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STEPHANIE STILSON: On Launch Pad 39B, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Space Shuttle Discovery awaits launch on
mission STS-116 as its crew prepares to take the next step in completing the International Space Station.
Good morning, and thanks for joining us. I'm your host, Stephanie Stilson, NASA flow director for Space Shuttle Discovery.
In just a few minutes, you'll learn more about Discovery, the crew and the upcoming mission.
You'll also meet our special in-studio guest, veteran astronaut Rick Linnehan,
who will answer some questions about living, working and eating in space.
First, a little about the STS-116 mission.
Discovery will deliver the next space station component, called the "P5" or the "Port 5" truss.
Commander Mark Polansky and his six crewmates have trained extensively for this important mission.
VIDEO NARRATOR: Polansky -- along with William Oefelein, Robert Curbeam, Joan Higginbotham,
Nicholas Patrick, Christer Fuglesang and Sunita Williams -- will have a busy work schedule for the 12-day mission.
MARK POLANSKY: I really need to know the big picture, what's going on with the entire crew, be looking out for
the rest of my crew with regards to their timelines, their tasks, making sure that people aren't getting
over-utilized in certain areas, as well as concentrating on the things that, in particular,
I'll be performing on the flight. So it's sort of like being both a player and a coach at the same time.
VIDEO NARRATOR: One of the prime tasks of the mission will be to install the Port 5 truss segment on the station.
The shuttle's robotic arm will hand off the truss to the station's robotic arm,
which will be used to carefully position the segment for attachment by two spacewalkers.
Sunita Williams and Joan Higginbotham will operate the station's arm.
JOAN HIGGINBOTHAM: The arm operations are really complex.
We have very tight tolerances between the, the arm and different structures. For example, on our mission,
we are going to, as we're putting the P5 truss into position, we are coming within inches of a box.
And, and that's unheard of. You always want to stay two feet away from structure.
So, two feet and two inches is a, is a big difference!
VIDEO NARRATOR: Since it went into service, the space station has been running on a temporary electrical configuration.
Once the truss is in place, the astronauts will tackle the difficult task of
reconfiguring the station to run on power generated by its new solar arrays.
These arrays were attached and deployed by the STS-115 crew in September
and are designed to rotate to remain pointed optimally at the sun.
During two additional spacewalks, mission controllers on the ground will send
commands to switch off power, then unplug and replug power cables into different locations.
What sounds simple on Earth is certainly more difficult -- and dangerous -- when working in space.
The work is full of unknown factors, like working with parts of the station that
have been exposed to the harsh conditions of space for a number of years.
One such process will require folding up a solar array currently in use to allow the new ones to fully rotate.
European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang, the first
Swedish astronaut in space, will participate in two of the mission's spacewalks.
A final goal of the mission is a crew exchange as Williams trades places with
German astronaut Thomas Reiter to become the new flight engineer of the space station's Expedition 14 crew.
Reiter, who traveled to the station in July aboard Discovery during STS-121, will return to Earth with the STS-116 crew.
STILSON: Now, it's my great pleasure to welcome a very special guest to the studio:
three-time space shuttle astronaut, Rick Linnehan. Rick, thank you for joining us.
RICHARD LINNEHAN: Hi, Stephanie. It's great to be here.
STILSON: Rick, on your last shuttle flight, STS-109, you helped to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
Having performed three of the five spacewalks on that mission, what do you
think the astronauts on the upcoming Hubble service mission will encounter?
LINNEHAN: Well, the spacewalks on Hubble are similar to the spacewalks on station, with a few minor differences,
in that the Hubble spacewalks tend to be more hand-intensive, fine-motor-control kind of stuff because
you're working in a small area. The guys and gals out there on space station tend to move around a lot more and
exert themselves a lot more, so I think physically, it's much more strenuous to do a spacewalk on station.
For instance, on my spacewalks, most of the time I was in a position locked into the arm with my feet in stirrups,
or I'd be, position myself and be stationary. I didn't move around a lot, but I had a lot of fine-motor-control
stuff --changing out switchboards, doing power controller reconfigures,
things of that nature where we use a lot of tools and a lot of movement.
