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CNN Live Today
Space Shuttle Endeavour Crew Members Repair Robotic Arm
Aired June 13, 2002 - 14:49 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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Some 250 miles above earth there is a type of mechanical surgery going on. Crew members from the space shuttle Endeavour are repairing a wrist joint on the robotic arm of the international space station. What makes this interesting is CNN's space correspondent Miles O'Brien has a little peek at some of the gadgets they get to use.
And, Miles, you may as well milk it because this just might be the closest you're going to get to space.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Oh, you're killing me.
WHITFIELD: I'm just talking about the immediate future, this week.
O'BRIEN: Thanks for the qualification there. I'm joined by Bob Curbeam, who is a NASA astronaut. He has three space walks logged on the space station already, back in February of 2001. We're going to talk about a couple things, like this glove and how you work in it, and all these tools.
But let's go up to space for a moment, shall we? Take a look at the big screen there -- and of course, it went black. There it goes. Take a look at someone who appears to be upside down. Of course, there is no upside down in space. That was Philippe Perrin, who is at the end of the shuttle's robot arm, the Endeavour robot arm.
And what you're looking at right now is the effort under way to fix the space station's robot arm. This particular device is the end of the wrist. Are we right at the wrist? Is that what that is?
ROBERT CURBEAM JR., ASTRONAUT: Actually, that's the replacement joint that they're working on now, to get loose from the side wall.
O'BRIEN: They're removing the new joint on this billion-dollar robot arm, some 58 feet in length, and replacing it because the wrist joint, the old one, which has been removed already, was balking on its backup system. And this thing provides 7 degrees of freedom, which means?
CURBEAM: Which means it's got three different translation directions you could go into. Three different rotation directions. And it can also walk across the station like an inchworm.
O'BRIEN: All right, check out that tool right there. What's that called?
CURBEAM: That's a scoop. And actually, all of the orbital replacement units have receptacles for those scoops. And it basically gives you the ability to put a handle onto an orbital replacement unit.
O'BRIEN: This would be an orbital replacement unit, which means that it's a box in sort of a self-contained item that you put on the station, right?
CURBEAM: Right. It's a black box. And then you go in to lock it over, and now the handle and the box are one piece.
O'BRIEN: All right, so that makes it a lot easier to work in space and move it around, and that kind of thing.
CURBEAM: Exactly.
O'BRIEN: It looks a little like an ice cream scoop, and that's why they call it that.
Let's take a look back live in space. Here you go. You can see how he's using it, just like that. Just like we used it, only that's not the real Mccoy, so to speak. Let's talk about a few of the other things you use in space.
And this one is one -- we might see in just a few moments, who knows? This is called the PGT, or pistol grip tool, $150,000 item.
CURBEAM: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Of course, you don't do any drilling on it. But it's a lot like a cordless drill that you might buy at a home supply store. It's got a lot of features that yours does not have.
CURBEAM: Exactly. And like you said, it's a big, cordless drill. We have big a paddle to run it with, instead of a trigger, because you're in bulky gloves. Battery down here, motor and electronics units up here. And the special thing about this cordless drill is it also counts, turns, and it measures torque while you're using it.
O'BRIEN: All right, and that's important because the number of turns is very critical in these bolts. Somebody actually figures out how many turns for every single bolt.
CURBEAM: How many turns, how much torque, every parameter that you can think of in driving a bolt, this thing can measure it.
O'BRIEN: And it works out well with a gloved hand, as it turns out.
CURBEAM: Exactly.
O'BRIEN: Now, this is an item which is important because if you're going to use this and put this up on the space station, if you're floating free in space and you hit this button, you're going to start spinning around, right?
CURBEAM: Absolutely.
O'BRIEN: So you need to be latched on to something.
CURBEAM: And that's what this does for us. This is called a mini work station. And it's got a bunch of different things on it. One, it's got an a small tether, where you can actually strap in to your work site. It's got some tool receptacles as well.
But it also has this thing right here. And this is called a body restraint tether. And basically -- you can see it's very flexible now -- you can hook it into any handrail on the station. It locks in. And then you tighten this here and it becomes rigid, and it actually gives you a support platform to work on. Both your hands are free and you can do whatever you need to do.
O'BRIEN: And there are all kinds of fittings on the space station you can latch on to to do your work. So everywhere you go, you can latch on. You have two hands free, which is obviously very important.
Now, as the space walk goes on, we have one bit of NASA news to share with you today. Some scientists at jet propulsion laboratory at California Institute of Technology are releasing some information about the findings of a solar system some 41 light years away from us.
That means if you were traveling at the speed of light, it would take you 41 years to get there. So that's a long way away. But what's interesting about it is, it's a very familiar looking neighborhood. It has a star, and it has a planet, not unlike Jupiter, in about the same spot as Jupiter with about the same orbit.
The question is: what's in between? We can't say for certain because that star is just too bright and whatever is in between, if it were like earth, would be much too faint to see with the instruments that we have.
But the scientists say there are some interesting little wobbles in these planets. And those wobbles lead them to infer that there might be something in the middle there that is pulling it. Perhaps -- perhaps, I should say -- an earth-like planet.
Now, Bob Curbeam, 41 light years away, would you go?
CURBEAM: I don't think I'd live long enough to get there. We go in so much slower speeds than the speed of light. But the exciting thing about it is, it looks like our solar system. So it may be like our solar system. And that's what we really want to find out. If you can see out there a new planet, and if it would have life on it.
O'BRIEN: Who knows? Maybe once we get a device to look that far, Fredricka, we'll look out there and someone will be waving right back at us.
(LAUGHTER) WHITFIELD: Hey, well, what's that glove that you're waving, with us right now, about how much does that weigh, Miles?
O'BRIEN: What do you think about, four or five pounds, maybe?
CURBEAM: Yes, probably about that.
O'BRIEN: But more importantly is the heavyweight cost. This is about a $20,000 item. That'll get you just one.
WHITFIELD: Wow. And it's amazingly pliable, too. They've got to be.
O'BRIEN: Yes, you can feel pretty well through it. But this is not the kind of thing you'd want do any brain surgery with.
WHITFIELD: All right, good advice. Thanks very much. Miles O'Brien, we appreciate it, with those fun little gadgets.
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