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CNN Live Today
Atlantis Touches Down
Aired October 18, 2002 - 11:41 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: Skip over here to Miles O'Brien because he has got something for us now. Looks like we're about to have a shuttle landing any minute now.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: We are. You can pretty much bet the farm on that one because it is dropping like a stone, and it doesn't have any engines for a go around.
HARRIS: Be careful how you say that, Miles.
O'BRIEN: Take a look at what it is like to be a shuttle pilot, Shuttle Pilot 101, Leon. You want to pay attention? This is a head up display, which allows you to see the runway. Do you see the runway there?
HARRIS: That is coming from the shuttle.
O'BRIEN: It is right there. There's the space shuttle coming down right now. I want you to take note of the angle here. Check out that angle. That is about 19 degrees of glide slope. When you are flying on Delta airlines, you get about three degrees, so this is a fairly steep -- you might call it precipitous. What you see is a lot of mangrove swamp as you come down. Let me tell you what's going on here -- there is the speed, about 300 knots. Oh, they keep switching it back on me, as they go through a little cloud deck there. "Atlantis" coming in...
HARRIS: Getting close, only about -- what -- two minutes away now?
O'BRIEN: Oh, less than that. A minute from touchdown right now, traveling about 300 knots, and here is your altitude, 5,000 feet, and here is what the pilot is -- the commander is focusing most on. That little dot. He wants to keep that dot -- little circle and that little square lined up, and if he follows that, just like a good video gamer will do, he will take that space shuttle right down the cone, as it were, in for a landing to runway 33 at the Kennedy Space Center.
Watch -- 15 seconds before touchdown, that landing gear will drop. You can set your clock to that. And that is not a lot of time before landing. Let's look at that view, and listen in to Rob Navius (ph) of NASA as it comes in for landing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Landing gear down and locked.
O'BRIEN: Little float there. See that, Leon?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Main gear touch down.
O'BRIEN: Caught a little bit of updraft there.
HARRIS: Was that what that was?
O'BRIEN: Yes, yes. Now, the trick is, when you are a space shuttle commander -- Jeff Ashby, just having accomplished his first for-real space shuttle landing, by the way, after a couple, three, 4,000 simulations, his first for-real one with a $2 billion orbiter, his responsibility. The trick is you want to make sure you get it right on the center line there, because that's a well-documented, well-photographed landing.
That is the end of a 4.5 million mile journey, the space shuttle Atlantis, the six crew members on board went to the International Space Station, installed a huge girder, which is part of the backbone of that station. Twenty-six missions for Atlantis. Another 4.5 million miles on the odometer. The 111th space shuttle mission, the 110th safe landing.
We have got another mission coming up in a month as NASA continues its final spurt of construction on the International Space Station over the next year or so.
HARRIS: Let me ask you something. Moments ago, when we saw it coming in, maybe about 15, 20 seconds away from coming down, I saw another plane that went -- seemed to be going the other direction. What's that all about?
O'BRIEN: Yes -- that pilot is Shuttle Commander Kent Romanger (ph), flying in a modified Gulfstream jet, which is rigged up to fly just like a space shuttle, where they do all those simulations, using some software and so forth, allows them to test the approach before the real shuttle comes in.
Well, he is up there burning a little jet fuel. He might as well hang around and watch the shuttle as it comes in, which is what he does. That's exactly what you saw. He will kind of guide it in for landing.
HARRIS: That is interesting. Now, that heads-up display that we saw coming in, I don't think I've seen that on the landing before. Is that a novelty here?
O'BRIEN: It's been done before, but a lot of times you see it on night landings, and it doesn't -- you don't get as good a shot as you just saw.
It's pretty neat to be able to see that runway as they line it right up there from the pilot's view, Pam Melroy saw exactly what you saw, and the idea is that they can look out the window, and all that data is projected on that little piece of Plexiglas, gives them all the information they need to grease that landing.
HARRIS: That is cool. You know what, it is not a technical term, it's cool. O'BRIEN: Works for me. Works for me.
HARRIS: That's a Leon term. That was cool.
O'BRIEN: All right, Professor Harris. Thank you.
HARRIS: Welcome home, folks.
O'BRIEN: Welcome back to Earth, guys.
HARRIS: Good to see you again.
O'BRIEN: Good to see you.
