 Good morning, Endeavour. Welcome to Flight Day 8. Houston and we're ready to have some more fun. Yeah, I thought you might be. Great to see you, Carl. We're allowed to... Oh, you ain't heard. Nothing yet. It's night down there. Now, Brent, we have the weather radar and the visible satellite picture up on our screens right now, and there is a front coming by. We're clear now, but we expect some squall weather towards morning here. Glad you got a good look. We just passed right overhead and now we can see that stuff out to the north and west. We're just concerned that it goes through Florida by the time you guys are ready to come home. Endeavour, no reply. 90 seconds till a teacher's handover. And Endeavour, we have a great view of the Cape going underneath you right now. Those lacy webs across the states as we went over it. Look forward to getting a chance to see that again, Brian. You'll have a great time. The conversation with South Africa is still on at one hour and 40 minutes. Okay, we copy it. We're setting up for right there. Thanks, Winston. Is Koishi done with his exercise yet? If not, I'll call him on the west side. I didn't have as much lint as the data I am using. I cleaned him off. Okay, thanks. During your off-duty time, did you get to play Go? Yes, we demonstrated the very famous Go play in a novel of a novel award. A novelist, Kawabata. Dan is a good player and we really enjoyed the game. Can we ask who won? Actually, Dan gave me this good part and I was playing the person who won the game. So I was supposed to be one, but it took so long and we didn't come to the end of the game. Okay, we're going to LOS here. You sure have a lot of space, a lot of territory. Play that game up there. Now, Houston, are you ready to talk to Johannesburg, South Africa? Sure, we sure are, story. Okay, here they come. Johannesburg, this is Houston. Please give Endeavor a call. Endeavor, this is Johannesburg. How do you hear me? We read you loud and clear. Welcome aboard the space shuttle Endeavor. Winston, Koishi, thank you so much for giving us a few minutes to talk to you. We really appreciate it. This is Teddy School in South Africa. We have some students from Protek who have some fascinating questions for you. And we're going to go to our first student, who is Sachin. Over to you, Sachin. Hi, Captain. My name is Sachin. I'm from Kempton Park. We are students of Protek and we really consider this a great privilege because this is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And my question to you is, how long have you been in space and when can we expect your return? Actually, just past the seven-day mark in space. We've been up for just over seven days and one hour right now. And we're going to be up here for about two more days before we come home. Our next question comes from a young lady, Imelda. It was you, Melda. Hi, this is Imelda. I just want to ask Captain Bryan, how did he choose to become an astronaut? I'll tell you, I'll start off answering that question. I have been a Navy pilot most of my adult life. And I chose to become an astronaut because I thought that would be a nice next step, a nice next challenge for me in the work that I was already doing in aviation and science. And I tell you, since being up here on my first flight, I haven't regretted that decision at all. This has been a tremendous experience and I wish you all could be here with me and share. It's really a tremendous experience. Hi, I'm Winston Koichi. Good day. This is Nikita. Our next question will come from Ashley. Yeah, I'm Ashley from Solitude. I heard rumors about you're going to land on Mars soon. Is it true? Ashley, want to know about Mars? Okay, you want to know if we're going to land on Mars soon? Well, I have to answer, no, we're not going to land on Mars soon. However, we at NASA do have plans and work, long-term plans and work to go to Mars. I think probably the next big step will be to go back to the Moon. As you know, we walked on the Moon about 25, 26 years ago. The next big step will go back to the Moon and then hopefully from there we'll go on to Mars. But I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. I will add, though, that by the time you get to be my age flying in space, maybe you'll be one of the first people on Mars. Thanks so much, gentlemen. Our next question comes from another young lady, Candace. Over to you, Candace. Hi there, Winston. I spoke to you before about preparation mentally and physically. What you experienced in space, were you prepared for it completely? Okay. I think I was as best prepared as I possibly could have been. The training we have is very, very excellent. But of course, we have no way of truly simulating zero G. The only way to experience it is to come up here. And physically, we all have gotten along very well in space. Of course, our Commander Brian and our MS-1 leader, Charles, have flown before, but the other four of us were brand new. But you'd be amazed at how quickly your body adapts. I felt a little uneasy this the first day, but I was not ill at all, and we all feel great, and we're having just a wonderful time up here. Konichi Wakata. I hope I got that right. