WEBVTT

00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:09.000
GARRETT REISMAN: So now, we have a view of the White Room as there's Commander Polansky getting ready to suit up.

00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:13.000
He'll be the first one to ingress the vehicle.

00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:18.000
BRUCE BUCKINGHAM: What are we looking at here? This looks like the commander getting into his seat.

00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:25.000
REISMAN: That's correct. It's Mark Polansky. He'll be climbing into the seat closest to our camera there and,

00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:33.000
as the first one onboard, it might seem odd, you're looking at an airplane cockpit turned on,

00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:39.000
90 degrees on its side. It's as if you took the nose and pitched it straight up,

00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:42.000
because of course that's the position that the orbiter's in when it launches.

00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:46.000
But it can be a little bit disorienting when you're used to seeing this cockpit,

00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:50.000
you get in and your seat is, the back is on the floor.

00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:58.000
And here comes Suni, climbing into the mid deck. So you have the middeck and the flight deck are the two

00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:11.000
habitable spaces inside the shuttle. And she's also lying on her back as she enters her seat. Directly beneath,

00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:17.000
in the horizontal position, she'd be directly beneath the, the pilot and commander and the two MS's on the flight deck.

00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:21.000
Now here we have Billy Oefelein; he's the pilot on this mission.

00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:30.000
He's also a, a fellow classmate of ours, and this is, again, his first space flight.

00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:35.000
Back looking in at the White Room, we have a good look at Christer Fuglesang,

00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:44.000
who's an astronaut from the European Space Agency, and he hails from Stockholm, Sweden.

00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:50.000
Now entering our picture in the White Room is Mission Specialist Nicholas Patrick,

00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:58.000
also a member of the 1998 class of astronauts. Born in the United Kingdom, actually,

00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:04.000
and considers London and also Rye, New York, to be his twin hometowns.

00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:10.000
BUCKINGHAM: And now we're watching Christer Fuglesang join Suni Williams on the mid deck, using straps,

00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:18.000
it looks like, to help him get into his seat. I guess that's necessary since he's going to be sitting on his back like that.

00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:26.000
REISMAN: That is, the suit does add a bunch of weight and those straps have to do a bit of a chin-up just to get into your seat.

00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:34.000
Next we have, suiting up, Joan Higginbotham. Joan also, was also selected in 1996.

00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:40.000
She grew up in Chicago and she's a kind of a local favorite since she worked for

00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:45.000
quite a long time here at the Kennedy Space Center before being selected as an astronaut.

00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:50.000
As we watch the, again in the White Room, Bob Curbeam, the last crewmember to board,

00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:56.000
he, in addition to all of his spacewalking duties, he serves as the flight engineer. He's in the,

00:02:56.000 --> 00:03:03.000
what we call the MS2 position, which means he is, assists the commander and the pilot

00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:20.000
in the operation of the vehicle with also some help from MS1, who on this flight will be Nick Patrick.

00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:25.000