HARRIS: Good deal.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 18, 2002 - 11:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Skip over here to Miles O'Brien because he has got something for us now. Looks like we're about to have a shuttle landing any minute now.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: We are. You can pretty much bet the farm on that one because it is dropping like a stone, and it doesn't have any engines for a go around.
HARRIS: Be careful how you say that, Miles.
O'BRIEN: Take a look at what it is like to be a shuttle pilot, Shuttle Pilot 101, Leon. You want to pay attention? This is a head up display, which allows you to see the runway. Do you see the runway there?
HARRIS: That is coming from the shuttle.
O'BRIEN: It is right there. There's the space shuttle coming down right now. I want you to take note of the angle here. Check out that angle. That is about 19 degrees of glide slope. When you are flying on Delta airlines, you get about three degrees, so this is a fairly steep -- you might call it precipitous. What you see is a lot of mangrove swamp as you come down. Let me tell you what's going on here -- there is the speed, about 300 knots. Oh, they keep switching it back on me, as they go through a little cloud deck there. "Atlantis" coming in...
HARRIS: Getting close, only about -- what -- two minutes away now?
O'BRIEN: Oh, less than that. A minute from touchdown right now, traveling about 300 knots, and here is your altitude, 5,000 feet, and here is what the pilot is -- the commander is focusing most on. That little dot. He wants to keep that dot -- little circle and that little square lined up, and if he follows that, just like a good video gamer will do, he will take that space shuttle right down the cone, as it were, in for a landing to runway 33 at the Kennedy Space Center.
Watch -- 15 seconds before touchdown, that landing gear will drop. You can set your clock to that. And that is not a lot of time before landing. Let's look at that view, and listen in to Rob Navius (ph) of NASA as it comes in for landing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Landing gear down and locked.
O'BRIEN: Little float there. See that, Leon?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Main gear touch down.
O'BRIEN: Caught a little bit of updraft there.
HARRIS: Was that what that was?
O'BRIEN: Yes, yes. Now, the trick is, when you are a space shuttle commander -- Jeff Ashby, just having accomplished his first for-real space shuttle landing, by the way, after a couple, three, 4,000 simulations, his first for-real one with a $2 billion orbiter, his responsibility. The trick is you want to make sure you get it right on the center line there, because that's a well-documented, well-photographed landing.
That is the end of a 4.5 million mile journey, the space shuttle Atlantis, the six crew members on board went to the International Space Station, installed a huge girder, which is part of the backbone of that station. Twenty-six missions for Atlantis. Another 4.5 million miles on the odometer. The 111th space shuttle mission, the 110th safe landing.
We have got another mission coming up in a month as NASA continues its final spurt of construction on the International Space Station over the next year or so.
HARRIS: Let me ask you something. Moments ago, when we saw it coming in, maybe about 15, 20 seconds away from coming down, I saw another plane that went -- seemed to be going the other direction. What's that all about?
O'BRIEN: Yes -- that pilot is Shuttle Commander Kent Romanger (ph), flying in a modified Gulfstream jet, which is rigged up to fly just like a space shuttle, where they do all those simulations, using some software and so forth, allows them to test the approach before the real shuttle comes in.
Well, he is up there burning a little jet fuel. He might as well hang around and watch the shuttle as it comes in, which is what he does. That's exactly what you saw. He will kind of guide it in for landing.
HARRIS: That is interesting. Now, that heads-up display that we saw coming in, I don't think I've seen that on the landing before. Is that a novelty here?
O'BRIEN: It's been done before, but a lot of times you see it on night landings, and it doesn't -- you don't get as good a shot as you just saw.
It's pretty neat to be able to see that runway as they line it right up there from the pilot's view, Pam Melroy saw exactly what you saw, and the idea is that they can look out the window, and all that data is projected on that little piece of Plexiglas, gives them all the information they need to grease that landing.
HARRIS: That is cool. You know what, it is not a technical term, it's cool. O'BRIEN: Works for me. Works for me.
HARRIS: That's a Leon term. That was cool.
O'BRIEN: All right, Professor Harris. Thank you.
HARRIS: Welcome home, folks.
O'BRIEN: Welcome back to Earth, guys.
HARRIS: Good to see you again.
O'BRIEN: Good to see you.
HARRIS: Good deal.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
