(00:00:00) The town that I grew up in about a hundred miles west of here Wilmer was the bills itself as the coffee capital of the world and being a good Norwegian. I always thought that drinking coffee was something that that you just did and I never quite understood where that tradition came from and I often wonder down in in Houston where I live now as I go into the office in the morning, especially in the summer times a lot when it's 95 degrees outside in 95% humidity. I catch myself first thing in the morning walking into the mailroom to get a cup of hot coffee. And I lot of times wonder where that came from. And today I was reminded again as I walked outside the door of the hotel into the this nice crisp. Minnesota are that this is something that's certainly deep inside my brain that you need that cup of coffee every morning to survive. Well, I want to tell you a little bit this morning about. American Space Program what it's like to get back into space and let me start by just running down what happened on the morning of September 29th of last year. We had been staying in crew Quarters at the cape Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center in Florida the five members of the discovery crew. Eric Hauck the commander that cubby the pilot Dave helmers Mike Lounge in myself Mission specialist on the flight. We've been staying there for about 3 days in quarantine. Pretty much a relaxing. Our training had been completed. We spend the time studying checklists running outside watching television reading listening to the radio talking to the weatherman getting status updates on the condition of the vehicle. We go to bed fairly early the night before my two previous missions. I had slept pretty well before the flight this time. I didn't sleep very well it woke us up about 5:00 a.m. They let us sleep a little longer because they were having some concerns about the weather and they didn't think they were going to launch that morning. We got up at 5 a.m. Took what we hoped would be the last shower we would have for a week. And went in for breakfast Ada quick breakfast being careful not to drink that cup of coffee that I need every morning and back ready to change clothes. This flight was different than my other two in that we had a space suit to wear this time during the launch the previous flights least with Crews more than two on the space shuttle. The crews had worn pretty much street clothes to launch in you wear Nomex flight suit and helmet that was connected to a breathing air supply. non-pressurized No gloves, he wore boots this time. We had added at the recommendation of the Rogers commission and Escape system to the Orbiter. And this was this was quite a deal you can imagine trying to put some kind of Escape system into an airplane that it was already built. It was non a non-trivial task, but we finally settled on after thinking about putting in ejection seats, which would have taken the program down for a number of years and some kind of an extraction system and we even thought about putting little rockets in the side hatch the crewman would attach themselves to buy a rope and fire a rocket and pull yourself out the hatch. We finally settled on a system that Much like a fireman's pole a pole that went out the side hatch and the procedure was you would actually it was my job to depressurize the cabin if we needed to bail out blow off the side hatch extend this pole out the hatch. And then one at a time, we would Lumber down to the hatch hook up wearing a parachute hook up a small lanyard to a ring on this pole and slide jump out the hatch slide down the pole. You needed the pulled. So it would direct us down and we would go underneath the wing if you were just to just jump out of the hatch without the pole. You had a reasonable chance of hitting the wing on your way down and that would ruin your day. So We put the poll in and because of this capability that we added we needed pressure suits and this now we were able to survive situation say we lost a window during the launch or we got a hole in the cabin or we lost a couple of the main engines on the space shuttle fairly early so that we couldn't either make it to orbit or to one of our abort sites either back at Cape Canaveral or across the Atlantic. We have a number of runways in Africa that we can land in. We have a situation where we can't get any place. We're still flying. But there's nowhere to go either going to come down on the land somewhere or you're out in the middle of the ocean, which is most likely then then we would bail out. And in that case we needed this pressure suit, the suits were similar to what you see from the old-time astronauts just a they were orange. They called him a pumpkin suits orange so that when you went into the ocean, they would be easier to find you with a rescue airplane. And contained a parachute they helmet on top we breathe oxygen for a little while before the launch to help us if we had any low pressure any cabin pressure problems and the suits are also designed to help you survive. If you were to bail out and land in the ocean in the cold water. Keep you alive. They were designed to keep you alive for 24 hours in your life raft until they could that was the longest they would promise that they would take to rescue you. If you're out in the middle of the Atlantic someplace they claimed they could get it within 24 hours. So they so the suit had a an anti exposure garment built into it to and you can imagine once you get all of this stuff on that. It was not comfortable. And we weren't we suited up about an hour before we left for the launch pad. It's a quite a process. You have to get the suits on. Seal them all out make sure that they hold hold pressure and and get everything adjusted and your zipped up into this thing. So everyone make sure to go to the bathroom one last time before they