JR: Good afternoon from Kennedy Space Center and welcome to a Station Update. My name is John Rau and I'll be your host for the next hour. Today, we'll be having a variety of interesting things to talk about. Let's start off by looking at today's schedule and we'll see the objectives.

How did NASA process the shuttle after each mission? Our guest, Mike Chenelli will take you step by step on how NASA does this and he will give you an up to date on the shuttle's current status. We also will have a short video on the latest news surrounding international space station. And later on in the show, we will talk about the landing to launch series which was a year long series on space shuttle processes.

At this time I would like to introduce our guest for today. His name is Mike Chenelli, he is the test project engineer that works for Kennedy Space Center. Mike, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do for KSC.

Mike: Sure, John. Great to be back with you and all the folks all around the world through [inaudible] and NASA Quest. I appreciate being back. Excuse my voice, I'm recouping from a little cold, so if I sound a little raspy. But, as the test project engineer, I'm primarily responsible to oversee the testing that's performed on the space shuttle prior to launch.

When the space shuttle gets back after a mission and hopefully lands at the shuttle landing facility, we have a whole series of processes we need to go through to get it ready to fly next time. It's about a three to four month process and day to day testing, we oversee that and resolve any conflicts, and perform testing on the vehicle and also do auxiliary things such as briefing the astronauts on the status of the vehicle and troubleshooting any problems that come along.

John: What is the current status of the shuttle. Can you tell us about that a little bit?

Mike: Sure. Our next mission is STS 108, and that will be the Space Shuttle Endeavor. Space Shuttle Endeavor will be launching in just about nine to ten days from now, hopefully. The landing date is November 29th, Thursday and the current launch time is approximately 7:44PM. So it's going to be a great night launch and all the folks up and down the southeastern seaboard of the United States, you'll have a great view as it's going up.

We're going to have approximately an 11-day mission and the mission is to the international space station. It's more of a re-supply mission.

And we're also going to change some of our crew members and then come back down here the day before Christmas.

John: With the latest tightened security, how is NASA treating this - as far as being safe for our astronauts and the shuttle and what not?

Mike: That's an excellent question, John. As everybody knows, the entire country's in a heightened state of alert and, of course, here at NASA we're very concerned with all of our assets as a national [inaudible] the space shuttle is itself.

I really can't go into detail as far as what NASA is doing to protect the shuttle, but I can say without question that there are very extensive security measures put in place to both NASA and the Air Force and the shuttle is extremely well protected. All of our assets here at the Kennedy Space Center, or even support buildings and the like are very well guarded, secured.

And I think everyone should be very happy and to feel comfortable knowing that not only during the processing phase of activities, but also during the [upcoming] launch, the space shuttle will be very well guarded against any hostile activity.

John: Great. Could you take us kind of step by step on what your job is out here? What exactly do you do. For instance, in the last week.

Mike: Okay. That's a good question also. My particular job is a test project engineer as we work on all the shuttles at different times. Last night, I was actually working on Colombia getting ready for its February launch.

As far as the Endeavor launch, it's been a good processing for us so far. We've been doing pretty well. It's moving toward the time coming up, we're reaching up for a dry run practice countdown, which we'll talk about a little later, hopefully. And right now, Endeavor is sitting at launch pad 39B, and hopefully we'll pick up the countdown next Monday and go to a count of about three days and launch on Thursday.

So right now last minute activities are closing out, engineering department doing last minute checks on certain systems. We're starting to stow, actually over the weekend, Sunday, we stowed the space suits that the astronauts will use should they do a space walk. So we're starting to stow some equipment on board and doing last minute checks, getting ready for that countdown pickup.

John: Great. It sounds pretty stressful. Is it a stressful job or are you pretty relaxed? [laughs]

Mike: [laughs] It has its moments. That's probably a good way to describe it. For me, it's a good kind of stress. I don't have a negative stress feeling towards it. In the back of your mind, and often times in the front of your mind, there's always the reminder of what you're doing and how a small mistake can have very large consequences.

John: Here's of an example of a picture of yourself. Can you walk the folks through that?

Mike: Sure. A lot of times, my job is varied, but we do spend a considerable amount of time in the [firing] room. And the firing room is where all of the, basically the testing of the space shuttle vehicle is conducted out of. And we have consoles and our consoles, the integration consoles, in the rear of the firing room, which oversees the other consoles.

And basically in this particular picture, I'm running a procedure to actually power down the orbitor. In the morning, all the orbitors are powered up. We conduct all of the testing for that day. And then in the evening, if we're lucky to get the power down. If not, we stay up for a few days.

But basically like we are now, but it's a lot of running test procedures to check out and reviewing the data once we get it.