On station, the distances are so much bigger and the boxes and the equipment are so much beefier that you do a lot more
moving around, a lot more -- I kind of look at it as almost brachiating, if you know what that means.
You see orangutans brachiating through the forest and you're brachiating all over station,
you're carrying big boxes with you.
So, I think from a physical and exertion standpoint, that the walks that these
guys are up against are actually harder than the Hubble walks.
STILSON: Your first two missions, STS-78 and STS-90, were both Spacelab missions.
How do you think the work in Spacelab paved the way for the International Space Station work?
LINNEHAN: It, it was, it was the groundbed for it in terms of what happened with Spacelab.
The early module, which is now in the Smithsonian, by the way; it's retired and sits in the Smithsonian,
it was the first really total laboratory that NASA flew in the space shuttle, and my first few missions were aboard it.
It was an incredible facility, about the size, I guess, of a bus. It fit right
in the back of the payload bay and filled up the whole payload bay. An incredible piece of equipment.
We did a lot of different experiments, life sciences and microgravity, and many of the experiments that we did,
and some of the research that we accomplished, laid the groundwork for the
experiments which were planned and are now ongoing on space station, life-sciences-wise.
STILSON: Well, now that the shuttle flights, the crew size and station
construction are all increasing, how do you think life on the station is changing?
LINNEHAN: Well, with the new power reconfigures, station's a bigger, bigger, better beast now.
There's a lot of room up there. I haven't been there yet, and I look forward maybe to one day getting up there.
I've been to the Hubble and the two Spacelab missions, but I think plans are to increase crew size,
start doing more science as applicable, and of course, the big thing is to continue construction and up,
up to 2010, when station will be complete. And then it will be an incredible facility.
I don't think people really appreciate just how incredible and what an accomplishment it is.
If you look up at night and you see the brightest object in the sky, moving across the sky,
it's something that we built and it's, you know, an international
orbiting space station laboratory, so that's pretty impressive.
STILSON: Amazing work, right. Rick, we have more questions for you a little later in the program.
LINNEHAN: Great.
STILSON: But first, as flow director for Space Shuttle Discovery, I'm proud
to see the orbiter ready to once again carry our astronauts on their mission in space.
Let's take a closer look at NASA's most experienced orbiter.
OFF-CAMERA VOICE: ...So, in 47 now, over the landing lights at the end of the runway, preparing touchdown.
GEORGE DILLER: Discovery was NASA's third space shuttle orbiter to join the fleet,
arriving for the first time at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in November of 1983.
OFF-CAMERA VOICE...and touchdown. Discovery, the third orbiter in the space shuttle fleet has arrived at Kennedy Space Center.
DILLER: The choice of the name "Discovery" carried on a tradition drawn from historic, Earth-exploring ships of the past.
Destined for exploring the heavens instead of the seas, NASA's Discovery made its maiden voyage on Aug. 30, 1984.
OFF-CAMERA VOICE: ...six. We have main engines start. Three. Two. One. We have SRB
ignition and we have liftoff, liftoff of mission 41-D, the first flight of
the orbiter Discovery, and the shuttle has cleared the tower.
DILLER: Since that inaugural flight, Discovery has completed more than
30 successful missions, surpassing all other orbiters in NASA's fleet.
In April of 1990, Discovery had the distinction of carrying the Hubble Space Telescope into space.
VOICE 1: I tell you what, we'll spend just a few more minutes getting some pictures here.
VOICE 2: Yes, sir. Do just that.
DILLER: Just like all the orbiters, Discovery has undergone some major modifications over the years.
The most recent began in 2002, and was the first major modification performed at the Kennedy Space Center
The modifications included new changes to make it safer for flight.
Discovery has the distinction of being chosen as the return-to-flight orbiter twice --
first for STS-26 in 1988, and again in 2005 for STS-114.
OFF-CAMERA VOICE: ...six. Five. Three engines up and burning. Three. Two. One and liftoff of Space Shuttle Discovery,
beginning America's new journey to the moon, Mars and beyond. And the vehicle has cleared the tower.
DILLER: During its many successful trips into space, Discovery has carried satellites aloft,
ferried modules and crews to the International Space Station, and provided the setting for countless science experiments.
