 birthday to the Air Force, and the music was courtesy of the West Point Cadet Glee Club. And the BioRack Ground Team wants to express their sincere gratitude for that. Thank you. Sir, project manager Issa, who is adding here is Lon Kaya working in the biology experiment in this facility. Now I can see Issa from the control now. Roger. Last Houston, a new orbiter state factor is being uplinked. Around 77-time frame, 19th company member down there. Good to see you now. It'll be good to see you in another day or two. Good morning to all of you. Jerry, the last time we talked... Good morning, Ann. Nice to hear you. Jerry, the last time we talked, you predicted that you'd be feeling pure joy on this journey home. Is that what's going through you right now? Absolutely. Lation, I'll tell you, when I saw the shuttle out the window, that was one happy moment. It was a beautiful sight. So I predicted that one correctly. Well, two reasons why you're pretty happy is that you've got an 18-month-old son named John waiting for you. Also, your wife, Catherine, who was eight months pregnant. Have you thought about those first few moments you're going to have with them? Someone, I think that's going to be pure elation also. You know, my son's changed a lot in those 18 months, and my wife's grown a bit. But it's going to be a fantastic moment. I'm sure we're just going to hug each other and do normal things that people that are separated from loved ones do. In fact, talking about walking, you've been doing your best to keep in shape while in space. And it's being reported that you're determined to walk off the shuttle after it lands. Why are you so determined to walk off? Because some of the astronauts have been carried off the shuttle after all this time in space. As you say, I've been working very hard, and it's one of my goals to come back in condition to be able to egress from the shuttle. I think that's important operationally to know that in an emergency you'd be able to get off the shuttle. So it's been kind of beyond that. It's just been a personal goal to keep running on the treadmill two hours a day. It takes a lot of determination. And to have a goal to walk off the shuttle gave me something to shoot for. But mission control certainly has had to tell you, prepare you for what you probably will expect in terms of coming back into Earth's atmosphere. How that's going to impact you? Physiologically a big challenge. I think I'm going to have a lot of adrenaline flowing and I think I'll be able to get off on my own power. I may have to crawl a little bit to get out of the orbiter. It's very hard even when you're feeling good to get out of the orbiter. Because of the arrangement, the space suit you're wearing, you got the suit and of course the first steel of gravity for this year basically for myself. Last January is the last time I felt any pull of gravity. So it's going to be interesting and so as a physician I'm kind of interested in the response of the human body to long duration space flight and so I'm going to test myself. You know after all of this is said and done you're going to hold the record for having the, you're going to hold the record for having the longest period in space as an American astronaut. 132 days in space. How does that make you feel? It makes me feel good because I'm number two. Shannon Lucid is ahead of me by a bit there and I was very glad to see the shuttle on time because I don't want to break that record. Tell me about undocking from the mirror. The last time we spoke you expressed some concerns about the safety of the mirror Jerry. Now that it has a new oxygen generator and some other equipment, are you feeling a little bit better about the safety of it? I feel better. I think Mike Full who took my place has still had some challenges ahead. But we did the best we could to get it the mirror in shape for Mike and I think it's in better condition than it was. Charlie and the crew brought along a lot more needed supplies, equipment and so I think we're leaving Mike in reasonable condition. On the other hand I think there's still challenges to be faced. And Charlie do you want to add anything to that? Mike's off to a really good start. Jerry made a diligent effort to inventory things and show him the layout the best he could. And so I think Mike is a lot more comfortable than Jerry himself was at this point in his mission. And so that's going to be a great start for Mike. Jerry, we owe a big debt of credit to him for the work that he did in a very tight timeline when the shuttle was getting ready to come aboard. He had a lot of work to do to get it as ready as it is. All right Charles Precourt, thank you so much for those thoughts. Also Jerry Linger and the rest of the crew. Safe journey home everybody. I was going to say we're all very, very proud here in the metropolitan Detroit area of a native sun. Four months in space, how do you feel? What kind of an adjustment have you got coming here? I'd say I've adjusted very well to space and that means it's going to be maybe a little tougher adjusting to get back to earth. Right now up here I feel as natural as walking down on earth six months ago. So it's going to be a readjustment getting my earth legs back. Well the next major event from our point of view is the International Space Station which we plan on launching the parts of that beginning next year. And that should become operational sometime around the year 2000 and we hope that it will operate for another 10 to 15 years or more. All of this is in preparation for some day sending humans on to Mars. And of course that's a dream of all of ours is to see people go to Mars someday and expand the human race off the planet earth and on to more exciting places in the universe. Oh boy, Jerry Linger we have this question for you. We know that you were aboard Mir. Could you tell us what it was like and how you feel the mission went? The mission went very well. We had 100% success, accomplished all the goals that we wanted to accomplish. And we also had a lot of side tracks along the way repairing some equipment aboard Mir. But overall we had a great mission and it's been a great stay and a once in a lifetime experience.