John: Now, you brought along a videoclip of the processing, is that correct?

Mike: Yes.

John: Would you like to go through that now and kind of walk the people through with [talkover].

Mike: Sure, why don't we do that. What we have coming up is a video clip, approximately four minutes long. And it shows Endeavor's getting ready to launch next week. This processing clip starts with Endeavor landing in California, it was brought back on the 747. And it starts with Endeavor landing at the Kennedy Space Center from [the flight's] mission, and brings it all the way through up and to actually rolling out to the launch pad and installing the payload in it which occurred this last week. It will give you a good idea, visually of what we've done to Endeavor and to get ready to go next week.

John: Great. Let's take a look.

Mike: And there's Endeavor landing at the shuttle landing facility on board our modified 747. It's quite a sight to see that come in.

John: That's amazing. I actually saw one of those come in right over my head, I don't know [inaudible]

Mike: you have to see it to believe it. It's really an amazing shot. It's a fascinating picture. Once the shuttle lands, we bring it into the [inaudible] device where the shuttle is taken off the aircraft and rolled over to the processing facility inside and you can see Endeavor going over to processing facility Bay No. 1.

Now concurrently with the space shuttle being processed, getting ready for its flight, of course we take on the luggage. We have cargo going up for the next flight. So [inaudible] facilities, such as the one we're in right now, the processing of the payload is conducted in parallel with the shuttle process. [talkover] which we fly on board Endeavor.

Here's showing engine installation, and of course after every flight we pull the previously used main engines off, they're replaced with new engines. A good example of another operation, the stacking of the space shuttle vehicle. There, the external tank is being loaded into position in the vehicle assembly building and the vehicle assembly we're stacking up the solid rocket boosters and [meeting] the external tank.

At the same time in another facility, the OPF, the processing facility, the shuttle is being processed. At the same time in another facility, the OPF, the Open Processing Facility, in this case the payload's being processed. So everything is running at the same time, getting reach for launch.

John: And it's just a curve, STS 108, right?

Mike: Exactly, John. And the crew comes down here a little bit before launch and they review a lot of the hardware and equipment they're going to be seeing on orbit and kind of get a hands feel for and talk to some of the ground engineers and get a feel whether it's all ready to go or not. There's a great shot of Endeavor's payload bay and engineers and technicians getting it configured to be able to house the payload.

John: They're wearing special suits.

Mike: Yeah, bunny suits. It's a kind of a funny name and contamination is a very important concern on the space shuttle and we want to make sure that nobody accidentally leaves anything on board, even a hair, during weightlessness, something as small as a human hair can float in the wrong spot and cause trouble, so we try to keep the contamination to a minimum.

And there's a great shot of the commander and pilot actually getting inside the space shuttle vehicle, looking around and getting a feel for what they're going to be seeing in a few weeks.

And the mission right now is called the crew interface, crew equipment interface test CEIT, that's what it's called when they come out for that. Okay now Endeavor has been processed for like three months, it's got brand new engines, all shined up, waxed up, ready to go.

John: So they replace the engines every time?

Mike: Yes, the main engines are replaced every time and there's a great shot of Endeavor being rolled out of the OPF.

John: And what vehicle is this?

Mike: That's a unique transporter. We basically take the orbitor wheel it on a special transport into the [inaudible]. The reason we do that, in the old days we just roll it on its tires. And now we can save time if we do all that work in the OPF [talkover]

John: ... the tires, too.

Mike: And wear and tear. So changing tires are a little easier to do it that way, John. And there's a good example of the MTLM payload being put in the payload canister and what's going to happen next is that payload's going to be transported off the launch pad inside the payload change-out room and get ready to be installed in Endeavor. At the same time, Endeavor's now being rolled out to launch pad 39B.

John: Is that the crawler? It's an amazing platform.

Mike: Isn't it?

John: Yes. How large is that, actually? It looks like a small building. It's actually a big building, but it's a movable building. How fast does that go?

Mike: That's a good way to describe it, as a building because it really is. It's a two story 1200X130 feet in dimensions and it travels at one mile per hour to the launch pad with the shuttle on top. There's a good shot of the payload canister loaded up in the rotating service structure of the launch pad. The payload is taken out of the canister, placed in the clean room, and then what's going to happen is that rotating service structure will swing around the vehicle again, the payload doors will be opened we'll kind of pop it inside like a suitcase in a trunk, close up the doors and get ready to fly. And that was it.

John: Thank you very much, Mike. I know you spent of time on that video, getting it in here and I appreciate all the efforts. Thanks very much.

Mike: Glad to show it.

John: Why don't we talk about the crew a little bit. Here's a picture behind us. I'll put that up real quick.

