HARRIS: All right, thanks, Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right.
HARRIS: We'll talk with you later on.
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