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. We've got a young gentleman here by the name of Sam, who really feels that your gentlemen are a great role model for him. He's got a question for you. I just wanted to know, when you're viewing the Earth from space, does it have any spiritual effect on you? I've been in space for almost a week to see my body's adaptation into this microgravity so quickly. And we are feeling very good, and we are doing our job in here, and it's been a great experience for me. Thank you very much, Konichi. Our next question comes from another one of our students. It's Yasam Avicius-Yasam. Hi. I'd like to find out how space exploration will benefit us in the future. That was a little bit broken, but I believe your question is about how space would benefit us in the future. Is that correct? Yasam, would you ask the question again? I'd like to know how space exploration will benefit us on Earth and in the future. That's a very good question, and it's one that we consider all the time because everything that we do has to have a purpose, and that purpose is generally to better some portion of our lives on Earth. It turns out we can come to space and do lots of things that we cannot do on Earth. We can do medical experiments up here. We can perhaps invent new drugs to combat diseases. We may be able to grow new crystals to be able to run faster computers. The list is endless, and we could talk about that for many, many hours about how space can benefit it, but it's not limited to any one area. It really spans every part of the everyday life on Earth, and we hope to be able to improve it from space. Astronaut Scott, we understand that you have three objectives on this mission. One of them being to retrieve a Japanese communication satellite. We also have a question from Sean. What's one of our students in connection with the mission? Hi, Dr. Scott and his crew. My name is Sean. I'd like to know what's the purpose of your mission, and how do you retrieve your satellites? That's absolutely right. We have several main objectives on this mission, and one was to retrieve the Japanese satellite space fly unit. The other one was to deploy and then retrieve a satellite called the OAST satellite. The way that we went about those retrievals is by doing a rendezvous, and the rendezvous involves basic orbital mechanics. In other words, we had to plan our launch for a certain time and day so that we have enough fuel and enough time to catch up to the satellite and approach it. We use what's called an R-bar approach, whereas we flew out of the Earth's radius, a vector along the Earth's radius, up to the satellite. We opened up the payload bay doors, and Koichi Wakata here on my left, operated the robot arm to reach out and grapple the satellites and berth them both inside the payload bay. Now, that's a very quick and simple explanation of a somewhat complex task, but it's really, really fascinating to participate in. And really, to see the crew operate as a single unit was great. We had myself sending commands to the satellite through the computer. Commander Brian Dutty was actually flying the vehicle, actually with hands on, a stick and throttle flying. When he flew it close enough and stable out of the Koichi, we'd start with the robot arm and roguing into the bay. It really was quite an event and quite a sight to behold, even for those of us who were participating. My next question is to Winston Scott, it's Sean Micrea. I just wanted to find out about the EVAs, otherwise known as spacewalks. Could you tell us more about the spacewalks, if you have any planned, if you've done any yet? Oh, I sure can. This flight consisted of two spacewalks. The first was done by Leroy Chow and Dr. Dan Berry. The second spacewalk was the one that I participated on, and Dr. Chow participated on that one with me. The purpose of these spacewalks was to test out equipment and structures and techniques and so on that we might use in building the International Space Station. The second purpose was to test out improvements to our suits, our extra-vehicular mobility, our space suits. And I guess that was the highlight of my spacewalk, even though it was a very busy six and a half hours of spacewalking, the most important part, I think, was the 35 minutes that I used to stand still in the most cold environment that we could achieve. And I activated the thermal, the heating units on my suit to see whether or not they would keep me warm, and I'm happy to report that they worked very, very well. I never once felt uncomfortable out there in the cold of space. So anyway, we've had two EVAs, and I just enjoyed that. I wouldn't