If you could talk a little bit about the crew, I'd appreciate it.

Mike: Okay, sure. We have a very experienced crew for the most part, flying STS 108 And commanding the Endeavor will be Dominique [Goring], who's the commander. He's a former combat veteran of Desert Storm, so he's got some experience flying. Flying in the right hand seat of Endeavor will be the pilot, Mark Kelly. This is his first flight, I'm sure he's quite excited being a rookie on board going up on Endeavor.

For mission specialists, we have Linda Godwin and we have Daniel [Pening]. They'll be flying mission specialists 1 and 2 positions on board Endeavor. That's our primary crew. We've got kind of a unique crew situation these days. In the old days we'd fly say, 7 guys up and the same 7 guys would come home. Well today, the space station era we kind of drop people off and pick people up. So we'll be dropping some people off and picking some people up.

John: So you'll be dropping some people off and picking some people up this time around?

Mike: Exactly. We'll do a crew chang out.

And these are the folks that will be going on a an exciting mission to the space station and they're going to be on board when they're let go in November when they come home in May so they've got a long stay on board the space station and I'm sure they're quite excited to fly. These gentlemen, we have a Russian flying and his name is Uri [Onfrankco], he's going up. And we have Daniel Burch, an American astronaut and also Carl Walsh, another American astronaut. And both Daniel and Carl have previous space shuttle experience.

And of course with those gentlemen get to start the third venture, we've got some folks that plan for them to come home.

And that's Frank Culbertson, Vladimir [inaudible] and [Mikhail Turin].

John: When they come home and disembark from the shuttle, how long does it take to kind of adapt?

Mike: That's also a very good question. Someone that space medicine folks here at the Kennedy Space Center pay a lot of attention to.

Depending on the mission run, of course the longer you fly, there's much more effects that you'll see. So if somebody has flown a six month or a year long mission, as the Russians have done previously, it'll be a considerable amount of time, either a course of weeks or months to get back their bone density, get back all the physical strength that they had before they actually flew.

It's for like a week long, two week long space shuttle flight, they feel a little weak kneed when they get off the orbitor and hopefully after a day or two, they start getting back to normal. Typically, most of them can walk around after they get off - after a week's flight, so the effects aren't all that bad, but they do feel quite different having gravity back on them.

John: Kind of back up a little bit, actually. Before, actually it was last week, that demonstration countdown test, is that not right? Let's walk through that for a couple of minutes and as far as they need - when the astronauts come here from Houston, they need transportation and what vehicle actually transports them around the center?

Mike: Okay, we have a special vehicle called an astrovan which is pretty appropriate in sounding and what we do is, what John's referring to is a test called the terminal countdown demonstration test.

And basically what we do, it's a mock countdown for the space shuttle. It's a very abbreviated version, but we get the vehicle configured as it would be on launch day and you see the crew walking actually from this building which is the operation and checkout building, and they'll board - where they stay when they're here - and they'll board the astrovan, drive about 20 minutes to the launch pad and get on board and run through the terminal portion of the countdown to practice.

John: And a portion of that would be - let me pull this picture up real quick.

What exactly is this? What are these astronauts doing?

Mike: Okay, well it looks like they're having fun, but they're actually going for a ride. Going for a ride, right, and it's not Disneyworld, but it's part of the important training they go through. It's actually a two-day procedure, this terminal countdown demonstration test. The last day is focused primarily on getting inside the space shuttle, running through the last minute procedures you run through prior to launch, get them kind of familiar, comfortable with the surrounding because about three weeks after this, they're going to be doing it for real.

The day prior, which is the picture you see right there, we also run them through emergency egress training, which means we have a lot of procedures in place should something go wrong when they're out there at the launch pad and we put them, in this case a basket which this basket would - it's attached to the launch pad tower and if there was an incident or an imminent problem coming up, the crew could exit the shuttle very quickly, jump in these baskets, and actually [slide on a wire] wheel down to a safe bunker and [talkover]

John: And I have one more picture here, actually of the countdown test if I could show you.

This vehicle here, now what happens here? Do they, after the bunker or did they jump into this vehicle?

Mike: Yes - there's also the option, once they get into the bunker, if they have to leave or get to, say, if there was a toxic spill or something, dangerous chemically or an imminent explosion they can aboard this tank once on the ground, and this tank can be used to get them to one of the heliports for an awaiting helicopter to be evacuated to safety.

John: It looks pretty stout.

Mike: It is. From what I'm told, I've talked to some of the astronauts in the past and they said this is one of the most fun part of the training, is they get to drive a tank. So, they look forward to taking this for a little spin around the back woods.

