Preflight Interview: Carlos Noriega

The STS-97 Crew Interviews with Carlos Noriega, Mission Specialist.

Q: Carlos, before we get to the details of your mission, I want to ask a few details about you - a question that I'm sure many astronauts are asked a lot - why did you want to become an astronaut?

A: Oh, boy, that goes all the way back to my childhood. I remember, as a small kid in elementary school, seeing this man dressed in white, jumping down a ladder, making all this dust, walking around on the Moon for the first time, and [going,] "My God, that's got to be the most incredible job you can do, anywhere!" But I was a young kid, just arrived in this country, barely spoke English, and thought, "Well, that's a dream. It's not reality, not something I could do because those astronauts must be raised in a palace somewhere, or some laboratory. But it's not the average kid, especially somebody whose dad works two or three jobs just to make ends meet, and I just kind of put it out of my mind. But my parents instilled a strong work ethic and importance of school into me, and, unwittingly, I prepared myself for this all along, going to college, flying, going back for my masters. Then one day I see an office mate doing all this paperwork not related to the work we did in Cheyenne Mountain, and [I asked,] "What are you doing?" "Well, I'm filling out an application to be an astronaut," he tells me. And I, well, at first I start laughing, saying, "What makes you think you can be an astronaut?" He goes, "Well, here, this is the form. These are the qualifications," and I started going through them. I've done that, done that, that, that. Suddenly, I [realized] that I was just as qualified as this guy, but I was laughing at him. But I figure, "Well, if he's going to submit an application, why don't I?" And the rest is history as they say. NASA picked me up after that application, and I've been enjoying the best job in the world.

You refer to a couple of stops along the way. Tell us about your background - your academic background and your background in the military.

Well, like I said, I came to this country when I was five years old originally from Peru but grew up in California. [I] went to the University of Southern California on a Navy ROTC scholarship, studied computer science and got commissioned in the Marine Corps, where I went to fly helicopters. I've flown all around the world, primarily in the Pacific. [I] saw a little bit of action in Beirut back in '83, and along the way got married, had five kids, Marine Corps sent me back to school. I got a masters in space systems operations and also in computer science, and I was assigned to work with U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs, where I worked inside Cheyenne Mountain tracking satellite launches [and] satellites on orbit. Got to know a little bit about the business from the other end of it. But that's where my interest finally came and the knowledge that I gained - that actually I could be an astronaut - all came together during that assignment.

A few moments ago you also mentioned the influence of your parents in your growing up. Talk about the people - whether it's your parents and/or other people. Who are the people that you think of as having had the most significant influences on you?

Well, my parents taught me the importance of going to school. And, both in school and in jobs that I've had in the Marine Corps, I always had people out there that set high standards or challenged me and expected me to do well, and that's the environment that I thrived in. That's the environment I try to tell people that they should seek out, not an environment where they can just get by with the work they need to do to get by, but something that allows them to excel or [be challenged] because if you're not being challenged you're not going to advance. And those are the people. I can think of several of them, but it's not one in particular that got me here.

Unlike some more recent space shuttle crews, you and your four crewmates on STS-97 have had more than two years together to train for this mission. In fact, you and one of your crewmates…

Joe and I, by the time we fly, it'll be almost three and a half years that we've been working on this flight.

What's it been like? Is it hard to maintain your focus and your concentration when the goal - the launch - keeps being changed?

There have been tough times, but we kind of just joked about it because it wasn't just us. The whole program was slipping, so we knew that there was a reason for it and that there [were] other people in the same boat as us. So, we just used the opportunity to learn our hardware better because we were the ones that were really watching out, especially for the EVA interfaces. Initially, Joe and I were the only ones, so we were watching out for the whole P6 element. We were watching out for [the station electrical portion] to see how it looked from a crew perspective, and, although I can't put a finger on something that we positively accomplished, I know we were part of that process. And during those three and a half years, we've learned a lot, and we've provided a lot of input into the program.