get into their suit because that's going to be it for a while. And everyone gets in their suits gets them tested out ready to go by this time. We were pretty convinced that we weren't going to launch that day. And it was kind of an embarrassing situation for the agency. The space shuttle is built with the computer program already loaded on board that assumes what the winds are going to be at high altitude. And in the fall of the year, we assume that the winds at Cape Canaveral a jet stream is going to be in the area and they'll be about a hundred knots blowing out of the west. But that morning we got up in the winds were about 10 knots blowing from the East. And the computer of course thinks that that is programmed to deflect the surfaces in the engines on the shuttle as we climb up through these winds to minimize the loads on the aircraft. So if it does these Maneuvers if the wrong win then it's actually putting loads on the aircraft and we were right on the edge of what was acceptable and people had worked all night long to do analysis to see if we were going to be able to fly and we didn't think we were the winds had to come down some before we could fly or they had to come up with some new numbers. And so we got up that morning. We thought, you know, we figured all along that that launching the discovery after almost three years of downtime was going to be pretty Monumental task and we resigned ourselves to going to the launch pad number of times. And scrubbing for various reasons and other we figured that the mindset of the management as it should be was that we would not launch without a perfectly healthy spacecraft. So we were ready since you always have some glitches in some some minor failures on a machine that complicated we were ready to scrub and come back and take our seats off and spend another night and go out and do it again the next day row. We were kind of cavalier that morning getting suited up. We were joking among ourselves and we figured it's a good exercise. We'd go out the launch pad. So, excuse me. We went out get out in the in the van. It was a kind of an incredible experience this time you you're well aware. There was an amazing interest from the press in this flight and the public as we went out that morning. There were somewhere around Half to three-quarters of a million people at the cape to watch the launch as we walked out the building to get into the to the van right out to the launch pad. The entire area between the door and the van was filled with press and it was blinding all the flash bulbs and things we walk out there to people yelling and yelling at us and screaming and trying to get our our last comments. I think everyone after the Challenger accident had been been sensitized that that space flight was a dangerous feat and thought maybe they were saying goodbye to us for the last time and so there was kind of a morbid atmosphere to some of this which the crew didn't share but we could sense going on you get into the van and drive out to the launch pad, which is always a wonderful thing because the spacecraft has been Men set apart on the Launchpad all the structure around it's been moved back. And so as you drive up, it's lit by these huge scene on floodlights and you drive up the ramp of the launch pad and here's this magnificent spacecraft out on the launch pad and it's it's being fueled and it's smoking and wheezing and you get out of the van and go up the elevator to the 195-foot level where the where the ramp that goes across to the to the hatches. We take turns one at a time getting strapped in our seats. It's a kind of a lengthy process and while we're waiting for the other guys to get strapped in usually you take your turn and walk around go up the stairs a little bit and just just experienced the vehicle before a launch a spacecraft is A living entity you look at this and it's smoking and it's got ice on it and it's groaning and you can hear fluid flowing in and out of it and kind of creaks and groans. It's a it's a wonderful thing. We made a very close look at the solid Rockets. They were the cause of the Challenger accident and we Look at all the joints and we saw all the changes. We knew all the changes that had changes that have been made and looking at them. I think gave us some at a confidence that things had been done very well that your changes were good and that we had a very viable spaceship there. And when I turn to strap in came I was down on the mid-deck on this launch all by myself and for other guys up on the flight deck, so I went in wasn't the last one in but when I went in to strap in and then it was my last contact with everybody I couldn't see anyone after that. It's quite a process you crawl into your first out in the white room outside the hatch you get into a harness that goes between your legs and across your chest and you zip it up and it's it was my harness was too tight, but we didn't have time to fix it. And so you get into your harness and then you climb into the seat when you get into the seat the parachute risers come over and you have strapped in the parachute and then the parachute has So has straps that go between your legs the hook up you get the parachute on and then you have to hook up the seat. The seat has straps that come over your shoulders and one that goes across your waist and you have to hook up an oxygen hose that hooks into your leg and a Communications hose it hooks into your helmet. And then you have another hose that hooks into your suit that provides a little bit of cooling air to flow through it. So by the time you're getting you're ready to launch and you're lying there on the launch pad and they strapped you all in I felt a little bit like Gulliver. I was tied down in the past we'd always been able after the after the closeout crew at strapped us all in and left and close the hatch. The first