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American Morning
Three Former Crew Members of International Space Station Headed Back to Earth
Aired August 21, 2001 - 11:30 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: Just imagine spending five-and-half months in space floating around. Coming home would be a big deal wouldn't it?
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. And that's what's happening right now for the three former crew members of the International Space Station. They're headed back to Earth on the space shuttle Discovery. The shuttle has undocked from the space station, and it's scheduled to return to Earth tomorrow.
HARRIS: But guess who returned early? He is here right now. Our space correspondent Miles O'Brien joins us now. He's going to interview the astronauts and the cosmonaut who are on their way home.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: As a matter of fact, we are just about to see a live picture from the flight deck of the space shuttle Discovery. Let's take look, as they orbit the planet 17,000 miles an hour. They just passed over New Zealand. Screen left, Susan Helms, in the middle Yuri Usachev, on the right, Jim Voss. That is the so-called Expedition II crew. The second full-time crew to live aboard the space station alpha. Yuri Usachev, the Russian cosmonaut, is the commander, and Susan Helms and Jim Voss are veteran NASA astronauts, and NASA is going to ask me in just a moment to call them, so I'm going to do that.
Discovery, this is CNN, how do you read me?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hear you loud and clear.
O'BRIEN: It's great to see you, guys. You're looking good up there on the flight deck of the space shuttle discovery. We've already told the folks who is who here. Let's get right to it. I am curious, after five months in space, if you feel disoriented. It's difficult to know which way is up. You've got a sunrise and a sunset every 45 minutes. Do you sort of miss the normalcy of gravity and a 24-hour day?
SUSAN HELMS, FMR. ALPHA CREW MEMBER: I think probably after that, Miles, we definitely became accustomed to the space environment pretty quickly, and after 5, 5 1/2 months, it seems completely natural. I think that once we get back to the ground, we will have an additional transition to try to get our body clocks back on normal sun cycle and getting that feeling of gravity, getting accustomed to that feeling again will probably take a couple of days. But we know that we are looking forward to it, seeing our families, and getting back on Earth, and picking up where we left off.
O'BRIEN: I am curious, one of the big overarching goals of the Alpha Space Station is to know about the exploration in space of perhaps sending humans to Mars. At the end of this 5-month run -- and that would be a quick trip -- but at the end of this 5-month run, you are about to land on Mars, do you think you would be able to do any useful work, or would you be too weak to stand up even in the one- third gravity of Mars.
JIM VOSS, FMR. ALPHA CREW MEMBER: Well I think that we have a pretty good program for keeping ourselves in good shape. On the space station, we have a bicycler odometer. In fact, we had two of them. And we had a tread mill, and we had an exercise device that stimulates weight lifting, so we keep all of our muscles in good shape, and so I think that we will find very quickly that we will discover from our time up here, because we didn't just rest and become totally lazy while we were on board the space station. and to keep our muscles in good shape and I think we can find quickly to recover our time up, because we didn't just rest and become totally lazy while we were onboard of the space station. I think that the same thing would be true of going to Mars. As long as people worked very hard, they would be in reasonably good shape, and they would quickly recover, especially with a little bit of lighter gravity there.
By the way, how was Mars?
O'BRIEN: Oh, it was something else. You heard about my trip to the Arctic Circle. I will regale you with the details as we get back from the trip, as close as you can get anyhow. Maybe we can go on the real trip someday. On the course of daily life, and I'm talking about little things now, what's the most difficult, tedious thing that you discovered about getting through a day on the space station?
YURI USACHEV, FMR. ALPHA CREW MEMBER: We've had like -- every day it's a great day in space, and every day you can open something new for you. And it depends on the people. If you want to do something or do something new, you can find it. It will just, you know, put you to sleep or do something. I don't know, I had never -- nothing difficult every day. Of course, we in the five miles (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and maybe it's most difficult thing.
O'BRIEN: All right, of course everyone wants to know what you missed the most, and I will exclude from this answer family members, and in your case, Jim, dogs. Tell me what you missed the most during your five months in orbit?
HELMS: Yes, I think we have all missed certain smells, such as fresh laundry, and the smell of the beach and pine trees and things like that. We have a very sterile environment on the space station, and you just don't get the variety that you get on Earth, as far as the different smells of nature, and I know that I have missed that.
O'BRIEN: Jim, do you want to pipe in on that one? VOSS: Well, in addition to the things that you mentioned, Miles, I miss flying. That's something I enjoy doing an awful lot, and I hope that I get to it quickly after we get back to the ground and the doctors release us and that sort of thing.
O'BRIEN: Yuri, do you have anything that stands out that you miss the most.
USACHEV: Yes, before the flight. I miss my family. I would like to spend more time with my wife and with my daughter.
O'BRIEN: Let me ask you this, you're up there in space, missing a few things, in very close quarters, about the size of say a three- bedroom apartment, if you will. Of course it's three-dimensional space, so it's probably not a good thing for comparison. But nevertheless, did you ever feel claustrophobic?
VOSS: I think we're all in agreement, that no, that never happened. The space station feels very, very large to us. Maybe the only time that we felt closed in is when we came back over into the shuttle, because it seemed smaller after being in the very large station, and the shuttle crew members I think, notice the same thing.
O'BRIEN: When you had your handoff with the expedition 3 crew, commanded by Frank Coalertson, a NASA astronaut, I am sure that there was a long list of things that you told him. Were there any sort of insights you gave him of how to endure a five or perhaps a six-month stay on the space station that stand out as you look back?
VOSS: I told them all to just be patient, and to enjoy themselves and to have fun.
HELMS: And I think that one of the important things we did as the crew was to establish a good relationship with our team on the ground, and we did pass onto frank that we thought that that was an important thing. It's much better to have a positive experience working with good folks who are in mission control than to have an adversarial experience, and so we were encouraging Frank to make sure he made that a priority.
O'BRIEN: Susan Helms, Yuri Usachev, Jim Voss, that concludes the CNN portion of this event. Thanks for taking a little time with us from the flight deck of space shuttle Discovery, and happy landings to all the people on board that space shuttle.
HELMS: Thank you, Miles.
HARRIS: Nice going.
O'BRIEN: That was fun. I've got to tell you, I am sort of a gee whiz guy.
HARRIS: Oh no, not you.
O'BRIEN: To have a little bit of chit chat with these guys as they are hurtling across the planet at 17,500 miles an hour is kind of fun.
PHILLIPS: You talked about you asked what they missed. I was reading, Jim Voss said, a good, old-fashioned hamburger. I'm surprised he didn't admit to that.
O'BRIEN: I am surprised that he didn't admit to the hamburger, but you know, the other issue is flying.
Now if you think about it, he's been flying for five months, the ultimate freefall. But it's a different kind of thing, isn't it?
HARRIS: Let me ask you this, are you asking these questions to get tips of your own just in case you get a chance to go up there?
O'BRIEN: I am taking notes. Beyond that, I'm not saying much more.
HARRIS: We're working on this.
O'BRIEN: Leave it there for now.
HARRIS: All right, buddy.
O'BRIEN: All right, thanks.
HARRIS: We're going to talk to you later on.
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