Shortly before that three and a half years ago, or a little more than that three and a half years ago, you had your first space shuttle flight on STS-84, on a flight to Russia's Mir space station, so you've been involved in multinational parts of the space program for a number of years.

Oh yes, definitely.

From your perspective then, can you describe the development of the relationships between the various space agencies and the nations and the persons that have been involved?

Well, it's been such a great experience to be part of this program. On STS-84, it was part of Phase 1 of the construction of the International Space Station. We were learning to work together. You can't say you're going to go build a space station together amongst all these different countries, especially [with] systems that were as different as ours and the Russian system, and have a success the first time you try to do it together. We needed to learn about each other - our cultures, our languages, our engineering cultures - because we attack problems differently. Operationally, we do things [differently]. We have different philosophies on how we operate. They're used to having long-duration. If there's an emergency, either you fix it [quickly] or you fix it over a long [time]. And if you can't fix it [quickly], you get in your capsule, and you go home, or it's something that you shift to another system and take weeks [or] months to fix it. On a shuttle, we put a lot of redundancy in our system so that we could overcome whatever failures we had, but our plan was we'd just come on home if the problems get too bad. So it drives a lot of different ways of doing things, and we needed to learn about each other. And we did that during Phase 1. On my flight, it was also a very international flight. We had an ESA astronaut, Jean-François Clervoy, a Russian cosmonaut, Elena Kondakova, a couple of rookies, Ed Lu and I. Ed Lu just, just flew on a recent mission. Charlie Precourt was the Commander, and so we were learning so much about each other during Phase 1. It was also a real positive experience for me because I joined the military, the Marine Corps, when Russia was the Soviet Union, the dark empire, and here I was training in Russia, running out in the country near Star City, a city that didn't exist on the maps back then, and riding subways through Russia, getting to be good friends with these cosmonauts and trainers and controllers, basically on the other side of the world. And it was just such an unexpected turn in my life from where I thought I'd be. I remember watching, when we had a a meal together with the Mir crew one day, Charlie Precourt and Vasily Tsibliev eating together, looking out the window, and being the best of friends. And yet, both these guys were fighter pilots on the inter-German border not too many years earlier, and they could have gone to war against each other. It was just an incredible feeling to be part of that. Now, what we learned in Phase 1 - and all of the people that flew on the Mir station and the coordination we did between docking shuttle to Mir - we now apply that during Phase 2, which is the early construction of the space station that'll make the station a place where you can work and live. And I'm really glad to be part of Phase 2.

Let's talk about the goals of this mission, first in the broad sense. What is it that STS-97 is going to do, and what is the significance of the hardware that you all are delivering to the International Space Station?

Well, [in] space, electricity is life. It's how space vehicles work. You need electricity. Well, we're bringing the initial large electrical generation capability of the space station. The solar arrays that we're going to bring up are a hundred and ten feet long each. [They're] going to span 240, 250 feet [and] be able to generate a lot of power for the station. You need that power to be able to grow and bring up the Lab, which is the next flight after us. Once you get the Lab on board, you can be doing science. You have much more comfortable living for the crew on board, and it's a critical element for the life of the station. And like I said, electricity's life. You've got to have us, and I'm just so proud to be part of that.

Well, let's talk about the components of this hardware before we get into the sequence of events. The P6 Integrated Truss Structure has a number of elements. Tell us about the different parts of what you're bringing up.

Well, the P6 Integrated Truss Structure is actually two sections. One is called the Long Spacer, which holds the Integrated Equipment Assembly, the IEA, onto initially Z1 but later in the life of the station it'll move outside of P5. The Long Spacer is basically just a bunch of metal. A truss is what we call it. The Integrated Equipment Assembly has batteries, controllers to the batteries to charge and discharge them, the heart and guts of the electrical system, including computers, and all the necessary wiring and controllers that you need for that. Feeding into that are two solar array wings, which we will deploy, and a lot of that deployment is done by EVA, which I will be doing with Joe Tanner.