thing that you always did was unstrapping sit up. You can't we couldn't do that and he said so we laid there and we there we didn't think we were going to launch we knew we could be out there for three and a half hours and we already been in the suits for over an hour and a half or so. So I laid there and it was a nice warm day at the cape and I was hot and I had to go to the bathroom. And the time went by he get the vehicle ready? And the fans that we have for cooling or very noisy not a very comfortable environment. So we laid there and you and all this stuff under your back parachutes and straps Valves and all this makes it pretty uncomfortable you actually lying on your back with your feet up in the air. And at about after we'd been there for about three hours, we were already an hour and a half after our scheduled launch time waiting for the winds that kept sending up balloons and trying to get the wins and trying to get the latest analysis in and we weren't very optimistic and the clock they kept counting the clock down, which is a good thing to do. And we held at 20 minutes for a while and configured the Orbiter got the computers up and running all that then they can't down to 9 minutes and they hold again and nine minutes is kind of a critical point. That's when they top off the Pretty much top off the fueling of the tank and they get the computers configured their final way. And once you start the count back up at 9 minutes, you're pretty. Convinced that you're going to go so we figured we'd hold it nine minutes. And this had happened to me before my last flight before that. I'd been out the Launchpad five times trying to get off the ground and read held it at 12 seconds and 31 seconds and and nine minutes a couple of times. So I was the I was used to that and we were ready at 9 minutes. We figured that we wouldn't go and the way way that happens is they go around the room in the launch control center. They're about as many people as there are any audience here in their own control center working very hard. Each one has its own system and then each one reports to him. To a supervisor. There are probably only be 15 of them and the launch director then as his final. formal duty in his launch countdown list goes around the room and says well, mr. Booster. Are you going rooster says we're go for launch and mr. Main engines. Are you go and we're go for launch. Mr. Life-supporting though and ms/ms computers. Are you go and they were go in the last person they get to everyone was go was called operations and operations is For this mission was Bob Crippen who has the my commander on my first flight is an astronaut and kripp is in charge of the weather and we figured well everything we've heard that crippled say, you know, we're no-go because of winds and then we figured we'd have to go back and probably have talked to the press that day on the phone and explain why we couldn't launch because the winds weren't blowing weren't blowing hard enough and we are ready and they came to Crypt and they said operations and crib said we're go at that point. Everybody sat up the guys on the flight deck all looked at each other and went okay, we're going to fly. Of course, we had to scramble a little bit. Everyone had their gloves off and their helmets up and we're trying to get as comfortable as they could. So we had a few minutes of mad scramble getting ready to go. As the clock counted down and that you get within 5 minutes of launch things start happening faster and faster because you're going towards a point where you can't stop at 5 minutes, you start the hydraulic pumps their engines in the back very similar to what you have on an airliner. You're this High whining noise when you're in there to run the electricity. On on the space shuttle, we have engines to do that and they run the hydraulic pumps to move that move the engines around and to move the aerosurfaces if we need to restart those at five minutes and they sensation on board before that. You've been lying on this this creaking groaning stack and it kind of sways around and moves just just a little bit as the cryogenic fuels in the tank shit stabilize the thermal properties that thing grows and shrinks and moves around and sways and at five minutes the hydraulic pump start and you can feel them. There's a little bit of sound because their way in the back back by the engines and you get a little bit of sound and some vibration little bit of shake and that goes on at 31 seconds you get the transfer of control from the computers in the control center at the cape to onboard the space shuttle takes over its own operations after that and runs its own clock and the lights its own engines and does everything. So 31 seconds is a real Milestone once you pass 31 seconds. You're pretty sure you're going to try to go. Okay, I happen to me once that we stopped at 12 because we had a problem and if you want to start your heart, that's a great way to do it. We passed we passed 31 seconds. We thought we might stop for another problem as we got down turns out we had been uncomfortable on the pad and one way to help yourself feel a little better would be to was to close the the visor on your space suit and seal it all up and then fill it up with oxygen and that made it kind of a balloon on your back and it gave you a little relief and we had been doing that. We told him we were going to do it and turns out that just before we launched we had pumped enough oxygen in the cabin that we were on the very edge a ringing an alarm and the alarm would have would have automatically stop the launch and so they were scratching and wondering what to do and they decided correctly just to press on so 31 seconds with the they were talking about stopping and then about 40 seconds to go they they came over and said no, we're not going to hold a 31 seconds. So we went right through