John: Thanks, Mike. Let's go to the chatroom real quick. Johnny wants to know what is the closest the ISS has gotten to a meteor. Was it in any danger at all, or was it - as far as meteors - have they hit the ISS, do you know anything about that at all?

Mike: Johnny, that's an excellent question and it's great to [be getting] questions from you folks. I always get the best questions and the hardest ones from the students out there. That's a very good question and space debris is a really big concern of ours. As far as the Universal space station, I can't speak directly of how close one has gotten as far as numbers of feet. I know we've had avoidance maneuvers; we've had it change orientation of the space station to avoid putting it close to one, if we're tracking something and coming its way.

The space shuttle, in its long history, we've had it several times make corrective maneuvers to get the space shuttle away from something that might have been coming towards it. So we have taken small hits on the space shuttle, paint fragments and the like, but space debris is a large concern. The space station is built really tough with that in mind. The skin construction is very durable, so we try to build a lot of strength into it, but it is a concern.

John: They're not that big, these meteors aren't really that big anyway, they're the size of like a softball?

Mike: Well, we hope not. There's a lot of debris up there and that's a good point you bring up, John, is some of it is man-made debris such as like paint flecks off of old rocket stages and boosters, some dating back to the 60s, and you also have the natural kind which you might have seen the other night with the meteor shower of actually chunks of stuff from outer space coming through.

Fortunately, we haven't had any large incidents yet. The size of an object really is not the determining factor in many cases and I know it sounds like if it's a small paint fleck, we don't worry about it. And if a paint fleck of your car driving down the highway, you probably wouldn't be too concerned with it as where somebody threw a bowling ball at your car, it might not be a good day. Well in space, it's generally true, but we're also dealing with velocities.

John: [talkover] thousand miles an hour, is that correct?

Mike: Exactly, and if you have a paint fleck going at 40 or 50,000 miles an hour in orbit, and it hits your windshield, even though it's a small amount of mass, it's very small, it's kind of a large impact.

John: Interesting. From Donna, why does it seem so many launches are on Thursday? Is that a big issue? Would you like to elaborate on that?

Mike: Sure. Donna, that's a great question and I think you broke our code. We do have a string of Thursday launches and no, it's not a coincidence. Suffice to say, it's a couple of reasons. One being we like our weekends off if we can.

John: No Saturday launches.

Mike: And Thursday works out kind of a good day. It takes - a typical countdown is about 43 hours in countdown time. Of course you have holds built in, so it's longer than that. We found over the years if we start a countdown on Monday, the time works out that we can launch on Thursdays. And instead of having to pay overtime costs for weekend work, Saturday and Sunday and also making engineers work on Saturday and Sunday, we figure it would be a great planning tool and scheduling tool if we start on Monday, launch on Thursday and even if we scrub Thursday, we can still launch on Friday and hopefully not have a lot of folks come in for overtime. We want to keep all the engineers as fresh as possible and not have them work their weekends and so they get too exhausted, so it works out really well launching on Thursdays.

John: Speaking from experience.

Mike: Yes, many times.

John: How are the astronauts picked to stay on the ISS versus those just making the round trip expedition, I guess, 3 or 4. How are those people picked?

Mike: Okay. It's a very detailed selection process and a lot of it is beyond my knowledge of how they actually go through the intricacies of who gets to fly. I know a lot of astronauts request for space station duty. Also a lot of it is depending upon what their skills are. We have a large astronaut core. Of course, we have our pilots and commanders to fly the space shuttle, but we also have a great deal of mission specialists, a big pool to pick from. And each of those mission specialists have different disciplines and areas of expertise.

And so, if we want to get a certain amount of research done in a certain area of the space station, we would fly up a gentleman or lady who has a special interest or ability in astronomy or life sciences, so it's also mission, depending on what the objectives are, science wise, who gets to fly.

John: Wow. Here's a question from Cassandra. Who is on the ISS now, and how long can an astronaut stay there?

Mike: Very good, Cassandra. Hopefully one day you'll be up there yourself and you'll be able to send you up there. It's an exciting adventure. There's three gentlemen on board. We have two Russians and an American commander that are on board ISS right now. Currently the capacity of the crew on board is three people and that's dependent upon the configuration the space station is in. We're not done building it yet, and all we can travel with life support is three people at the time.

We haven't tested the duration of the human body. The Americans, I believe Shannon [inaudible] holds the record of about six months or so, as an American on board a space craft. The Russians, in their previous MIR programs, and other space station programs, have actually flown a lot longer. They've flown well over a year in space, so they kind of hold the longest duration, endurance record.

