Miles O’Brien: Atlantis Update

Miles O'Brien

February 9, 2001
Web posted at: 5:30 p.m. EST

Q: Is everything going as planned for the docking of the shuttle with the space station? Have any unforeseen problems arisen?

O’Brien: So far, it has gone entirely to NASA's intended script. You have to understand that the rendezvous with the international space station begins at launch, which happened on Wednesday evening from the Kennedy Space Center.

The folks in charge of launching space shuttles think of themselves as a quarterback with a football firing the pass at just the right moment in order to make it to the international space station. They threw a flawless spiral in this case. Atlantis met the space station a little before noontime eastern today, Friday, February 9, with Shuttle Commander Ken Cockrell at the controls.

It went underneath the space station and inched toward the docking port at about a tenth of a foot per second. So, while it seemed as if the shuttle was barely moving, the two vehicles were traveling at a rate of about 17,500 miles per hour at the time. But of course, in situations like that what counts is what's relative, and the relative motion between the two was very minor. Cockrell nailed the sixth shuttle docking at that space station.

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Q: How is the costly "Destiny" lab viewed in the scientific community?

O’Brien: It's very controversial. As a matter of fact, space science with humans tending it is a lightening rod subject inside the scientific community. Just to give you an example: for years, NASA has been pitching the potential for growing protein crystals in the absence of gravity. The theory is that if you grow them in weightlessness, you will get a better crystal. Perhaps you might be able to learn something more about how to combat disease through these experiments. Well, they've been doing this for more than ten years, and there really hasn't been a significant find to come out of it. There are a lot of scientists who will tell you that the science is neither interesting nor compelling and that there are much cheaper ways to do science in space.

Remember, there is a whole other scientific agenda here which, if you consider the goal, is probably valid. Although they no longer talk about this very much, NASA would like to send people to Mars and to go on long-duration missions in space. If you're going to fly to Mars, you must subject people to tremendous amounts of radiation and weightlessness for six to eight months at a time.

The question is: what does that do to the human body? We don't know for sure, and we don’t know how to stem the tide of the muscle and bone loss, or the fact that your heart doesn't work as well when it's in zero gravity because it's getting a breather, if you will. If you send people to Mars who have lived in an environment that barely leaves them able to stand up, what good will that do? They won't be very effective explorers.

In the sense that NASA will look at the bio-medical aspects of people existing in zero gravity, you can probably say that this is a valid experiment; everything else is very debatable. If you look at the body of peer-reviewed scientific data that has come out of space, it is pretty sparse.

Q: After three months in orbit, how is the first International Space Station crew holding up? Any surprises so far for Expedition 1?

O’Brien: Actually, they are holding up rather well. This crew has been through a tremendous period of training, almost four years of training together before flying. In a way, the mission was like the home stretch for them. Yes, they were in closer quarters; yes, they had some tense moments at the outset as they tried to get all these systems up and running. Also, control centers in both Moscow and Houston had a lot of expectations. They had certain things it wanted done within a certain period of time. There were times when the tension showed.

That seems to have abated somewhat. The crew has gotten through the lion’s share of the shakedown cruise, and it has laid down rules as to how much is too much. Well-meaning people on the ground were trying to help the crew. However, that can easily over burden a crew in an environment like that on the space station. It is incumbent upon the crew to say, "Hey wait a minute, this is too much." This is exactly what they have done, and appropriately, the ground has backed off.

Going back to the overall goals of this mission, you have to judge this mission on an entirely different level. It has nothing to do with science or space exploration. When you consider that of the 16 nations working on this space station, the U.S. and Russia are former Cold War space race adversaries and that all the nations are working together despite the tremendous political, engineering and financial odds, the fact that this space station is becoming reality is a pretty impressive fact unto itself. That point should not be minimized.

Q: What about the news reports that the Russian spacesuits on the ISS are unusable?

O’Brien: Basically, NASA has confirmed that. There is a communication problem which will make it impossible to use those suites. NASA is trouble shooting the problem now. There are no space walks planned right for this crew or mission so there is no immediate, short-term concern.

There is a Soyuz spacecraft docked at the space station that serves as a lifeboat. If anything happened that required evacuation, the crew could escape and return to earth. The shuttle will leave behind one of the U.S. space suits. Presumably, that could work in some sort of contingency if a member of the crew had to get outside for some reason. I don’t think this is a big deal.

Q: How will the international space station crew, separated from their wives, observe Valentine's Day?

O’Brien: Interesting you should ask that. Among the items Atlantis is carrying are chocolates, candies and notes from the crew’s loved ones.

Also, crewmembers do have a chance to visit with their loved ones interactively on two-way video hook ups. I would be willing to bet a dozen roses that on February 14, the crew will have an opportunity to share Valentine wishes with their loved ones on earth.

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