trade that experience, but anything else in the world, it was tremendous. Absolutely incredible visuals there, sir. Our next question for Aston North were caught, and it comes from one of our students, Karin. Hello, Aston North, Karin. My name is Karin, and I'd like to know, what is wrong with the satellite that you're retrieving from space? This satellite called SFU, Space Flight Unit, was launched by a Japanese rocket back in March of last year, and it has been conducting various scientific researches, such as material processing, astronomical observation, and systems which will be used in the Space Station Alpha, which will start its assembly next year. And they have been conducting very successful experiments, and we successfully retrieved the satellite. And after we go back home on the Earth, the Japanese engineers and scientists will gather a lot of very important data out of the satellite. Gentlemen, our next question comes from Nikita. Konnichiwa Koichi. In terms of Japanese-U.S. relations, what does this mission hold? What does it hope to improve? What in terms of the U.S.-Japanese relations, the joint mission? Are we going to see more joint missions in space? And what are the immediate benefits for both U.S. and Japan? If there are any. Konnichiwa, it's a very good question. And this successful retrieval of the Space Flight Unit was achieved because we had a very good coordination and cooperation between the Mission Control Center in NASA in Houston and also SFU's Mission Control Center in Japan. And we showed a perfect teamwork during this retrieval together with the crew members here. And this is one of the very good examples of international cooperation. And I think international cooperation is the most important thing to proceed on to further frontier in space. And both the United States and Japan are participating in the International Space Station of a program which will start its assembly, as I told you last next year. And I think this is a very key element of the future in space program. How far is the reality of an actual space station where different countries will be involved? Is it still in the books, or how far is it going to be a reality? That is the U.S., Japan, Russia, the involvement of countries in space, establishing an actual space station. Okay, this International Space Station will start its assembly next year, late next year. Next up on the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan. You hope to invite us sometime in the future, such as South Africa, if we become involved in the Space Initiative? When I was five years old, I saw the Apollo lunar landing and for me it was just a dream at the time. But now the world is changing and I feel very happy that I'm involved in this space program. And I hope that many more people from around the world will be able to participate in this activity in space. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Sachin, and it's for you as to know with Brian Duffy. Hi, Mr. Duffy. This is Sachin. You all said that the last spacewalk was 25 years ago. This walk was before you all. Why has it been so long since the next space mission or since this moonwalk? The last moonwalk was approximately 25 years ago. That's right. And it turned out that the space program of the United States, after that time, after we had been to the moon a number of times, continued on to the next step of space exploration. And that was to create a vehicle that could regularly exit the Earth's atmosphere and make it to space to carry cargo and people into space and be able to do it easily, be able to go up and to be able to come down. So the United States set out to build the first reusable space vehicle, and that's the space shuttle, which we're aboard right now as we speak. So we did need to continue going back to the moon. We could have, and we perhaps we have a lot to learn yet, however, at the time when they made that decision back in the 1970s, their decision was to build a reusable vehicle that we could get to space and back regularly. So that's where we are today. We have a great future ahead of us. We have a lot of great things to do. We really do look forward to going back to the moon. We do look forward to going to Mars. I don't think they're that far away, and we're very anxious to get there. This is Scott Riddlesberger in Washington. Dr. Duffy, thank you very much as well as Winston Scott and Koichi Wakata for joining us today. And also, thank you to... It's certainly our pleasure. Thank you for coming aboard and sharing this space with us. And Johannesburg, Houston, thank you very much for sharing a space flight experience with us and Devers approaching Hawaii at this time, but in about 45 minutes at 26 after the hour, they will be above Johannesburg. They'll be in the daylight. You will not be able to see them, but they will sure appreciate the view of your beautiful country. And thank you, endeavor.