Tell me about the system then. We talked about the parts. Can you give us a thumbnail description, then, of how these different components will provide electricity for this station?

Well, basically, the solar array panels - when they're exposed to the Sun - generate electricity that you can use inside the station. But when you're in orbit, half the time, roughly, you're behind the Earth's shadow, so you need to have something that you can use while the the sun or the station is behind the Earth, or else the lights would go out every forty-five minutes inside and you'd have a hard time working. So you have to have batteries which charge while the station's in the sun and discharge while the station is in the shade. So, when you're in the sun, you actually have to generate twice as much, if not three times the actual power that you need for an entire orbit. A third of that goes to the station to be used. A third charges the batteries, and a third is kind of overhead that you use while you're charging and discharging these batteries. Those are very rough numbers. It's not exact numbers, but that's roughly what you're doing. You have to generate a lot of electricity.

All this generating electricity also generates heat, and other components of what you're bringing are the equipment to help dissipate that heat.

That's right. We're bringing three photovoltaic radiators - we call them PVRs - as part of the P6 Integrated Truss Segment. The primary PVR on the Integrated Equipment Assembly will dissipate the heat generated in the generation of electricity - basically, that charging and discharging the batteries - and the other boxes that are heating up while you do that, that heat needs to be generated so they can continue to work efficiently. That'll be dissipated by the radiator, which is an ammonia-based system. Basically, we circulate ammonia into cold plates underneath these boxes that are heating up [and] take the heat away in the ammonia into the radiator. The radiator's a large set of panels that allow the heat to go in the environment. We have two more of those radiators attached to the Long Spacer. Now those radiators are twin brothers of the one on the IEA, but they will eventually be used on other Integrated Equipment Assemblies as the station grows. Initially, we needed to be able to cool the inside of the station - the heat generated by computers and equipment inside the station - as well as just the heat that you generate with humans living inside there. So, since we can't have the large radiators that'll ultimately cool the station initially, because you have to have a large truss segment to attach them to and we don't have that there yet, we are using some of the later PVRs to cool the inside with some basically patched plumbing that will temporarily use these two other radiators to cool the inside of the station. But they're all interchangeable.

In order for you and your crewmates to install and make sure all this equipment [is] working, the first important step after you reach orbit is to bring Endeavour together with the ISS on orbit. And this is going to be done in a way that's new in the ISS program. In fact, you're even going to dock to a brand new spot.

It hasn't been used before. We'll be the first people to park in that spot.

Tell us about the procedures for that day and what you'll be doing as part of the team on board the shuttle.

Well, I've participated in a rendezvous before, on STS-84, so some of this is review but it's also new because I'll be doing a slightly different function. Last time, I monitored all the data systems and fed data to the Commander as far as how fast he was going [and] how it looked on our computer system. This time, I'll be actively using the handheld laser, looking out the window which, in some regards, is a lesser role but, for me, it's more exciting because I now can actually see the station as we're approaching it. On STS-84, I sat in the Pilot seat for the entire rendezvous so I only saw the station briefly - once at six-hundred feet and not again until we docked - because I was busy monitoring the orbiter systems and our computers. This time, I'll be actively working outside, working the TV systems, and the handheld laser.

One of the things that will also be new about the rendezvous and docking of your crew to the ISS is that it's the first time there will be a crew on board the station when that happens. Have you got any thoughts about the historic nature of the first on-orbit handshake between an ISS Commander and a shuttle Commander, and the fact that you're going to get to be there to see it?

Yeah, this is pretty exciting for me. You know, I saw the handshakes and participated on STS-84, but we were really happy to hear that the initial station crew would be on board when we arrived. It changed a couple of times early on during our training, but it's solidified that Bill Shepherd and his crew are going to be there, in fact, when we arrive. So, we're really happy to be his first visitors, bring him his first mail, his first fresh fruit. Anything that he wants, we're going to try to have there for him.