that point. Hey, I'm telling this isn't in kind of a time compressed way. And this is the way you experience pretty much had been laying on. Had for three and a half hours and somehow these last Thirty One seconds kind of pick up the same area in my memory as the three and a half hours before you get a real Distortion of time when you're doing this as the clock counted down with them. I didn't have any official duties during the launch unless we had an abortion had to bail out down in the mid-deck and except for communications and things like that. So I had my watch stopwatch all set to start so I would know where we were and I had little me board told on my my knee that I compute it up the told me at a given time. During the launch what altitude we'd be at and what how fast we'd be going and what how many geez I'd be feeling so I could calibrate myself. and yet all about ten seconds or so you get a go for main engine start at 6 seconds. The main the main engine start and (00:21:01) Main engines are (00:21:03) located on the space shuttle itself on the Orbiter. There's three of them each about 400,000 pounds of thrust and they light almost simultaneously at six seconds to go when that happens. The sensation on board is one of Pushing up in the seat. You can feel the whole shuttle rise up against the stack. The whole thing is pulling itself off the pad it's swings forward. So if you're upstairs and you look out the window, you can see the whole Gantry launch pad swing back behind you and then come back again. And at that point there's a lot of noise a lot of vibration and the clock gets to zero right of there haven't been any problems and there weren't this time the clock gets to zero the solid rocket ignition signal is sent and the solid Rockets light in the solid Rockets when they light it's not Anything that is subtle or slow or in any way has any has a ramp build up? It's a very much of a step function you get to clock gets to zero and solid Rockets light and it's just boom and it's you just you thrown back in your seat. The initial G's off. The launch pad is about two and a half and that's a that's about the same as you get in a world-class Dragster and it turns out it's in the same direction. It's in in towards your chest in a dragster, you know, it might last for for three or four seconds as you do the quarter mile in the Orbiter at last for eight and a half minutes. The yet the shuttle then just leaps off the launch pad here. You've got this five and a half million pounds of spacecraft in tank and and fuel by the time it's reached the top of the pad by the time it's gone just about its own length already going a hundred miles an hour. On board when the solid rocket slide if you thought the noise from the main engines was high the noise from the solid Rockets is is incredible. You just you can't hear luckily. We have a radios turned up very loud me to communicate that way. So solid Rockets are are very rough way they burn so it's like riding on a rough train a lot of vibration a lot of shake to Covey one of his jobs as pilot just right after liftoff was to just push a button to change the display on her computer screen from One display to another and he had practiced in the simulator over and over and over and over again to just right after liftoff to reach down and push that button and change the display. He said this time You left it off and he reached down to push the button in his hand was waving back and forth in front of the family. Couldn't he couldn't hold it still to find the button from the vibration of the solid rock. They go on for for two minutes down in the mid-deck. I was my plan during this launch since I didn't have official duties during the launch was to was to just try and feel as much as I could through my with my body of the sensations of what was going on and I wanted especially to Mark the 73 second point in the launch where the Challenger had had been lost to see just what what the physical Sensations were at that time. And everyone I think reacted pretty much on board like they did on the ground right at liftoff. Everyone gave a big cheer. And everyone was quiet again. This is the way the crowd was on the ground and we watched in the guys upstairs, you know eyes are glued on the instruments and on the panels and we're watching for any any little anomaly right after liftoff. We got an alarm a fuel-cell malfunction alarm turned out to be a false alarm. So we ignored it. But you know that if your heart rate wasn't up fast enough then that will do it all so all you need is bells and whistles ringing. All right after you left off After two minutes, the solid Rockets came off and they come off with with another little explosion. They have some big. Rockets that separate them from the shuttle and then that happened say cover the windows with crud is a big red flame all around the Orbiter and then they fall away the geez start to build back up again in the ride is very smooth or another six and a half minutes the G's build pretty quickly up to 3 G's and for another six and a half minutes and you're pressed back in your seat. Actually, you're upside down when the Orbiter lifts off. It rolls around and tips upside down. So if you look out overhead Windows, you're looking down at the ground. And you continue feel a little bit like you're hanging upside down in your straps, but mostly just like you're being pushed back into your seat. And it makes it with our tight suits and type harnesses and makes a little bit hard to breathe and you could tell who had the tight harnesses on board by by the way, they talked and how concerned they were with how close we were to main engine cutoff the commander and I think we're in the worst shape Rick Rick and I were both watching our watches and we knew when we knew when main engine cutoff was supposed to be and we conversation. I've listened