 like to take this opportunity when they made the historic breaking time and then the flight itself which is our way of saying that just have been no problem out of people at Michigan who were talking yesterday to them it thought has been so smooth that we simply haven't had to talk to the ground a whole lot to mission control which makes it seem like there's nothing going on what it really means is that the plan that they come up with every day we execute it it's set out to do we have complete. Hi this is Nedra Pickler from the Houston Chronicle anyone can jump in on this one maybe you commander House also now that you you're beginning flight day 15 can you talk about any problems that have come up with such a long mission as NASA prepares for longer missions with the space station talk about how you have been affected physically and mentally by being in space for two weeks. You do need to continue exercising we have an arcometer which allows us to exercise and we try to get about 30 minutes per person per day and we have learned already in the program that that's an important thing for us to do it really helps your readaptation to 1g when you come back home and that's mirrored by what the Russians have learned they put even more emphasis on exercise every day I read that they were doing up to two hours per day on the bike especially prior to re-energize earth's atmosphere at the end of the mission so that's I think that's the one thing you need to concentrate on we know it we know that you get dehydrated up here so we try to pay attention to drinking enough liquids every day to make sure that we keep the blood volume up over the long term calcium and some other long-term effects which we really don't have to worry about so much on a 16-day flight but one thing I have been happy about very happy about on this cruise we've all stayed healthy we've had no colds as you can imagine being cooped up in a small space like this if one person comes down with a flu or the cold or virus it's quite possible for it to sweep among the whole crew we just have not had that everybody has stayed very very healthy and that has made this flight very pleasurable for Janice can you talk about how you see this mission helping in future space exploration the primary focus of this mission of course is to bring research results back for people to use on the ground some of those results can also be used in space in particular we have many experiments on this flight express rack for example that are targeted towards the International Space Station we're using them this flight as a test bed to test some of these out early on as we're still building the hybrid for space station the combustion module that we just are in the process of finishing up we'll do the last runs on today and tomorrow is a kind of space station experiment where you can change the hardware during the flight and would allow us to change experiment as we go along an evolution of space station that's example of things that are directly targeted towards space future programs but most of this 90% of the work up here is targeted towards your flight is certainly very similar to what I think a lot of us can expect when space station operations began in a few years and it's certainly been as big a success and it's right in terms of goals accomplished as the Mars Pathfinder for example yet Pathfinder is certainly generated much more public interest and I'm curious if if any of you would have any thoughts about this is that a problem for space station down the road is it difficult to sell the kind of science that you're going to be doing on the station versus the high drama missions like a Mars Pathfinder or one of the planetary flights I think in the short term things like the Mars Pathfinder which are truly a great achievement really sparked the public interest and that's really good for the space program in general as we start building the space station I think you'll see a lot of public interest and then as the science results start feeding back into society on earth and really improving the quality of life I think people will really come to appreciate just exactly what we're doing in space and what a fine investment in the future of the country in the world that it is just looking back at the at this flight which has been obviously a major success I guess for you guys in terms of your of your goals what is the significance of it long term I realize you don't have results yet but I'm thinking in terms of is this an incremental step forward in the kind of research you're doing are you making major steps forward how would you how would you describe the scientific significance of thanks the nature of research in general not just in this program but in all over the research programs everywhere is an evolutionary process you build on the research that came after you and you feed to the that came before you and you feed to the research that comes after you and this flight is a perfect example of all those various ranges the combustion experiments by a large on this flight our first time flyers are doing very basic research that's never been done anywhere else before so many experiments like the protein crystal growth experiments are one of the long series that started way back in the early days of the space program and built on ground-based research and continues to build a new ground-based research we expect that to become a big player and future space programs but it's in the middle of its evolution and you can't point to this flight is being particularly significant some of the other experiments like the space station we talked about earlier are part of a design process so there's a big range of things here I don't know that we'll be able to point to any single experiment and say this one was really a pathfinder but I think you'll find that the suite of experiments we have on board as has been true of all the space emissions in the past and hopefully in the future all contributing good science and good results to help improve all those programs this evening we have a little bit of what we've been doing over the day today and then we'll follow it up with a couple of live internet questions okay we've already told you about Astro PGBA that it's a plant growth experiment what we want to show you today that is in fact we do have some growth during the last two weeks concentrate on the center top of the screen the large broadleaf plant there and see how it changes here as we flick over there's about that that's about 12 days worth of growth in space you'll see some of the plants are bigger with more leaves on it also this plan is designed or this experiment is designed just to understand basic plant growth and how it differs in zero gravity some of these that we have back in the space that modules called the express rack this is actually a piece of the International Space Station we'll be launching it in very short few months here this rack is designed to accommodate mid-deck locker type experiment so that we'll be able to launch experiments in the shuttle in the