As the shuttle program draws to a close, Discovery is currently manifested to fly until 2009,
delivering components as it helps in completing the International Space Station.
STILSON: We've heard about Discovery and its crew, and learned a little about the work the astronauts have ahead of them.
But now we'd like to get some insight and answers to our viewers' questions about living and working in space.
LINNEHAN: Sure. Shoot.
STILSON: Great. Jennifer from Green Bay asks, "On launch day, what are your feelings
after you leave the crew quarters and through the time of the 'go' for launch?"
LINNEHAN: Well, Jennifer, you're thinking about a lot. You've prepared for, in some cases,
up to two years for your space flight and you're thinking about all that preparation and what's going to happen
over the next several hours, and how are you going to do. And you really want to kind of run through things in your
head and think about all the important aspects of the next, say, day that you have to accomplish to make sure
that the mission gets off to a nice, smooth beginning so it can
continue that way through the rest of, you know, your time up in space.
And of course, you're also looking forward to getting up in space.
You've been training, I say for at least one to two years, and you really want to, say, get the show on the road.
You're really anxious to finally get your chance to go up and be able to open
up the payload bay and look out of those windows and see the Earth down there.
So a lot of stuff going through your head, but mainly it's preparation and thinking about what you want to do.
STILSON: Paul from New Albany wants to know: "What is your sleep cycle like in space?
LINNEHAN: That's a good question, Paul. You sleep much differently in space. First, of course, you float.
So, everybody out there, imagine what it's like to just lay in your bed at night, and take your hands and just push off
your bed and slowly float in your room. And imagine what it would be like to sleep like that. It sounds great,
but in fact, because we're all creatures of gravity, we're used to living and
we've all evolved here in One-G, your inner ear and your eye kind of cross-circuit a little bit at first.
For the first several nights, it's actually at least hard for me to sleep, because you have this feeling when you
close your eyes that you're falling. And so, the first thing you want to do, your brain tells you,
is open up and, and you kind of get excited and it's like, wow, I guess I'm not going to fall.
But it takes awhile, actually, for you to get used to that. Now once you do get used to that and adapt,
then sleeping is very, very peaceful. Can you imagine what it's like to sleep, maybe floating in water
is the closest analogy. If you know what REM is, rapid eye movement sleep, that's what we undergo down here when
we go into deep sleep. In space, you really don't get the deep type of deep sleep you do on the ground,
and people really don't understand why yet, but you don't. Although you sleep, you don't feel as rested, usually.
So after maybe two, three, four weeks of hard, hard, intense work, you tend to be a little tired and you're looking
forward to a really, really good night's sleep when you come back, but it is a lot of fun to sleep in space.
STILSON: That's really interesting. Wally from Waterloo asks: "How realistic is the EVA training in the water tank?"
LINNEHAN: Wally, it's so realistic that when I was up there for my first EVAs,
I expected to see bubbles rising around me and divers swimming in front of me. And that's what happens in the NBO,
the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, where we train.
And of course, on Earth, the only way to simulate Zero-G for long periods of time is neutral buoyancy,
where you just float in the water calm. And I know you've done that. Many people out there swim and they go underwater,
they hold their breath and you can actually float and kind of come to an equilibrium where you float in the water,
and that's what we do in the spacesuits, and it's very realistic.
The only differences are, of course, water's thicker than nowhere, vacuum,
so you have viscosity that you have to fight with your arms and legs as you move,
and you tend to tilt and kind of get out of kilter sometimes if you're not exactly weighed out right.
But other than that, it's, it's just a great way to train for doing it in the real thing.
STILSON: And in another question about training, Lynn from Amherst wants to
know if you use computer simulation to practice with the robotic arm.
LINNEHAN: Lynn, good question. Yeah, we do. As a matter of fact, most of the,
most of the trainers we use now are computer based. There are and there were old,
actually mechanical models where you could actually fly an arm in a big building and actually pick up payloads
with it which were, they looked like payloads. I should say, when I say payloads, big boxes with things that
you might move in space that weigh a lot, have a, have a lot of mass.
But in fact, they were balloons on Earth. They were helium-filled objects that mocked up those.