I think it's ironic, though, to note that for most of the time Endeavour is docked to the station during your mission, the hatches between the two vessels will be closed. Explain the reason for that.

That's unfortunate that we have to keep the hatches closed between the two vehicles for the bulk of the time that we're there, but one of the things that you have to do when you're doing space walks, or EVAs, is watch out for the possibilities of decompression sickness. And one of the top things that we do to prevent that is to keep the orbiter at a lower pressure for twenty-four hours prior to an EVA. We keep it at 10.2 psi as opposed to 14.7. Well, if the orbiter is at 10.2 and the station is at normal sea level pressure, 14.7, we can't open the hatch in between without equalizing the pressure. Well, if we equalize it, it would raise the pressure above 10.7 and then Joe Tanner and I would have to spend so many hours breathing pure oxygen that it would make for a very inefficient EVA day and we wouldn't be able to get everything done, so we have to keep the pressure different between the two vehicles.

Just a short time after you dock, some of your crewmates are going to start work with your primary payload, to lift it out of the payload bay, where it'll stay overnight. Would you describe what happens there, and why it's done?

Well, Marc Garneau will grapple P6 and pull it out of the payload bay and take it to a low hover position. That position is required to keep the P6 element in as benign a thermal environment as we can generate while we're docked. Prior to docking we can adjust our attitude to allow the proper amount of sunshine into the payload bay so that the element stays at the proper temperature range. Once we're docked, we're tied to the station's attitude requirements as well because, if you're in a bad attitude for the station, it doesn't generate enough electricity and then it gets into problems. So, it's a balancing act, trying to find a good attitude for the station, something that'll keep all of the boxes on P6 from either getting too hot or too cold. And the best way they found to do that is to pull P6 out and hang it over the side overnight until we do the EVA the next day. It's a very complex robotics operation for Marc, and he'll be backed up by Mike Bloomfield as he pulls it out of the payload bay because it's a very tight fit. If you look at the back of the payload bay, before we pull P6 out, there's not a lot of extra room back there.

He pulls this structure out, allows it to be conditioned thermally overnight while you sleep, heading for the first of the two scheduled EVAs of this mission the next day. A space walk is something that Joe Tanner has done before but that you have not. This'll be your first.

That's right. I'm a rookie again.

Talk about your training for this work and about how having an EVA partner with experience has helped you and him, both, to get ready for this.

Well, from the first day on this flight, I said, "I'm the rookie. I'm here to learn because I haven't done a space walk," and I can't think of a better teacher than Joe Tanner. He he's taught me all he learned on his previous space walks on Hubble, and the team that we have from the training department is just fantastic. We've been able to work extensively on the tasks, but there [are] things that they can't tell you because they haven't done it. I have to rely on Joe and other people in the Office to tell me what it's really like out there, what things I want to concentrate on, what things I don't need to spend a lot of time on because they're non-issues in the air, some things that are simple that you might have to spend a lot of time compensating when you're training underwater but on orbit it's not a factor because of zero-g.

On the question of what it's really like out there, have you given any thoughts to how you're going to feel when you first float out of the airlock and out into that payload bay?

Well, it really is an unknown, just like the first time I flew it was an unknown. I didn't know how I was going to feel once the main engines kicked off. I thought, "OK, am I going to be one of those people that's susceptible to, you know, tumbling sensations or anything like that?" and I took to it like a duck to water. I never slowed down one bit from the moment the engines lit till they cut off and worked until landing. I was in my element up there. I really loved it. But I'm once again facing a new challenge. What's it like to be outside? And I like to joke with people that, back when I was much younger, going through flight school, I always thought the biggest challenge in flight school was actually jumping off a diving board because I didn't really appreciate heights, so, here I am. I'm going to be a hundred and ten feet or so away from the payload bay, doing a handstand on top of the solar arrays as I spread the wings so that they can command the deployment of the solar arrays. I don't think I'm going to have any problem because of everybody I've talked to, but it's just one of those unknowns. What's it really going to feel like? I know some people felt a sensation of falling, but that's the great minority, and it typically happens when you're not working. And as busy as our EVAs are, I don't think I'm going to have a lot of time where I'm not working.

