Intro music.
As Return to Flight nears, the STS-114 Shuttle Crew arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center
Jan. 7 to checkout newly arrived flight hardware.
They viewed the redesigned External Tank -- which arrived two days earlier
and is undergoing inspection and testing in the Vehicle Assembly Building.
They also got a chance to see the new Orbiter Boom Sensor System
that will fly on their Return to Flight mission as part of new safety measures.
Led by Commander Eileen Collins, the crew said they are ready to fly.
"It's important to say it's time for us to go fly."
The crew discussed their mission, which will include revamped hardware geared at making the flight safer.
"Well, first of all, if it wasn't safe, I wouldn't get on it. So I think that's pretty obvious.
And I have the utmost confidence that this is going to be an extremely safe flight.
This is the kind of stuff that when we go back to the Moon and on to Mars, we're going to have to have astronauts
that are really good hands-on mechanical engineering kind of guys and gals
that can go in there and fix things and we're doing that on the Space Station right now."
They see the mission as part of the greater NASA Vision.