Ask the Crew: STS-98

From: Dan Boesch from Brookings, S.D., age: 15
To: Pilot Mark Polansky

Question: Do you ever worry about bumping into a switch or button, and what protects the switches from that sort of thing? Has a problem ever happened like that and what happened?

Polansky: The short answer is yes; you do worry about things like that, especially when it's your first time and it takes you a while to kind of get used to moving around without bumping into things. The switches are positioned so that they have guards between them, so that most of the time you should not be able to inadvertently bump into them. However, it is not fool proof and you can in fact bump a switch by mistake. And so we take obviously very special care to make sure that things like that don't happen. And the way the system is built, most of the time, if we did have an inadvertent switch throw, usually we just call down to the ground and 'fess up to that right away, and then get ourselves in a good configuration.

From: Bob Caronna from Knoxville, Tenn., age: 44
To: Mission Specialist Tom Jones

Question: What is the normal operating temperature inside of the ISS? Since the temperature in the Destiny module increased to 100 degrees until cooling systems were on line, did this increase the overall temperature in the entire station?

Jones: The short answer is that no it did not because even though the air had warmed up quite a bit inside Destiny, between the time it was installed and the time the hatch was opened the next day, the cooling systems brought the temperature down to a normal room temperature, and that's what we experienced when we went inside. It was a very nice, cool, pleasant atmosphere. Some parts of the rest of the space station are a little warmer, perhaps 80 degrees. But, for the most part it's shirtsleeve weather, about 70 to 75.

From: Matt Daniels from Menlo Park, Calif., age: 16
To: Mission Specialist Tom Jones

Question: Is it true that there is a height limit for astronauts? I'm 6'1" and still want to travel in space someday, but I've heard you can only be 5'11" at most. If this is true, will it change soon? Thanks.

Jones: In fact that was the early limit for the Mercury astronauts, I believe, because of the size of the Mercury capsule and the Gemini and Apollo capsules. But, the space shuttle has a little bit larger headroom and the seats that we have can accommodate about 6'4" astronauts. The smallest we have are about 5' perhaps 4'11". So most average people are going to be able to ride in this spaceship. Of course there are a lot of other qualifications that Matt has to worry about, and I hope he succeeds in reaching his dreams someday.

From: Wes Parker from Tullahoma, Tenn., age 45
To: Mission Specialist Tom Jones

Question: Reading the missions timelines, I've noticed that after an EVA, the EVA crew is scheduled to take one aspirin just before going to bed. Why is that?

Jones: Taking the aspirin all has to do with reducing the clotting capability of your blood, the thickness of the blood, just a little bit, so that as we decompress both before and after an EVA we don't get any clumping around those little air bubbles that might come out of solution in our bloodstream from the nitrogen dissolved in our bodies. And so we're trying to prevent decompression sickness symptoms.

From: Lese Ferguson from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, age 48
To: Mission Specialist Tom Jones

Question: When the Destiny module was taken out of [the] cargo bay on Saturday, why was it turned end over end before attaching it to the space station?

Jones: We'd like to say that it was just for aesthetic reasons - it was certainly beautiful to watch. But the real reason was that the center of gravity of the Destiny module was located a little bit off-center in the cargo bay, down lower in the bay, and that's the way it was riding for launch weight and balance purposes to make sure that Atlantis was properly balanced for the ride up to orbit. Once we got it into space, the center of gravity, of course, is going to be aligned with the center of the space station and so to get it in that proper location, we had to lift it out of the bay from its mounting brackets and then turn over so that we had the proper…[temporary loss of signal]…

Jones: Houston, Atlantis. How copy.

MCC: Tom, unfortunately, we lost the last part of your transmission. We heard your reply to Wes Parker about the aspirin and most of your reply about why Destiny was turned around in the cargo bay. Nothing after that.

Jones: OK, Katie, I'll just finish up that question about the Destiny module. When it was installed in the payload bay, the keel pin that holds it down in the bottom of the payload bay is also a feature that's used to attach other station hardware - the S0 truss - that's coming up on top of the lab later on. And so in order to get that fixture upright, we also had to flip the module 180 degrees.