Let's talk about the work. Take us out in the payload bay with you, then, and talk us through the events of what's scheduled to be completed during this EVA. Talk about the jobs that you and Joe have to do.

Well, in EVA 1, we'll exit the airlock and proceed - we always think of it as "upstairs" - across PMA-3, the Node, Z1, and at Z1 we'll configure our tools to be ready for the mating of P6. Marc, at that time, will bring P6 down from a three-foot hover. He'll have it waiting there for us, and, as it comes down, Joe and I are positioned to validate the accuracy of his flying of the arm. We have confidence that all the data systems that he has will work properly, but, just in case something doesn't look right, Joe and I are prepared to manually take over and provide him what's called a GCA, an aviation ground control, or ground controller approach. And we have trained extensively on how to do that for him should he need it. Right now our plan is we shouldn't have to say anything other than just to confirm that our communications is working well the whole time until we hit the point where it's ready to latch. I'll have a visual signal for Marc to stop motion in case he hasn't stopped for some reason - once again, a backup to the digital systems. And at that point, I go to work. I'll close the capture latch, which will actually soft-mate P6 and Z1. It's a claw that basically grabs a bar on P6 and pulls it tight together so that we can now bolt the main bolts of a system called RTAS that'll bolt P6 onto Z1. And we also have grounding straps associated with those bolts on the four corners. Once that's bolted, Joe and I go into independent operations. He does two bolts. I do two bolts. At that point, he heads "uphill" again, higher up onto P6 to remove launch brackets from the blanket boxes that need to be removed so they can deploy properly - big, heavy bolts, heavy steel structure that he's got to deal with to prepare the blankets so that they will properly separate from the IEA. During that time frame, I'm connecting the electrical and data connections between Z1 and P6. You can generate all the power in the world but if you don't have the wires to get it down to the station, it doesn't do you any good. So I'll be connecting those wires and also the data lines used to control the systems, and I'll be riding on the arm. I'll put a portable foot restraint on the arm, and at that point Mike Bloomfield takes over driving the arm. He does all the EVA support of for driving the arm, and he'll basically guide me between the various locations where the connectors are on Z1 and P6. And I'll mate all those connections. Once we finish that, now it's my turn to go uphill, and by this point Joe should've removed enough blanket box restraints [that] I can go ahead and deploy the first beta gimbal. The beta gimbal is basically the root of one of the solar array wings, and it rotates so that the solar array can track the sun. It's also an attachment point that, once I remove the final two bolts, the entire solar array wing will swing out away from [the] structure so that the blanket boxes are now far from [the] structure and the solar array mast canister is now outside of the confines of P6 because, initially, it was right on top and bolted down. When that happens, it swings out. If it weren't to swing out all the way, I can push it along a little bit. It shouldn't take a lot of force, and I'll climb on out and swing the blanket boxes. They're oriented parallel to each other, and I have to swing them so that they go from basically parallel to 180º apart from each other. And we manually swing those. It's just a hinge. It's like opening a door, except at the time, you're a hundred and ten feet away from the orbiter and you're standing on your head! We swing these blanket boxes. We pin them in place, ensure that they're ready for deployment, and at that point, between the ground and our crew inside, they start commanding the actual deployment of the solar array wing. It may not happen right at that minute, but from the moment actually that I connected the cables, they could start commanding P6. There [are] many commands that have to happen before they can actually deploy the solar array wing, but right now our hope is that we will actually see the solar array wings deploy while we're still EVA. It all depends on how [efficiently] they can do all the commanding. They've been practicing that, and I'm fully confident that it will happen during our EVA.

Will it happen while you're still up on the top of P6?

