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CNN Sunday Morning
Columbia and Hubble Meet
Aired March 03, 2002 - 07:21 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, let's talk about the shuttle, shall we?
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's talk about the shuttle.
O'BRIEN: You've had your little gospel moment.
PHILLIPS: There we go. Let's have our little toy moment here.
O'BRIEN: Let's talk to the high priest of space shuttledom.
PHILLIPS: And that's you.
O'BRIEN: All right. Space shuttle Columbia, Discovery -- or excuse me, Discovery -- shuttle Columbia and the Hubble space telescope met about three hours ago and everything went well. Columbia inched up toward it and grabbed the Hubble. It's now sitting in the aft section of shuttle's payload bay where all the work begins. The tools and the equipment are all here. The space shuttle astronauts, two pairs of them, will conduct five arduous space walks beginning in the overnight hours Eastern Time tonight.
Now, let's take a look at some pictures that were fed down by the crew as they approached the Hubble space telescope. This is the commander of the mission, Scott "Scooter" Altman onboard in the left side of the shuttle. There's his pilot, "Digger" Carey. I asked them both how they got their nicknames. Don't ask they're not going to tell you. Anyway...
PHILLIPS: They wouldn't tell you?
O'BRIEN: No, no. "Scooter" got his key flying Navy jets. He did the stunt flying for "Top Gun."
PHILLIPS: Really?
O'BRIEN: And so he's -- he knows his way around the stick and rudder. There he is right there. He's also one of the largest astronauts. Big guy. And of course, that is one of the smallest astronauts, as fate would have it, Nancy Currie, who is the robotic arm operator. They are going through checklists as they approached the Hubble space telescope. All this -- and there's "Digger" sitting in the left seat. And that's Jim Newman, one of the space walkers who will be out shortly doing some work on the Hubble. Let's take a look at the grapple, as they call it. One quick view of the Earth. That's the shuttle's robotic arm right there. It attached seemingly effortlessly to the attached point, which is built onto the Hubble space telescope. This is the fourth time it's been grappled.
Kyra, take a look at this. I want you to see -- if you look right down there, that is the target that Nancy Currie is going after. Where did it go? Well, it disappeared.
PHILLIPS: Can you bring it up?
O'BRIEN: I'll show it to you in a moment. There it is.
PHILLIPS: OK, there it is.
O'BRIEN: One more time. Now, you see that little dot inside the circle there, right in there?
PHILLIPS: Yeah.
O'BRIEN: If you keep that dot inside the circle, you're flying right down the shoot.
PHILLIPS: Wow!
O'BRIEN: It's very simple. You know, all we...
PHILLIPS: Oh, yeah, real simple.
O'BRIEN: ... have is space age technology and it comes to a little dot in a circle. Nancy Currie proved that years and years of astronaut training will in fact seem effortless. She did it and now Hubble is in position.
Let's take a look at one little oddity, I guess if you will. Look at this piece of space junk. As the shuttle was approaching the Hubble, this little piece of space junk and my friends at NASA...
PHILLIPS: What is it? Do they have any idea what it is?
O'BRIEN: ... claim they don't know what it is. And for those of you who are watching that show "ROSWELL" (ph), don't...
PHILLIPS: UFO, UFO.
O'BRIEN: ... send us any e-mails now. It's more likely probably a faring of some kind, a piece of debris from a rocket that launched who knows when. You know, U.S. Space Command tracks about 8,000 distinct pieces of space junk and that's just one of them. No avoidance was required by the shuttle Columbia however.
Now, there's one other thing, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Yes.
O'BRIEN: And I know you celebrated this moment. Did you -- did you send me a card?
PHILLIPS: Your birthday? Yes. Christmas? Yes.
O'BRIEN: Pioneer's anniversary yesterday, 30 years. Thirty years in Pioneer is like the Timex watch of space probes. And the folks at the jet propulsion lab who watch these things...
PHILLIPS: Yes.
O'BRIEN: ... decided what the heck. Pioneer is still out there 30 years later. Let's just, you know, send Pioneer a little greeting card and wish -- was it him or her? Ships are her -- wish her a happy birthday. Sure enough, they heard back, 22 hours and six minutes later, across some two -- 7.4 billion miles of space.
Now, Pioneer is still on its way outbound traveling at 27,000 miles per hour relative to the sun. It's on its way to the red star, Aldabaran (ph).
PHILLIPS: Red star Aldabaran (ph).
O'BRIEN: Now, for those of you who have your Palm Pilots out, you can put this in -- Pioneer...
PHILLIPS: He is so technical.
O'BRIEN: ... will reach Aldabaran...
PHILLIPS: OK.
O'BRIEN: ... about two million years from now. So...
PHILLIPS: We'll be long gone by then. I sure hope we are.
O'BRIEN: But you might want to put it in nonetheless.
PHILLIPS: You never know. Bury it in a little capsule somewhere and you know, somebody will find it.
O'BRIEN: But to all the people in the Pioneer program, what a great success that is 30 years later. And they think they can still communicate with her for at least another year.
Anyway, that's my little space segment for the morning and...
PHILLIPS: We'll have more.
O'BRIEN: ... thank you -- thank you for indulging me.
PHILLIPS: Absolutely.
O'BRIEN: All right.
PHILLIPS: You know I'm always learning things from you.
O'BRIEN: All right, good.
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