mid-deck area and then transfer them over to the space station where they'll be mounted in the express rack operate there and part of this mission what we did on day two was take an experiment that was mounted in the mid-deck for launch we transferred back to the space of that module and today we were transferring that back in the mid-deck to get ready for landing we unbolted we transfer through the tunnel and here we're reinserting it down in the mid-deck the locker position we re-bolted in there and we're ready to come home and power it on like I said this is actually a piece of the space station we're flying today and it worked just great it was a superb way to start the space station era this combustion module one experiment is also a precursor to space station operation operational equipment the idea here is that we have separate experiment modules that can be inserted into the combustion chamber as necessary fortunately on our mission so far we've been able to get so much done in the time available because of the great planning from the ground team that we're able to put this module back in and do some more experiments with it it was already in the first half of the mission this is a laminar soot processing experiment and the purpose is to study soot formation one question that comes up we answered the essay is what where do we burn these little fires and this is one of the combustion chambers in which we light the little fires for study there's a there's a end cap that goes over this and then another panel also so it's all sealed up very safely from the change the module where we're working what type of computers we fly on board well the general purpose computers that actually control the shuttle and keep all the systems of the shuttle under control the five AP 101 we also carried two three eighty sixes and nine four with a commander in pilot to practice approaches and landing sure from Albany Georgia wants to know how we sleep and if it's comfortable well this is a sleep station we're taking you log inside one of the space shuttle Columbia sleep stations we have sleeping bag across his head and closes the door it's very quiet and dark inside comfortable I do not strap myself down I float around inside all night so sometimes it can be difficult finding the door in the morning because it's so dark in there on the flight deck and I think this might be our final crew choice downlink for the mission and we wanted to thank everybody and thank you especially all those people in mission control that have been with us all along for all these numbers of days and we hope to clean up Columbia Houston we copy all and I especially appreciate a very healthy Columbia and also for the rest of the team we appreciate all the great downlink you've given us if we feel like we've been on board right with you hello there's Dan golden who am I speaking to good morning I think it is mr. golden not good afternoon sorry good afternoon mr. golden specials Roger Crouch and this is specialist Mike they're ready to talk to you and looking forward to it Roger is upside down again or is he right side up well let me turn it over to the senator you're his constituent and I think he'd like to talk to you Roger good to talk to you again I'll tell you it seems like yesterday that we were talking to the students at the John severe middle middle school in Kingsport and they were asking you asking you know what it's like to be weightless and looking at you upside down I'll have to ask that question once again for them what's it feel like to be talking upside down actually it's no perception of upside down my brain right now as I looked down the length of the space I think this is like a lighted aisle in an airplane or something like that so it's just a matter of perspective as I said earlier but it's really a great feeling to be up here I wish it I could describe it so that it could people could relate to it it's incredible right I need to do two things I talked to your mother about 30 minutes ago in Ventress County and she said that she talked to you last week but as you were flying over Africa you went so fast she didn't get a chance to say I love you so I'm going to pass that on and that she's counting the hours till you get back home so I'm going to get that in real quick real quick I really appreciate that mom's really been packing this thing so I'm sure she's keeping everybody straight back there in Tennessee great Roger listen I did also talk to one of the students that you and I talked by video conferencing when you were in my office and we talked back to Tennessee and I called Terry Taylor who is 13 years old in the eighth grade there and she says two questions one question as an astronaut in space do you think we'll ever be able to live out in space and even on other planets I'll let you answer that one first I think certainly we'll be able to live in space incredible how the body can adapt you as a doctor know that the body is an incredible miracle almost every day way that it copes with things coming to space is not a problem the only problem is the shock of going into and out of a really severely different environment like one G and low G so but when you're here it's just it's just a great feeling a great place to be other planets I think will be the same issue that there'll be the travel to that planet where your body will acclimate the space and then our low gravity environment and then acclimate to the level on that planet will be a shock for the body but the body will adapt it quickly I think well that is great and I'll hopefully she's watching this right now and I'll pass that on to her she's going to be going to space camp in Huntsville later this month and she asked me to ask you if you feel that this was a good learning experience for kids to learn what astronauts do that is going to space camp question a lot from the children that I talked about the various public speaking things that we do and I've never been to space camp itself because that program came into effect after I was passed that time frame but I have talked I've been through that program I've been to the program several times and they all come back very excited and to my mind have a much better appreciation for what we do up here it's a very well-run program and it's the kids that go through it get a lot of it fortunately they say that we need to terminate our conversation but I'll tell you Mike and Janice and Roger it is a real privilege and a real pleasure for me as a scientist as someone who admires so much what you're doing to be able to talk to you directly you're an inspiration for the country an inspiration for students who are studying science and an inspiration for all of us thank you very much and I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to call us today we know that you're a very interested person in education in the country and one of the things that we're real interested in is contacting the children and getting them interested in science and education and we think the space program has a real mission in that field