By the point that that one is deploying, I will probably be working on removing launch locks from the radiator, which is just below that, so I'll actually be able to see it up above me. Joe may actually be in the process of deploying his blanket boxes on the second beta gimbal release. When it goes out, he does a duplicate function of what I did on the first one, and while he's swinging those blanket boxes there is a potential they could be at the point where they're deploying the other one. And he'd be able to just turn around and see the other one heading out away from him as it deploys the hundred and ten feet of mast that is electrically driven and commanded from inside.

But you won't be that far away, and you will have some cameras that will allow…

We have a new treat for everybody on this flight. We have a system called WVS, which has three different cameras mounted on our helmets. I like to think of it as "helmet cam," but it's very similar to the system [where] you see race car driver's [point of view]. Well, for the first time you'll have the point of view of the EVA astronauts available to you. There [are] three different cameras with three different lenses so they can optimize the camera selection for whatever they need. If I have, say, a connector with a pin that just doesn't look right, I can actually hold it up to the camera that's above my head and let a ground controller on the ground see immediately what I'm talking about, as opposed to trying to describe something that may be difficult to put into words but very simple to show visually. And boy I can't wait to see how that turns out because we're the first ones to use this system.

Have we reached the end of the first EVA at the time that the solar array wings are deployed?

The two solar array wings go out. We also release the launch locks off the PVR, the highest radiator, because that radiator is used to cool the batteries. That radiator will not deploy, probably, during our EVA, unless they've been very efficient at their other commanding, but I would expect that one will go out later that day. Those are all the tasks on EVA 1, except for maybe one get-ahead that is currently scheduled for EVA 2, but we may try to squeeze it into EVA 1. That's connecting a camera for the Centerline Berthing Camera System.

Now all the time you and Joe are outside hooking up the electrical system for the space station, there's a crew on board the space station. What role do they play in the installation of this equipment?

Well, on EVA 1, there's very little interaction with the station crew right now, although they'll be monitoring the activation of P6. Most of that commanding is going to happen from the ground. The commanding of mechanical systems, or things that actually move, will happen on board the orbiter because we've trained that system and that's a one-time deployment. So, we'll be commanding that and most of the "grunge work" of getting P6 started. I don't say that to be derogatory towards the flight controllers, but it's just very detailed, a lot of commanding that they can do a lot more efficiently than we could. The station crew, during EVA 1, would basically be monitoring the progress. On EVA 2, there is a lot more active interaction.

Before we get to EVA 2, you've just described what could be, visually, the most dramatic part of this mission. And despite all the planning and the hard work that's gone into it, there's always a possibility this may not work right.

That's right.

Talk about what some of the critical failure scenarios that have been considered and how you all have trained to respond to them should one of these difficulties arise.

Well, I'm sure Marc probably talked to you about different failures in the arm that he's trained to compensate for, but we're confident that, as long as we have electricity going to the arm, Marc can get it to the right location. At that point it becomes a lot of mechanical systems. The claw that I use to bring P6 onto Z1 and hard-mate it, if for some reason that jammed, we can get out payload retention devices, which are basically straps that we can crank down. We could basically tie P6 onto Z1 temporarily until we got the bolts in. If the primary bolts in each corner fail, they have two backup bolts in each corner there that we're trained to operate. [There is] a slightly different way of getting them on, but we have multiple bolts in each corner that we could use to mount P6 onto Z1. Electrical connectors, all electrical paths, are redundant, so therefore we would have potentially degraded capability, but electrical connectors are not something we consider a great challenge. The deployment of the solar array wing - that is an electrical motor in there. If for some reason that were to fail our, power tool has an interface with the wing, and we could actually drive it out using our power tool. Similarly, we could do the same thing for the radiator. We could drive that out with our power tool if the motor in that failed. We're confident that we have at least a couple of failures deep in each case of mechanical systems on what we would do and what action we would take. Something as simple as when the Four Bar is swinging - if for some reason the spring force isn't strong enough to overcome the stiffness in the cables that connect the solar array wing to the IEA, it could be something as simple as just pushing on the Four Bar, as I did in a human thermal vacuum test a couple of years ago. Or it could be more complex in that both of us get out there and start pulling on it, or we go grab this payload retention device and pull on it. Like a rope, connect it onto [the] structure and onto the moving portion and just crank it in. We have a lot of different options, and we've trained for these.