And we don't use that as much anymore, because we find that the computer-based trainers actually can simulate
everything in terms of the graphics and we can model what we want. And so most of the
people now find that the computer-based and large simulators that we have do a better job of training arm.
STILSON: John from Atlantic City wants to know: "How is the training different for the space station versus the shuttle?"
LINNEHAN: Another good question. Shuttle flights, John, tend to be only around two weeks, maybe a little bit more,
whereas station flights, depending on what crewmember you are and how you're rotating, can be up to six months long.
So you can imagine there'd be a whole lot of difference in terms of how things are planned in your schedules.
Shuttles tend to be very, for the two weeks, say, that you're up there,
they're very intensive in terms of the workload and you work a lot.
And you can sustain that maybe for, you know, that long a period of time but you
tend to be a little bit tired when you come home. And for people who live and work in space for six months,
you can't stay in that kind of schedule, plus when you're in space for that long, you really need a lot of exercise.
And there are physiological reasons for that with bone and muscle loss.
So the schedule for a space station person is different for shuttle. Although they still accomplish a lot,
it's drawn out over a longer period of time to make it more like being at
home or living, rather than working all the time, 24 hours a day.
STILSON: Nick from Brisbane asks: "When you go on an EVA and you do your work,
do you hear things outside such as tapping on objects?"
LINNEHAN: Nick, you really don't. And the reason is, for distant tapping and things like that, you can feel vibration.
Say, if I was in a foot restraint that was attached to something and something far away was knocking,
I might feel those vibrations through, through the structure,
but I wouldn't hear anything because sound doesn't transmit without, without air in a vacuum.
Now, saying that, if you're in your spacesuit and someone taps you on the spacesuit or something touches you,
you can feel that, and perhaps if someone -- did this -- to your helmet,
you might be able to hear a little bit of tap that way.
But when we talk, we're in a space helmet, we have atmosphere in our helmets, so we can form words and talk
and of course they go out through the comm. system and they're relayed by radio through the shuttle and back
and forth to the other EV crewmembers. And that's how we talk to each other and talk to the ground and the shuttle.
STILSON: Evan from Tuscaloosa wants to know: "Do the astronauts get to choose the kind of food they eat while in space?"
LINNEHAN: Yeah, we do, actually. We, we go to these classes called food tasting classes and we have all this food,
different types of food, and we can sample it and say, well, I like this and I don't like this,
and I would like to carry this and eat this, and this such and such a dish. You can actually have a menu.
And what usually happens though, Evan, is, at least for me and some other people I know, is after you get up there,
you find you like only, you really like something and you tend to eat that
all the time and a lot of the other stuff maybe just doesn't get eaten. So you have your favorites.
STILSON: From Michael in Perth: "What's you favorite kind of space food and why?"
LINNEHAN: Boy, that's a tough question. I always wanted them to figure out a way to fly pizza and they haven't
done that yet, so I would have to say that there was something called shrimp cocktail that I used to like a lot.
And the reason I liked it a lot is because they put a lot of horseradish in it, and it was really hot,
and in space you stuff up a lot, you get really congested, so we used to eat that all the time.
It was like taking neosinefrin or sine-aid, it used to unplug me and I could breathe really well, and it tasted good.
So I would have to say the shrimp cocktail.
STILSON: Abigail from Hollywood, FL asks: "Are there any differences between the
food on the space shuttle and the food on the ISS? If so, what are they?"
LINNEHAN: Well, Abigail, you know, I haven't been on the ISS yet, but I hear the food is actually better
for the station guys because they have to stay up there a lot longer. So maybe they'll get pizza someday,
I don't know. It's very similar, but I think on station they're able to request more and
maybe have special stuff made up for them because, again, they're going to be up there for six months.
So consider like a two-week camping trip, you can kind of eat this and it's good and you know, it's fine,
but after six months maybe you'd like a little something more. So they'll bring up fresh fruit and other things initially,
initially, so they'll have a wider variety of things to taste and choose from. And eventually,
that slowly runs out and then they kind of get on a staple diet of freeze-dried or dehydrated stuff.
But I hear it's pretty good.
STILSON: Nhat Lam from Vietnam had several questions for you, including:
"Can you smell food in orbit? And do water and food fly in orbit?"
