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Interview With Astronaut Ed Lu
Aired June 17, 2003 - 15:50 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right.
As we speak there are a pair of guys circling the earth at about 17,500 miles an hour at 240 miles above us. Ed Lu, Yuri Malenchenko. They are the international space station crew. And while the shuttle fleet is grounded, they will have no human visitors that we know of. Just the two of them for six months straight.
They did, however, get some supplies from an unmanned Russian progress vehicle this week and they sported some rather colorful shirts for our interview, which happened just a little while ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Gentlemen, good to see you both. I see you got some special gifts from that progress which just docked, a couple of nice Hawaiian shirts. You look great. What other goodies did you find in that progress?
ED LU, EXPEDITION SEVEN: The big things of course, is letters from home and pictures, photographs and little things like that from our families. And the other big thing for us has been supplies of fresh food. So we found fresh tomatoes, grapefruit, apples and you wouldn't believe how good a fresh tomato tastes after you've been eating food out of a can for about two months.
O'BRIEN: Let's get an e-mail in there from Bob Rayalt (ph), who's in Gardner (ph), Massachusetts: "Is it all work and no play on the space station? What do you do for recreation?" I was hoping, Ed Lu, that you would show us the keyboard, as you explain some of the things you do in your off hours.
LU: Off hours is not the right word. But we do have a keyboard up here. It was actually brought up a couple expeditions ago, battery powered and kind of nice. You can set it up and play various types of instruments. I usually leave it on the piano and I usually play when Yuri's down at the other end so I don't have to torture him too badly.
But I think one of the -- our most fun things, at least what I like to do, is just to plain look out the window. You wouldn't believe how beautiful the Earth is at goes by, and you always see something interesting or different or something you didn't expect.
O'BRIEN: As we leave you, I understand you have a little demonstration of the wonders of zero G. LU: News to me. But, of course, one of the few things that you can't do on the ground is both to wear an Aloha shirt like this on and do this. Been fun talking to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: And Ed Lu and Yuri Malenchenko just a little while ago. He said he's going to practice his keyboard and he'll give us a concert a little bit later.
Now I asked him about Tang , whether they're drinking it, and he went on and on how he had some wonderful prescudo (ph). I don't know. I guess the menu has been upgraded from space food sticks.
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 June 17, 2003 - 15:50 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All right.
As we speak there are a pair of guys circling the earth at about 17,500 miles an hour at 240 miles above us. Ed Lu, Yuri Malenchenko. They are the international space station crew. And while the shuttle fleet is grounded, they will have no human visitors that we know of. Just the two of them for six months straight.
They did, however, get some supplies from an unmanned Russian progress vehicle this week and they sported some rather colorful shirts for our interview, which happened just a little while ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Gentlemen, good to see you both. I see you got some special gifts from that progress which just docked, a couple of nice Hawaiian shirts. You look great. What other goodies did you find in that progress?
ED LU, EXPEDITION SEVEN: The big things of course, is letters from home and pictures, photographs and little things like that from our families. And the other big thing for us has been supplies of fresh food. So we found fresh tomatoes, grapefruit, apples and you wouldn't believe how good a fresh tomato tastes after you've been eating food out of a can for about two months.
O'BRIEN: Let's get an e-mail in there from Bob Rayalt (ph), who's in Gardner (ph), Massachusetts: "Is it all work and no play on the space station? What do you do for recreation?" I was hoping, Ed Lu, that you would show us the keyboard, as you explain some of the things you do in your off hours.
LU: Off hours is not the right word. But we do have a keyboard up here. It was actually brought up a couple expeditions ago, battery powered and kind of nice. You can set it up and play various types of instruments. I usually leave it on the piano and I usually play when Yuri's down at the other end so I don't have to torture him too badly.
But I think one of the -- our most fun things, at least what I like to do, is just to plain look out the window. You wouldn't believe how beautiful the Earth is at goes by, and you always see something interesting or different or something you didn't expect.
O'BRIEN: As we leave you, I understand you have a little demonstration of the wonders of zero G. LU: News to me. But, of course, one of the few things that you can't do on the ground is both to wear an Aloha shirt like this on and do this. Been fun talking to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: And Ed Lu and Yuri Malenchenko just a little while ago. He said he's going to practice his keyboard and he'll give us a concert a little bit later.
Now I asked him about Tang , whether they're drinking it, and he went on and on how he had some wonderful prescudo (ph). I don't know. I guess the menu has been upgraded from space food sticks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