We've been flying approximately, start out at four and now it's been about six months turnaround crews, so about six months. Typically our space station crew can expect to be on board the space station before they're changed out.

John: From Susan, what is NASA doing to protect the shuttle on the pad prior to launch?

Mike: Okay, Susan. And that's a good question, Susan. As I mentioned earlier, security is a very big concern of ours out here, especially in recent days and again, I can't really say exactly what we're doing, but I've first hand witnessed many changes. Getting out here to work in the morning takes considerably longer, getting on base, the checks are - they're doing very well with making sure that everybody that enters the Kennedy Space Center has appropriate badging and should be here and also the space shuttles on the ground are protected extremely well, I can assure you. And during launch, you're going to see a tremendous amount of security in place and rest assured it's well covered.

John: That's great. That's comforting to know. From Tina, [inaudible] launch, actually night launches are - do you prefer night over day?

Mike: Tina, that's - you've probably never seen one, it sounds like, but I certainly hope you get the chance one day to come down here to the Kennedy Space Center and witness one in person. It's spectacular on TV but in person, it's a whole another dimension.

John: And you get to feel it - and the rumble - it's quite an experience.

Mike: They do. When you're outside, day time launch and you've seen it yourself, they're quite unique. A day launch is beautiful, a night launch is kind of breath taking when the sky turns from pitch black to like - the sky turns blue again, you can see clouds and birds flying. It's like somebody put the light switch for daytime, but the ground kind of shakes, your shirt kind of vibrates from the sound waves, it's a very loud, thunderous event and actually a very emotional feeling.

John: Now the visitor - or actually the VIP site at Banana Creek, I believe it is, you've been out there three times, right? Okay, that's about three miles?

Mike: The Banana Creek site's about four.

John: So actually you can really feel the rumble from that point?

Mike: Right, you certainly can. The closest anybody can be - I'm not sure, emergency personnel, is 3 1/2 miles and it's approximately the distance where the launch control center is. And at that distance, you certainly feel it and hear it. You know something's happening big time.

John: A question from Kit. Has the shuttle ever tipped over prior to launch?

Mike: Okay, Kit, that's a good question and fortunately I can say, no, thank God. That would not be a good day for any of us. The space shuttle is - when it's being transported to the launch pad, if you were actually were walking along the crawler, it actually moves a lot and shakes and vibrates. And I remember the first time I was on board the crawler and watching this, I was a little concerned, I must say, for one to see that, but it does vibrate and shake a little bit.

Also at the base of the solid rocket boosters, we have hold on posts so the shuttle is bolted very strongly to its fixture and that's the reason we also keep the crawler down to one mile per hour. It could go a little faster than that, but we try to keep it down to one and that's also for the vibrations that are encountered. If it's one mile per hour or a little less, less vibration, less movement.

John: How does it take for crawler to get from the [inaudible] to the launch pad?

Mike: It takes roughly five hours - 5 1/2 hours to launch pad A, and about six to 6 1/2 hours to launch pad B.

John: Here's a question from Ralph. If you work on the shuttle launches do you have to wear special clothes, and why?

Mike: Okay, Ralph. As you saw on the video, the gentlemen were all dressed up in bunny suits. The answer to your question is yes and no. In certain phases of the processing, we do and in some cases we don't. When you're working on flight hardware, when you're working around the space shuttle itself, either going into the payload bay or going into the crew compartment or the engine compartment, you need to wear a bunny suit which is like a big, very light overall clothing with a hood to protect anything from coming out, like hair, or flaking of the skin.

So when we're working in or around the orbitor we do, and we're working in the, say, the fireroom, we don't. We also at times are at the launch pad loading cryogenic fuel which we have to wear fire retardant clothing, and if we're loading other fuels for say the rocket positioning system [control rack systems] we have gentlemen in things called [scape] suits which look like giant space suits. They have their own air supply inside them and it keeps them from breathing any possible toxic chemicals. So, a very good question.

John: Okay. Here's one from Terry. How long does the processing take from the landing of the [AKFC] until it's on the pad for a new mission, for the whole processing process?

Mike: Okay, Terry, approximately three to four months for a typical processing flow. It's dependent on, we've done it faster, and it's also taken us longer to do that. It also depends how many things need to be fixed. Sometimes it'll come back from a mission, the shuttle is really clean, very little tile damage, everything's working very well, it doesn't take that long. Sometimes it comes back and we find we need to replace a few parts, do a more checkout and it takes longer.

John: Here's a question for you, be careful. How come there are more men astronauts than women astronauts?

Mike: Who's asking the question?

John: Maria.

Mike: Well, Maria, you put me on the hot spot. Let me see if I can delicately answer this for you without causing too much trouble. This is astronauts, right?

