 Welcome back to 90s daybreak high above us in space this morning the astronauts aboard the shuttle Columbia taking a break from their non-stop scientific Research they're scheduled to end the 16-day mission on Sunday as Columbia orbits the earth the crew and ground controllers have been Conducting fluid crystal and other experiments almost around the clock But this morning while there is a short break in the action up there We have the good fortune to be joined in a live hookup through NASA by shuttle astronaut Kent Romiger Who is from Del Norte, Colorado a small town in the San Luis Valley? Good morning to you before we get started Do you have any messages for friends or family here in Colorado? I just like to thank everybody in my hometown Del Norte, Colorado and actually the whole Valley for all the support I understand when we went over three hours after launch the kids from my high school were on the field with the sign That said hi Kent. I wasn't able to see it, but I've got photos of it. Maybe in the photos. I'll be able to show up Yeah, they were I guess it was pretty neat well yesterday on one of our newscasts We asked viewers to call in and give us their questions Whatever they would like to ask you so we'd like to pose a couple of them to you this morning One viewer wanted to know what's it like in outer space is it cold hot and how does it feel to float around up there? The floating around is tremendous. I'll try to show you a little bit of that now You can see I'm floating right here and it really is one of the newest feelings. I've ever had As far as cold or hot inside the space shuttle We keep the temperature very reasonable similar to what you have there on earth If I were outside if I were not in the sun it would be close to a hundred degrees negative Fahrenheit And if I were in the sun it could be several hundred degrees warmer than that, but inside here. It's very comfortable Can't another viewer wants to know what does it feel like when you lift off or re-enter? What does it feel like when you hit zero gravity? It's a pretty amazing sensation because when we lift off the there's a lot of rumbling a lot of vibrations and acceleration And as a matter of fact the most acceleration we have is right before we're in orbit So we're accelerating at three times meaning that if I weighed two hundred pounds on earth I'll weigh six hundred pounds just before the engines cut off and when they cut off I go from weighing six hundred pounds to zero pounds and free-floating. It's quite a sensation. I Can't imagine it's better than the best roller coaster I would guess. Well, let's ask you one of the viewers wanted to know what kind of experiments you're involved with and how that might affect us back here on earth Experiments on the mid-deck I'm involved with and one of them is called astrocoats were which interestingly enough is growing five tuber Potatoes and the San Luis Valley's potato country, but the reason we're doing this is on this space Station coming up an extended space travel It's a great idea to have plants and be able to grow our own food because the food takes advantage and cleans up the air takes CO2 out of it So we're using one of those experiments To see how the potatoes form in space if the starch content is correct as well as the technology using it as a technology Demonstrator to see the most efficient way to grow stuff in space Can't one more question another viewer wants to know what kinds of things do you see up there as far as I know You're surrounded by stars, but have you seen comments or anything else like that? Seeing comments, but what is really interesting from up here are falling stars in the The following stars are below us, so when we look at the earth at night We'll see these huge bright green and blue stars burn seems like for close to 10 seconds as they're entering the atmosphere and blowing up Well, that's just terrific. We want to thank you for joining us this morning I know your options are limited up there, but you're gonna do any trick or treating at all today I mean it is Halloween We're working on our costumes up later on tonight. We'll send down some video of our Halloween party on board Thank you for joining us. We have lots of fans in Colorado that are pulling for you have a safe return to earth next Sunday I guess have a good one. Thanks, Kent Happy Halloween, and thanks for all the support Okay, take care Let me a minute Do it teachers hand over that's affirmative Alan You'll probably still need to look at the z-axis and come in with one of the injectors