to the essent taped the conversation goes about every 15 seconds is 2 minutes 15 seconds to minutes. You take very shallow breaths think well. I think I can keep this up for another two minutes. I don't know but I got to get a breath of air one of these days. And then at eight and a half minutes when you've achieved orbital velocity about 17,500 miles an hour the main engines cut off and you go from from 3 G's in a lot of noise and push to zero G's and quiet and it's a wonderful feeling the first thing I did this time was I was all connected up and I took off my seat belt and I started disconnecting things and told told Rick that I was going off Comm because my job in the first few hours of the flight to pretty much everyone else stays in their seats and I scurried around and put things away and got got other cameras and books and things out to get a setup for on-orbit operations. So I came out of my seat right away did a summer somersault across the Cross the mid-deck said back in zero gravity. It's a wonderful feeling and then went about my work went upstairs and took the cover out of the overhead windows and watch the coast of Africa goes screaming by 60 miles below us on our way up to a hundred and sixty miles and look around the spacecraft got everybody's inputs. And that was a we had an absolutely Flawless launch. No anomalies solid Rockets worked perfectly. So I spent a couple of minutes looking out the windows at the Earth. You never get tired of looking at the girth and then went about my work the first couple hours on orbit before the they've checked out all the systems and give you a go for orbit. You have we had to stay in our suits. Like I said, they were hot and I was disconnected from my Cooling. So every time I would come back up from the mid-deck to the Flight Deck with with books or instruments are cameras or whatever and set them up and other pyramids would look at me and just go. Oh, yeah Chuck as I was sweating and sweat in space doesn't run off of you like it does on the ground it just kind of blobs up and I had Blobs of sweat. Size of golf balls hanging off my face and my head so finally went down and broke out some towels and trying to clean myself up up a little bit. That's what it's like that's that's launch morning course we went on. For 4 days of the mission first day of the flight deployed a communication satellite. And then after that was gone, we got busy. Doing science on board. We had 11 science experiments that were one from from Saint Paul from the 3M Company and some very good ones, which we kept us busy for the next next four days The Landing was an entry in the landing where Uneventful thank goodness and got back to the to the ground got met at the at the bottom of the stairs of by the vice president now President Bush which is kind of a surprise we didn't they didn't get the message up to us that he was going to be there after we had landed we had all were all down in the mid-deck we take in our suits off and we were trying to get cleaned up a little bit to go outside waiting for the flight surgeon come in with our clothes. And standing there and the hatch open in the flight surgeon came in and most of us didn't have any clothes on and we were all getting ourselves cleaned up and he came in and said welcome back guys. I don't want you to hurry up or anything, but the vice president's down at the bottom of the stairs and he kind of like to see you. So we hurried up and got dressed and went down and had a nice reception from him and from everyone else from the half a million people who are out it out of Edwards to watch us land. It was a great feeling to help get the program back on its feet. It was a lot of work. We worked for 022 and a half years training for that mission. A lot of that was working with the engineers and working with the management to make sure that all the problems that have been pointed out by the Rogers commission were solved. But I think we're in good shape. Now. We've got a spaceship out on the launch pad going to be the third flight after the Challenger. Gary another satellite very similar to what we took and right now it's scheduled for the 10th of March. We had a problem with the main engines that they had to fix that slipped it out of February, but that seems to be in hand and they're ready to go. We've got some very exciting stuff coming up for the rest of this year. We're going to launch a spacecraft of Venus a radar map or that's going to going to tell us for the first time in some detail what the surface of Venus looks like. It's covered by thick sulfuric acid clouds. We can't look through it except with a radar. We're going to launch the Space Telescope. That will allow us to see. about 300 times more volume in the universe than we can see right now enable us to look back almost to the beginning of time. As an astronomer as an astronomer myself. That's a pretty exciting prospect. It's going to revolutionize my field. I can't wait for that. The agency is also has a lot of other things in the works. We're planning the space station. There's a lot of design effort going on for that. This is going to be a big big space station. The whole structure will be over 300 feet long. Oh, how's the crew of 628 folks on a permanent basis will rotate Crews probably every four to six months. contain Laboratories for Research into microgravity Research into biophysics and into long-term exposure to weightlessness. Do animal research astronomical research. That's going to be quite a facility. It should be built by the end of the century at least And beyond that NASA finally I think is starting to come to grips with the idea that they need a long-term plan and I think that the administration in the and the Congress is also coming to that realization. So I would expect in the next few years to see some long-term goals for the agency. Probably nothing