John: Yes.

Mike: Well, there's probably a good point. In the early days, as you might remember, our earliest astronauts, the Mercury 7 astronauts were all gentlemen. And they came from the flight - the [inaudible] background. And back in the 40s and 50s and the early days of the 60s, the world of the [footer] pilot and the astronaut core was pulled from the military. Most of the military is made up of guys. Very few women were in the military at that time actively flying missions or actually in the military.

Over the years, we've made good progress. Women have joined the military ranks, also, women have joined and getting more degrees - more women go to school today, get advanced degrees, get a great education and they've come on board so now we have a bigger pool to pick from. It wasn't that we didn't want women or that NASA didn't want women back in the 60s, because it was the pool to pick from was mostly guys. Now the pool in the United States has expanded so we've got very talented men and women and so we try to pull from both and pick the best people we can.

John: Very good. From Patty, what does STS 108 mean?

Mike: Oh, Patty, that's a good question. I think the first time anybody's asked that in all the years I've been doing chats and that's a good question, Patty. STS, the acronym stands for space transportation system. That's our acronym for the space shuttle. So what we do is, throughout the 20-year history of the space program, we started with STS 1 which was Colombia back in '81 and each mission gets assigned a different number, STS 1, 2, 3.

For a short period of time, '84, '85 timeframe, we went to a different numbering system. As you remember the 51L. We did a different numbering system. After the Challenger accident, we went back to the STS numbering system. So STS 108 is the mission number, it's not necessarily the 108th flight of the space shuttle, but it's the mission destination for that flight.

John: Thank you very much. From Jeff, why does the shuttle always turn immediately after takeoff?

Mike: Okay, Jeff. I love this - I love it when students out there really watch intently and pick up on small things that they might see on TV and something that may seem innocuous - I remember when I was a kid how I would watch something, it seemed no big deal, but there's a reason behind it and I would wonder why, so it's good to see this question.

What the shuttle does as it's going up, is it performs a roll program and - I've got my little model here.

I'd show you on the big model next to me, but it would be kind of hard to move two models.

But as the shuttle going up, of course you might see it like this, with the booster and external tank on the back of it and the shuttle would do a procedure where it actually rolls up on its belly and then its back with its belly pointing upwards. So it'll start like this, go up, roll on its back and keep going up.

The reason for that, and that's approximately, you'll see Endeavor go for a [roll] program complete. And basically, what we do there is as the shuttle's going up, it gets a lot of aerodynamic forces on it. There's a lot of stress with the atmospheric, pressure, and as the shuttle's going up, if it's in orientation with the - on its back with the belly up, there's a lot less stress on the vehicle - less stress on the wings and the airframe so the shuttle experiences less stress.

Also, it puts it at an orientation when we drop the solid rocket boosters can move clean away from the space shuttle vehicle. Of course you want the boosters moving away from the wings so it doesn't cause any damage so it puts it in a greater orientation to drop the boosters and have less stress on the vehicle.

John: After the boosters are dropped, of course they fall to the ocean, right?

Mike: Yes.

John: And then they are retrieved and brought back. Now what about the external tanks?

Mike: Okay. The external tank is a one-way trip. The solid rocket boosters are dropped, [inaudible] will drop them approximately off the coast of Jacksonville, so they go up a little ways, fall back into the ocean and we'll go back, get them, fix them up. The external tank takes a trip halfway around the world, actually it's jettisoned and that will burn up and fall into the ocean.

John: Does watching a shuttle launch ever get old, or is it exciting each and every time you see one?

Mike: Well, Terry, I can say I've been very, very fortunate to see every shuttle launch, either on TV or in person since the first one, and since we're about 107 flights, I can certainly say that I've never been disappointed at all. It's always an exciting adventure, it's always a little bit different, too. It's either - the weather conditions are a little different, so we get a different visual look at it - it'll look different, the sound might be louder, there's always something more different about it.

And of course also working on here, as it's going up and you're watching it, in the back of your mind there's a thousand things running through your head of memories of either things that were fixed, wrong, your mind's constantly going on [talkover]

John: There's that stress thing again.

Mike: Yeah, exactly. My hands are pretty tight when it's going up. But no, it's always been exciting, exhilarating. It's kind of a nervous feeling but it's also very rewarding, it's kind of like our super bowl Sunday every time we launch.

John: Here's a question for you. Will they be using a new vehicle to come home in? Probably thinking about that X33 or another shuttle they're coming home in?

Mike: Okay.

John: Have they ever done that?

Mike: Okay, well, we haven't had to do it yet. What we do is, typically we've been flying our astronauts up on the space shuttle, and then picking them up with another space shuttle flight. Of course, when you're on the space station, you want to have the capability to come home if you have to.