LINNEHAN: That's a really good question, and the answer is, on orbit, yes. When you're not in a spacesuit,
you can smell the food and in a spacesuit, you can't eat food, obviously. I'm trying to be funny here.
I don't know if I succeeded.
But in the space station and shuttle, you can smell because you're at, you're at a nominal atmosphere.
It's almost, it's almost like being at sea level, so you have atmosphere, the smells and sounds are normal,
so when you cook food or you have the food, you can smell other people's dinners or lunches and you go,
"Hey, what's that? It smells good."
You know, and it makes you hungry and you want to go eat something. Same in the shuttle.
So it's not so much different from being in your own kitchen at lunch or dinnertime.
STILSON: And lastly, from Amar in Lucknow, India: "Can international astronauts request food from their home countries?"
LINNEHAN: Amar, I believe yes they can. In fact, we fly different nationalities now.
The Russians have their own special favorite foods that they fly, and I hear from my friends that have
been on space station that they like a lot of the Russian food a lot, and you're able to,
if you're going up for long periods of time, and even on shuttle at some times, request certain types of food that
you like and then they will go through a process where they analyze it,
make sure it's safe and then they'll package it for you and allow you to fly that.
STILSON: Those were great questions and we're going to show the audience some real space food in a few minutes.
LINNEHAN: Great. STILSON: But before we do, here's a closer look at how food is prepared for space.
VIDEO NARRATOR: John Glenn was the first American to eat in the near-weightless environment of Earth orbit.
And while he found the task of eating fairly easy, he and the other Mercury astronauts
found their freeze-dried and semi-liquid menu rather limited and unappetizing.
Today, much of the food crewmembers eat aboard the space shuttle can be found on grocery store shelves.
Astronauts select their own menus from a large array of food items.
During the food evaluation sessions, the astronauts sample a variety of foods and beverages available for flight.
Some foods, like soups and casseroles, are packaged to be rehydrated before they are eaten.
Others, such as tuna and salmon, are canned to destroy harmful microorganisms,
while dishes like beef tips with mushrooms and chicken a la king are packaged in pouches that can be heated.
But the astronauts also find more familiar items -- nuts, granola bars and cookies -- for ready-to-eat snacks.
All foods are processed to require no refrigeration and fresh foods must be eaten within the first few days of a flight.
About three weeks before launch, the packed food lockers are shipped to
NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida from Houston.
Fresh foods -- such as fruits, vegetables and breads -- are loaded at Kennedy in the last few days.
Two to three days before launch, the food lockers are installed onboard the shuttle,
with fresh items being added in the last 36 hours.
Just as space food has changed since the days of the Mercury astronauts, advances must
continue as we prepare future space travelers to return to the moon, then journey on to Mars and beyond.
STILSON: Rick, we just watched how some foods are processed for flight...
and you have some examples of real astronaut space food here. Tell us a little about it.
LINNEHAN: Well, we have all kinds of good stuff here today. We've got Mexican scrambled eggs in plastic, peanuts,
Russian vegetable quiche, in Russian, and that's the only reason I could read that because I can't remember
my Russian, it's also in English so people can decipher things fast up there when they want to eat something.
Cheese tortellini, chicken noodle soup, pork sausage and all kinds of good stuff to drink. Coffee.
And you can see how this is all packaged. It's all in, in, in aluminum or plastic, vacuum wrapped,
freeze dried or, in some cases, even irradiated. Like for the military rations, when we were in the military,
we used to get things called MREs, and these are prepackaged meals ready to eat.
So there's a wide distribution of ways food can be processed and brought up into space,
and depending on what you like, it may be in different kinds of packages.
Now the hardest part for me was, this stuff doesn't taste good. You know, when you first eat this plastic,
aluminum stuff, it causes problems. But I figured out that after about two or three days,
you're actually supposed to cut it away and eat the food inside. I'm kidding here. But it's actually not bad.
I guess we're going to play with some of the food and maybe open up the peanuts and stuff like that?
STILSON: And maybe you can show us something, show us if it's a little more appetizing when you do that.