There is a day, scheduled between the two space walks, where you don't go outside, but you do still have work to do that helps establish that all of this has been installed properly and is ready to go. Tell us about what is to go on on board the shuttle on that day.

On the day between EVAs, once again, we'll be preparing the suits and everything else for the next day EVA preparation. It's also a day of rest because we've had four very busy days up until that point. From the moment we launched, we haven't stopped to catch our breath through the docking, the initial ingress, the movement of the arm, the EVA, and it's finally our chance to catch our breath. And we'll probably be catching up on things that we need to get done. [There's] a lot of action happening as far as commanding the station, checking out the systems that have already deployed from the previous day and getting them on-line, and preparing for the next day, where we start transferring the loads between that are powering the U.S. segment-the Node and Z1. The power that's being received there at that point is coming from the Russian segment, and we have to do some patch panels, both inside the Node and on Z1, to transfer the power loads so that the Russian segment can keep more of its power. As a matter of fact, we can send power to it. So, we're getting ready to do all that. We'll also have a series of jet firings to test the models of the space station - how they react to attitude thrusters on the orbiter and all that - although I won't be actively participating [in] that test.

As you mentioned, you'll be preparing for the second space walk, scheduled for Flight Day 6, one that involves finishing up connections of this new power system as well as some work with the communications system. Once again, take us out with you and tell us what happens on the second space walk of this mission.

Well, the second EVA has many small tasks that are preparation for things to come. The only one that we will see through completion is the movement and activation of the S-band system. On EVA 2, we move the SASA antenna from Z1 in its stowage location where the 3A crew left it, and Joe will remove it from its temporary location, remove the heater power that's on it, and basically ride on the arm carrying this large mass up until he gets as far as he can go on the arm. Unfortunately, the arm is not long enough to go very high up on P6 from the orbiter, especially from where we're docked, so I'll be waiting there to receive it from him so that we can pass it back and forth the rest of the way until we get it to its ultimate location. It's actually one of our more fun tasks to do because we get to do something together. If you noticed when I was describing EVA 1, aside from the actual bolting of P6 and Z1, we operated fairly independently. Now, on EVA 2, this task is our opportunity to work together. After that, once again, we start working fairly independently. It's, I think, one of the things that makes our EVAs a little unique. You tend to see the EVA crewmembers working together a lot on tasks, one in support of the other, whereas we have a lot of small tasks that we get done individually. And we're constantly in completely different locations. We're a real challenge for the intravehicular crew trying to keep track of where we are [and] what we're doing, and as things change and get reprioritized we have to react to that. But the fact that we have small tasks that can be done individually gives us a lot of flexibility on EVA 2. Aside from the big relocation of the SASA antenna, we will also be preparing PMA-2 - the other docking compartment that's been used for all the other missions. That has to be moved out of the way. We'll be preparing that for its movement because, on the next mission they bring up the Lab, and the Lab berths in the same location where the PMA is. So, we remove all the electrical connectors that were mated on the 2A mission, STS-88, we demate them and put them back basically to their launch configuration so that on the next mission, Marsha Ivins can move the PMA and temporarily stow it on Z1 while they berth the Lab. And then, she'll grab the PMA and connect it onto the front of the Lab. We want to make sure all those cables are ready for her and all the SVS targets are clear so she can use all her systems to move the PMA. Another task that we do is we prepare the other radiators for deployment. One will deploy during our flight. The other one will deploy probably after 5A or during the 5A mission, and it's similar, removing launch locks like we did on the PVR on EVA 1. The a lot of little get-aheads, including, if we didn't do the antenna for the centerline camera berthing system on EVA 1, we would do that there. Although there's actually one very important item I did forget to mention, and that is the mating of fluid umbilicals from P6 to Z1. The fact that we're carrying the early Thermal Control System of the station requires ammonia to flow between the Node, Z1, and P6 to take advantage of those two extra radiators we're bringing along, and Joe Tanner will be connecting those two sets of connectors - four total fluid lines - mating P6 and Z1 while riding on the arm, once again with Mike Bloomfield driving.