As we learned on the MIR, onboard emergencies could occur, we might need to get the crew home. And what we have on board is a Soyuz, it's a Russian space craft. And the Russians launch these space craft, they're docked to the space station, they stay there for about six months, and think of it as a lifeboat. It can get three people back home, if it has to. So the Soyuz is attached to the space station, even if the shuttle's not there.

There is a program for an X vehicle to be built, a crew return vehicle, to have the astronauts be able to get into as a lifeboat to get home. That's still in the development phases, it's not been officially worked on yet, so it's in kind of the planning, development stages. So it's another reason why at this point we only can fly three people to the space station. The Soyuz allows us to get three people home and, of course, we make sure, if you have to.

John: At this time I'd like to go off from chat room for a second and present our second video of the day. It's from [Joseph du Lai] who's an engineer that works at Kennedy Space Center and it's on an ISS update. I hope you enjoy the video.

Mike: Again, my suitcase is packed, in a couple of hours I'll be ready to go, so we'll see what happens there.

John: Let's go to another question here. Does the space station mission require special talents, special attitude, special training? I think that's what Ernesto is trying to ask you.

Mike: Okay. That's a very good question. The space station program and the people that are chosen to fly on board are chosen very carefully. We have a large astronaut pool to pick from and we have a great deal of discipline that they bring to the mission. We have a lot of astronomy, astrophysics astronauts, we have people specializing in life sciences, we have doctors and physicians who fly on board, so we have a very talented group of people.

And of course there's the whole area of the space station program that deals with the science effects, the research going on, so those folks that have certain research objectives will talk with the astronaut office and they coordinate very well in getting the right people up there to do the right amount of research when they want to do it.

John: Let's try the video clip again. I appreciate your patience.

John: Special thanks to Joe for that video. And I'd like to go back to the chat room at this time. Mike, would you please answer this question from Eric. Is it hard to connect with the space station? Is it like docking a boat?

Mike: Eric, that's a very good analogy, docking a boat. Actually we're docking two boats, two stations. We have the space station kind of the stage where it's at when we're docking and the shuttle does all the maneuvering around it. It is quite an extensive procedure, it takes many hours to get it in orbit, get the right orientation properly, and the final approach which is the shuttle moving at approximately half a foot a second.

So the shuttle, even though it can fly at 17,000 miles an hour, it can also move with such delicacy and it only moves about six inches per second, which is extremely small, so we allow maneuverability, but it is quite difficult and we have a lot of help with computers on board to do that.

John: From Emma, what did you study in college?

Mike: Hi, Emma, good question. My background, I have a degree in space science, which is a combination of disciplines such as astrophysics, astronomy and physics applied also to engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, so it's a combination of everything applied to space applications.

People who work here at the space center have a lot of engineering degrees, electrical, mechanical, but also other varied degrees, so I encourage anybody to follow the discipline that you love, no matter what it is, follow it and in most cases, it can be applied in some way to the space program.

John: That's right. From Jeff, why does it seem so many of the parts that go to the ISS have Italian names?

Mike: Jeff, well it's not because my ancestors were Italian, I had nothing to do with it. Just because my name is [Chenelli] it doesn't mean that I have a say in this upfront.

The multipurpose logistic modules, MPLMs, Donatello, Leonardo, [Raphaello], are named after famous Italian scientists and artists and explorers and people in science and the arts, so that's where those names are generated from. A lot of the earlier Gallileo space craft, a lot of the earliest astronomers came from Italy, so we kind of borrowed their names.

John: From Andre, are there any special challenges getting ready for a space mission?

Mike: Andre, yes. The crew goes through extensive training for their mission. Of course, they have a great deal of objectives to meet once in orbit, and a specific training for that mission, what they're going to do happens before that. So they go through months, or in some cases years, of training for the specific tasks that they need to do.

John: How will the space station help people on earth?

Mike: Excellent question. [talkover] That's an excellent, excellent question. And that is the reason we go into space. The primary reason that we orbit into space is to better life on earth and I appreciate you asking that question. What we're going to do on the space station is conduct a tremendous amount of research.

The environment, in orbit, is microgravity. There's no gravity. And there's many things we can do on orbit that we cannot do on earth. There's certain processes as far as making materials, as far as [drawing] semiconductors, as far as doing biological and life sciences research, say developing new drugs for diseases and cures for prostate cancer and diabetes.

We're doing active research on those, so we're doing research activities that could never be done on earth in an environment in space to bring those applications home so if we have faster computer chips and hopefully help solve some of these medical dilemmas on earth. That's our objective.