LINNEHAN: Yes. Let's see, we'll find peanuts. Well, they actually have these little lines that you can
tear across and open up stuff. We find sometimes that doesn't work too well, and so, in fact,
we carry scissors and you have to be careful that you don't cut yourself. But what you want to do is,
you want to cut the envelope up, and usually what we do is when we cut it, we leave the tab on the end,
that way we don't make trash, because of course, when we cut a tab, what would happen? It would be floating away.
And the more you can keep things attached to themselves, the less pieces of trash you'll have. OK. So,
we opened that up and look, we get another package inside with more, with another thing that we cut,
and so we'll open up and cut the peanuts. They're vacuum-wrapped.
You can hear it kind of go "pfft!" when you open up, so you know that they're safe, it's been sealed.
And there's a little Velcro tab here. And what do you think that's for? Well, it's to put on the wall or put on yourself,
because again, if you let go of your food, we're talking about -- remember how you were told never to play
with your food -- well, in space, it's fun to play with your food. But you try not to,
because if you play with it too much, it floats all over the place.
Anyway, guys, you can see peanuts. Would you care for a peanut, Stephanie?
STILSON: I'll wait. But it looks pretty good though.
LINNEHAN: But they're good if you like peanuts. And again, all this other stuff would be warmed up in a convection oven.
We'd open it up and we'd eat it with a spoon or a fork, being careful not to
bump people or get it so it flies all over the place. But it's all good.
STILSON: So, Rick, do you just pop these in a microwave, or how are you getting to where it's...
LINNEHAN: Well, we have a convection oven, we don't have a microwave, for reasons that microwave radiation
could cause problems with communications, electronics and, you know, in general it's probably a little less safe
than having a convection oven. And all a convection has got is, remember those little like toaster ovens
you have in your house? It's just a coil that warms things up. You'd actually put this in just like this and
you just put it under a spring so it doesn't float, and you can line up
everybody's dinners all at once and have them heat up.
And when you're done, you open the oven up, take it out, cut it open and boom, you're ready to go.
And you actually have trays that some people use. Most people just like to attach them
to themselves or the wall and kind of float and take their time eating their food.
STILSON: Now what about this, with this -- this looks funny to me. What's that all about?
LINNEHAN: This, we talked about different types of food, and irradiated or freeze dried.
Well, this is actually freeze dried, but it's dehydrated. So we dehydrate a lot of food,
because it's important to take water, you know, you need to take a lot of water in space
because you can get dehydrated easily. But it's a good way to preserve food,
and many of you who camp maybe already know about this. You know, you have freeze-dried eggs or dehydrated,
powdered eggs. Same. What you do is, we have a lot of different food types and drinks, as a matter of fact;
here's a drink bag with the same thing on it. You go to a special little unit in the galley next to the convection oven
we just talked about. There's a long needle that comes out, it's a blunt needle,
so you don't have to worry about puncturing yourself, but it's special, it fits in over,
you clamp down and you dial in the amount of water you like, and then voila,
it fills up with water, hot water or cold water.
Let it sit for a little bit and you've got, you know, hot scrambled eggs, or pudding, or coffee,
tea, vegetables, whatever you might like. It, it works pretty well and it tastes pretty good.
STILSON: That's very interesting. Rick, you mentioned your favorite foods a little earlier,
and I think our viewers might find it interesting to hear some of the selections that the STS-116 crewmembers have made.
To name just a few, they'll be having beef ravioli, chicken teriyaki,
sweet and sour pork, and that old favorite comfort food, macaroni and cheese.
If you'd like to see what each of the STS-116 astronauts will be eating in space,
just go to nasa.gov/shuttle and click on the link to the crew section for a look at the complete menus!
Well, Discovery is ready and waiting at the launch pad, and we're just about out of time.
Thanks for being here, Rick. Really enjoyed it.
LINNEHAN: I enjoyed it too. Thanks.
STILSON: Don't forget, you can track the countdown to liftoff of Discovery on mission
STS-116 by following NASA's launch blog online or by watching NASA TV on the Web.
For iPod users, you can see the launch replay shortly after liftoff by
subscribing to NASA's video podcasts at nasa.gov/Podcast.
Thanks for watching and go Discovery!
Music.