Kay Hire/NASA Astronaut: This is Lee Archambault and he is getting ready to get into
the orbiter Discovery. And as the commander climbs into the orbiter, he'll actually go to
the right and crawl up towards the, the flight deck. And then shortly behind him, will be
Mission Specialist John Phillips and he will actually crawl straight in that's right into our
middeck he'll be strapped in on the middeck for the ascent.
Candrea Thomas/NASA Launch Commentator: Now we see Pilot Tony Antonelli.
Kay Hire/NASA Astronaut: That's correct, he will be the second crew member to crawl
in on the flight deck while John Phillips is still getting strapped in down on the middeck.
Candrea Thomas/NASA Launch Commentator: Back in the White Room we have
Mission Specialist Ricky Arnold as he gets the last of his equipment on before entering.
In the White Room we have Mission Specialist Joe Acaba putting on his equipment.
Koichi Wakata is a JAXA astronaut -- he'll actually be the first Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency astronaut that'll be a resident on the International Space Station.
Back on the flight deck watching Pilot Tony Antonelli.
Kay Hire/NASA Astronaut: Yeah, looks like we just got the middeck strap-in camera
view and it's a little dark as I, as we mentioned, it's kind of dark in there but we've got
enough light to see what we need to on board. But we have the mission specialists that
are flying on the middeck are strapped in. And we see the view from the flight deck that
Mission Specialist Steve Swanson has climbed into his seat and now they'll begin
strapping him in.
Tim Seymour/Former Closeout Crew Member: Mike Wallace is picking up the back of the hatch,
unlocking the dog. And now Renee's got the weight of the hatch, he's closing the hatch on the
hinge. Mike's picking it up. It?s a really tight fit there and there's thermal protection around it, so
we don?t want it to ding or nick the thermal protection. So they're extra careful at this point
shutting the hatch. And you'll see there's little brown papers it looks like around the hatch that's an
Armalon. And what that does it that protects the tile as we close the hatch, and once we get the
hatch closed and latched we'll pull the Armalon out -- it's really slick material but it protects the
tile in case we were to nick it.