is galvanizing is as being the first to the moon but certainly very important things. We'll probably start a very extensive study of our own planet. called mission to Earth with that would be a number of unmanned then and man facilities to study our own Planet global weather to study geology oceanography many things. We don't understand about our own planet. There's talking the in the wings of going back to the Moon. A building a permanent facility on the moon as kind of a way station or as a source of resources. There's talk in the More distant future of sending manned mission to Mars is also talk of doing that. Jointly with the Russians and there's there's also talk of being second of the Russians getting their first that seems to be their goal right now and they're they're well on their way to achieving that I think but all in all I think we're going to see some very exciting times for space in the next next 15 years or so. I think one of the most exciting for me is that I view space is a very valuable resource and the agency that I'm involved in is just a means to allow people to use and exploit that resource and I think that we're going to see in the next 15 years or so or maybe even by the turn of the century. We're going to see that resource start to pay off course communication satellites are all are already very profitable machines and and have shown some of the utility of having an exact Delights in space. But something is going to happen and I don't know what that's why I'm always so excited to carry experiments like the 3M experiment on board the shuttle is that one of these days one of these little experiments one of these two cubic foot. Boxes that we carry on board is going to pay for our program and at that point, I think we're going to see a revolution in space where what becomes really important is not a the Big Goal or the or the giant effort that has to be done. But what's going to become important is utilizing all this ground work we've done for the last 25 years that is learning how to build reliable rockets and learning how to build reliable life support systems and Good batteries and good solar cells because what's going to become important is just building a reliable railroad into space so that we can get materials into space when we want to get them back when we want to to to make space of a place of business because that's what's going to make the whole effort take off to me. It's going to be like Equivalent to the discovering gold in California. We're going to see it a mass rush to get into space to make use of what we've got up there. And that that's pretty exciting for me. I can't tell you what technology or what effort is going to going to start that Revolution, but there are a lot of things going on and one of them is going to pay off. In order to do that, of course, we need good people and that's one of my secondary Crusades is that we need smart people and we need people who get the opportunity to go through an educational system like we have in, Minnesota. I was very lucky. I think to have gone to school and Wilmer where I got it got a good education. And I'm kind of disappointed frankly when I see what's happening and you hear a lot of talk about about what's going on in Colleges and Schools like that, but I'm my real concern is what's happening in our in our lower grades. My kids don't see much science didn't see much science in grade school and I worry about that. We need to to establish a program where the teachers know about science where the grade-school teachers can contribute to the kids wonder about what the world is doing around them and in appreciation for arithmetic and Mathematics for the for the exciting and fun subjects that they are so that's That's going to be one of my Crusades in the future here is to try and upgrade that to get people aware of it. And we need to start very young with these folks and they have to be excited because if we don't we're going to be overtaken as we as we already are to a large extent by the Japanese or the Europeans are the folks who have a very strong young education program who can produce young people who have skills in science and engineering and Technology. And that's a big part. I think of what the u.s. Space Program does. I know my colleagues and I spent a lot of time talking about that. Just what we're doing in space and why we're going to all this trouble I were working at a job that doesn't pay very much and besides the sheer fun of being able to find Space every couple of years. What's the real point of all this effort? I think of a lot of it just comes down to the fact that we're trying to keep the candle lit to keep technology and to keep the progress going, you know, there's no guarantee that The things will get better in the future and we had a period a thousand years ago where progress has pretty much stopped for a thousand years, and there's no guarantee that that we couldn't have another Dark Ages. so I view part of my effort S as staving off the darkness of keeping the candle lit and I'm committed and I know folks like you are committed to something like to those kinds of efforts because there's no guarantee that We won't slip backwards if we don't keep pressing and keep working as hard as we can to go forward. And that's an effort to not only of course you understand for the for the government, but probably mostly an effort for the individuals and Industry and the folks like you who make this this town in this state and in the country run. So with that, let me stop and show you some home movies. This is a film that was taken mostly on board the discovery by the by the crew and for the people listening on the radio. This is going to be real challenge to show a movie on the radio, but no good chance for use you to use your imaginations and this this film was taken by by the crew on board and a