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From:
Laressa Tanner of Auckland, New Zealand, age 16
To: Pilot Scott Altman
Question:
How does a spacecraft change
speed or direction?
Altman:
Basically, the answer to
the first part - direction - once we launch, our main engines and
solid rocket boosters get us going to a speed of about five miles
every second. So our plane, or direction of orbit, is pretty much
fixed for the duration of the flight.
What happens when we change
speed using our orbital engines is that we vary our altitude, so
that we move up or down in orbit and change the corresponding orbital
speed. That's what we use, changes in altitude, in order to phase
and join up with other items, like the International Space Station
that we rendezvoused with the other day.
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From:
Dave Orton of Toronto, Ontario in Canada, age 45
To: Pilot Scott Altman
Question:
I know that you have a new
MEDS system. How does this compare with the old system that you
were used to in the past flights?
Altman:
Dave, my first flight was
with the old system. This is only the second flight of the MEDS
system. It just adds a phenomenal capability to bring us up to date,
to have a glass cockpit instead of the mechanical gauges that in
some cases were starting to wear out and were difficult to repair.
We've got a lot of versatility, the ability to move displays around
that we didn't have in the past. In future software upgrades we're
going to be able to adapt the displays to mission specific tasks
in a way that you just can't do with hardware. So, it's a big improvement
and we're thrilled to have it.
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