John: From Sara, can the astronauts actually see meteor sites in orbit?

Mike: Yes, Sara, they certainly can and I've actually got some footage, not today, but at work with the astronauts filming meteor showers and shooting stars, as what people call them, going by. They have a great advantage point. I've seen them happen in the atmosphere.

Of course, they're watching it looking down because the meteor comes through as the meteor burns up, so we're kind of looking up watching it, the astronauts are looking down to earth watching the meteors enter the atmosphere.

John: From June, I always heard that the astronauts are very busy on the station. What do they do, actually?

Mike: Well, they're very busy as you said. There's a lot of activities. When the space shuttle goes up there for ten days, eleven day missions, we dock for about four or five of those days. And they have a tremendous amount of, many of them have approximately a ton or more of supplies to transfer, so we have to take all of the like water, water bags, food, clothing, research equipment, computers, whatever we're bringing up from the payload, transfer it all the way through the shuttle into the space station, store it.

And in the meantime take the excess equipment, old, dirty clothes, laundry, actually stuff they don't need any more, and bring it back and store it back in the payload bay of the shuttle as transferring our stuff, so they're very busy transferring equipment while the shuttle's docked. While they're not there and they're on their own, there's an awful lot of research they're doing and system maintenance.

John: Our last question for the Web cast from Thomas, I've heard something about noise on the station and hearing loss. Have you heard anything about this problem, and the possible solution?

Mike: Oh, Thomas. You're certainly following the space program very closely and it's good to see that. When the station first started being built, some of the astronauts did notice a very loud noise in some of the modules. When the first American Russian modules were joined, there were extra noises and since then they've put little devices called mufflers on some of these systems, some of the fans and all, and the noise that the astronauts hear now in orbit have been greatly reduced as far as when the first astronauts flew to ISS.

John: We have about five minutes left actually, and I'd like to go over our last part of the Web cast a little bit about Mike's old, was it about a year ago in the series called Landing to Launch. Could you kind of walk them through that a little bit and take them step by step on how you did what you did?

Mike: Certainly. Excellent question, I appreciate that, John. Last year, we ran a series called Spacial Countdown Landing to Launch. And our objectives during the series was to tell and show everybody first hand how we get the space shuttle from the end of one mission to the start of the next one. And for us in the space shuttle program, every mission starts, not at launch, but actually starts at landing.

As the space shuttle lands, we begin its next journey and processing to the next launch. So that's how we kind of see it. And I wanted to do it in a way that's never been done before. There's some videos out there, but I wanted actually not to show you a video, but actually take you inside of a facility in secure areas and get you up close and personal to the hardware, into the people that we use.

We started with the runway, at the space shuttle runway, showed you how the space shuttle lands, what we do with it once it lands. We brought you to the orbital processing facility, showed you what happens there far as processing the shuttle for a couple of months. And we brought you to the vehicle assembly building as the shuttle's being stacked, installing rocket boosters and external tank. We brought you into the firing room which this shot is from, where we actually do all the testing of the space shuttle in the OPF and also in the pad.

We took you to the [crawler link] and showed you the special highway that the space shuttle's use to go on. And then the next liftup of the process was taking you to the launch pad and we got to walk around all the facilities out there and showed you how we actually process a vehicle once at the launchpad.

I appreciate everybody that watched the series last year and the great part about the series is that through all these stages and steps of the vehicle being moved, lifted and things happening, you could actually see that and actually go online now in the archives at the URL

John: Get one second on that, please.

Mike: You can go to this URL and get the address for it and you can go there and actually look at any of the episodes. There are eight different episodes from the runway to the launchpad and you can step through it. And it’s a mix of historical background of each facility, discussion of what happens in the facility, questions from the audience at that time about the facility and also a video in the field inside the facility. So it's a really neat multimedia interactive event they put together of each episode.

And I certainly invite everybody to come out there and enjoy it and take a look at what we did.

And some of the shots that John has showed you are shots that were taken at various points through the land to launch series so a lot of good photography, a lot of cool things we did.

John: And the URL is actually off our Quest site. It's quest.arc.nasa.gov. And you can link to there from that point. Mike, I would like to thank you for stopping by and taking time out of your busy schedule. It's been a pleasure.

Mike: Thank you, John. I also want to congratulate John, he just became engaged a couple of days ago to a beautiful girl named Laurie, and she's very lucky to get you as a future spouse.

John: I really appreciate that.

Mike: Wish you the best of luck on your upcoming wedding and I think everybody at NASA-Ames [inaudible] and all the folks out there help put this together and hope everybody enjoyed it and look forward to seeing you all again.

John: Once again, my name is John Rau and take care and have a great holiday.