knitted together by us. And then we've we went back and narrated it to try and tell the story of the discovery flight so we could roll the film, please. (00:40:34) The 26 mission of the Space Shuttle the first after the Challenger accident. What was our main objective a safe launch and a safe return we use that as the dominant theme of our crew patch the red Vector from the NASA meatball indicates that we are still building upon the traditional strengths of NASA. The seven starred Big Dipper symbolized are seven friends lost on The Challenger the sunrise represented a new beginning On September 29th 1988 while we slept Discovery was being fueled on the launch pad. We got up at about 5 a.m. And after breakfast and our weather briefs we suited up. I'm Captain Rick out commander of the mission. The pilot was Colonel dick cubby. Mission Specialists Lieutenant Colonel, Dave Hill MERS doctor pinky Nelson and Mike Lounge This flight was to be the culmination of the efforts of tens of thousands of people across the nation NASA Engineers contractors many advisory groups both within and outside government. This was to be in every sense a test flight during the 30 months since the Challenger accident. There have been hundreds of Hardware changes to not only the solid rocket booster but also to the Orbiter and the large liquid rocket fuel tank numerous software changes have been implemented all had been tested exhaustively. We had trained as a crew for 20 months when it came time to strap into this four and a half million pounds of Hardware. We were convinced that the team was as ready as it could be. Copy KSC safety and quality director safety and quality has no constraints to launch the bottom Auto sequence start discoveries for redundant computers have assumed T minus twenty-three seconds and counting the SRB nozzles profile T-minus 15, 14, 13, 12, 11 10. We're go for main engine start seven 603 clears the tower Whether you have flown aboard the shuttle before or not, you're never really quite ready for the launch experience emotions. Adrenaline sight Sound and Motion all well together in an overwhelming banrural in your body tells you that something very powerful is propelling you and leaves no doubt that you were going somewhere very fast as we pass through the region of Maximum Dynamic pressure the second seem to move ever so slowly Discovery go at throttle up. So we give it a go at throttle up three engines at hundred four percent. 5600 feet per second velocity 31.8 nautical miles altitude downrange distance 38 nautical miles one of our primary objectives for this flight was to deploy a large communication satellite for NASA and once we get safely into orbit, we got busy preparing for that deployment Rick and Vic up in the front seat of a flight deck got busy checking the Orbiter and making sure it was healthy and ready to do the required separation maneuver after the deployment of the tdrs satellite. Meanwhile, Dave and I were busy on the a flight deck checking the Telemetry from the spacecraft and its booster making sure it was healthy and ready for deployment. The satellite is a 5,000 pound very complex communication satellite the dark object here in the picture. It's carried to its 22,000 Mile High orbit by the inertial upper stage, which is the white portion of this 40-foot stack and my job here was upon getting a go from Mission Control to throw a switch that would separate this stack from the support structure prop. Go procedures go. Standing by for your go for deploy. That's fine Discovery. You are go for deploy. Deploy deploy. Here we see the Tigress eye u.s. Combination shortly after deployment at the moment of deployment. Push offsprings gave it a slow and Majestic separation from the shuttle. Pinky was our chief photo documentary footage little ploy. Rick came back to the a flight deck and maneuvered the Orbiter about one minute after the deploy the maneuver that he made gave additional separation from the satellite and positioned it in the overhead window. So it could be tracked visually. This is really a pretty sad after the deploy the first of two solid rocket Motors fired on the upper stage these Rockets placed the satellite in orbit above the equator such a will remain fixed relative to the ground. It will be used by NASA to increase shuttle Communications with mission control and will also be utilized by spacecraft such as landsat to relay Telemetry to the ground many other private and government agencies will be using this extremely sophisticated satellite. Until the United States space station is on orbit. The mid-deck of the Orbiter will be the free worlds only microgravity laboratory. The mid-deck is a national resource. That was well used during the flight of Discovery. We carried 11 experiments on board from the Marshall space flight center JSC industry and University Laboratories all across the country ranging from biomedical investigations, like protein crystal growth to Material Science to an engineering test of an infrared communication system to experiments designed by high school students were perform both for their scientific value and to encourage young people to develop interest in space science and space flight. Both of these experiments were very visual when heated titanium wires the other grew crystals of lead iodide on a membrane, even on a short for day Mission, the scientific return from our experiments is significant. Another mid-deck experiment We performed was the phase partition experiment here. We see pinky shaken up the experiment container while I was setting up the photo equipment face partitioning is one method currently used for separating different types of biological cells. This process has been shown to be extremely valuable and developing new Pharmaceuticals and also in performing biomedical research after we had shaken the experiment we photographed