It's a very busy second excursion, and the next day after is the time that the hatches on both sides of the PMA are to be opened and for the two crews to come together. You guys have something special planned for that?

Well, I think it's something primarily between us and the other crew. You know, we've talked about what we're going to do. And I know the station crew is very professional and commanded by an old Navy guy, and our Commander's also a, well, not-so-old Navy guy, I guess! But, I guess we'll be the trendsetters on how that happens, and right now, it's not completely planned out.

Under the, the current plan, there could be as much as two full days of what's called "joint operations"…

Potentially.

… where all five of you are moving around inside this mated complex. Talk about what is, or isn't, planned to be done during this time in terms of installations or transfers or picture taking.

Well, right now, we haven't time-lined many joint activities because originally we thought it may only be a few hours. As a matter of fact, the hatch opening that's happening at the end of EVA 2 originally was going to happen the next morning, but we requested, "Hey, let's see if we can spend more time with them because we may be able to help them." We don't have the capability of carrying a lot of supplies for them because of the weight of P6. Thirty-five thousand pounds really limits you on what you can carry as far as excess luggage. So, we're limited on what we can bring the station crew, but we can bring them extra pairs of hands. And if, during those two days, they need to get things done that they haven't been able to get done because there's just been so much work getting the station going - because they've only been there a couple weeks at that time - we may just be able to lend a hand. And, even though we're not trained to do things, we can hold tools for them, hold lights for them, maybe they can work more efficiently while we're there, and we can help them.

After however long that period is, the six days of docked operations are scheduled to come to an end. Time for you all to leave. Describe the events of the day as the shuttle lets go of its hold on ISS and moves away and flies around it.

Well, it's going to be a sad day. You know sometimes we get a little nostalgic before we even launched. We were talking about how sad it was that it was almost all over on my last mission, and we were actually on the pad waiting to strap in! But I know when we undock it'll definitely be the end of three and a half years of work for at least two of us and over two years for the rest of the crew. And I know it'll be a sad day, and we're very proud, I think, as we're flying around and seeing that sunshine on those solar arrays and getting the full magnitude of it because we'll have been up close up until that point. And, aside from the EVA view that Joe and I have had outside, the rest of the crew's been limited to just the cameras because their windows have all been blocked by the Node's structure in the overhead window. They really haven't seen the station as much as we have, so when we do that flyaround, it's going to be a real big deal for the whole crew. And on the ground, too - actually, after EVA 1 when those wings spread out - it's going to be twice as bright as it is now. I guess it'll be someplace that probably all of us will go back to on some future mission.

The work of STS-97 is extremely important - crucial perhaps - in getting ISS ready for science, and the delivery of the U.S. Lab on the subsequent mission. Finally, let me get you to talk about the value of not your mission so much, but the whole project. What is it that you see that ISS is offering us, not only as a laboratory in space but also a home in space and a place to figure out how to move out into space.

Well, it is the next frontier, and you have to know how to work in that environment before you ever want to go any farther. We went to the moon, and then we haven't gone anywhere else. But we really haven't developed sufficiently the technologies that we want to use to get there, and we haven't learned enough about ourselves as far as what happens to the human body when it's on-orbit. We need this station to be able to do that, to work on those technologies, to come up with better ways to counteract the effect of weightlessness on the human body. And those have payoffs for other things, because the same things that affect us in weightlessness actually are very similar to the aging process, so I see some immediate benefits from that. But we need that to be able to travel farther, in my mind, and that's the biggest benefit we're going to get.