the chamber's to study their D mixing properties, which are not completely understood here on Earth. Discovery Houston where with you through Hawaii we'd like to take just a few moments today to share with you some of the sites that we've been so privileged to view over the past several days if we walked along with you many emotions will open our hearts. Joy for America's return to space gratitude for a nation support through difficult times Thanksgiving for the safety of our crew reverence for those who sacrifice made our journey possible. Freezing outside we can understand why mankind has looked towards the heavens with all and wonder since the dawn of human existence. We can comprehend why our countrymen have been driven to explore the vast expanse of space. And we are convinced that this is the road to the Future the roads in Americans must travel. If we are to maintain the dream of our constitution to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity as we the crew Discovery witness this Earthly Splendor from America spacecraft less than 200 miles separates us from the remainder of mankind and a fraction of a second hours reach your ears. But lest we ever forget that these few miles represent a great Gulf that to ascend through this seemingly, Tranquil Sea will always be fraught with danger. Let us remember the Challenger crew who's Voyage was so tragically short with them. We shared a common purpose with them. We shared a common goal. At this moment our place in the heavens makes it feel closer to them than ever before. Those are the Challenger who had flown before and seen these sites. They would know the meaning of our thoughts those who had gone to view them for the first time. They would know why we set forth. They were our fellow sojourners. They were our friends. Today up here where the Blue Sky turns to black we can say at long last to Dick Mike duty to run a nail and the Christian break dear friends. We have resumed the journey that we promise to continue for you. Evangelist has meant that we could confidently begin Anew your friends your spirit and your dream are still alive in our hearts and discovery on behalf of the Challenger families and all of us down here. It sure does feel good to see the Challenger Mission continue in America back in (00:51:11) space. (00:51:16) Mission control on NASA select television. We're now taking a view from helicopter over the landing area and we're looking at some of the 380,000 people gathered for the landing of discovery. Discovery handled beautifully even though it's a 200,000 pounds lighter responds very well control inputs. We came subsonic overhead the Edwards Lake bed at about 40,000 food mm thick heavy took control for about 10 or 15 seconds and pass it to me Discovery Houston on Center Line on glide. Slope winds are calm looks real pretty See the Glide slope and the standard Orbiter approach. About 300 miles an hour pointed down at the lake bed. Rsync writes about 11,000 feet per minute. Then as we get to 1800 feet. I pulled back gently on the stick. Both the shallow The Descent rate and to start bleeding off air speed. And about 300 feet to coming lower the landing gear the gear down and locked the report from Mission Control. touchdown let her have now rotating the nose down standing by for nose gear and a touchdown. With only moderate breaking we stopped after about 7,500 feet of ground roll. Roger wheelstop Discovery, welcome back a great ending to the new beginning. Thanks a lot. After completing the post-landing checks, we were met at the bottom of the steps by Vice President Bush NASA administrator. Dr. Jim Fletcher and the head of the office of space flight rear Admiral dick truly. We knew that the smiles on their faces reflected the mood of the NASA team. We'd accomplish the missions objectives. We returned Americans to space. (00:54:12) This is a Minnesota meeting again with dr. George pinky Nelson. I think we have time for maybe one or two questions of from the audience here. Yes right here mister. contractor maybe you could just okay question. I wanted to ask which I had written out was to identify your address any significant significant differences that you might feel between the space program we have with the capability of return flight and reusable spacecraft and the Russians ability to prolong orbital capabilities. Okay in the long term, our programs are going to look very similar. They have just test flown a shuttle this last fall their own version of a space shuttle and we are in the process of building a space station. So I think we both benefit from each other's program. Certainly the technology to build a reusable spacecraft is very sophisticated, but they also have the Russians have had a sophisticated technology to have people in space for up to a year. So I would say within 10 years our programs are going to look very much alike. But we've learned a lot a lot from them. They have a very very steady and well-planned and they're consistent program. Thank you. Are there other questions at this point doc knows maybe I could ask what what what is it you think about about our country that led to that great reaction over Challenger and we have had failures in the past. We've lost people we've had machines that haven't worked but there was something about Challenger which seem to take a lot of Americans as to whether we could really do something big have we changed as a people? Oh, I think the reaction to the Challenger was in large part because we hadn't had a big failure like that people considered the space program to be bulletproof as it were to have be be perfect, and it was a realization that the program is very any time you fly a rocket. There's going to be some risk involved. I also I think the fact that we had civilians on board the Challenger added to the impact. Thank you very much. Dr. Nilson. Thank you.