 This is our crew patch, and here's the patch on the cake they make us traditionally at our last meal on earth before we go into space. We usually get cranked up about three hours prior. We had a really relaxed schedule this flow. We woke up about nine or ten o'clock in the morning, and we're going to launch at 9.48 at night. The first picture was of me in the suit-up room. Here's our pilot, Joe Edwards. Payload commander, Bonnie Dunbar, who also served as mission specialist number three. Jim Riley, mission specialist number one. Mike Anderson, MS number two. Andy Thomas, our long duration crew member. Salazar Sharipov, our Russian cosmonaut who served as one of our mission specialists. Here's the walkout to the orbiter. Again, we walk out and get strapped into the vehicle about three hours prior. Yeah, this is what greets us on our way out to the pan. It's simply spectacular. The main engines light about 6.6 seconds prior to liftoff. The computers check them out if they're all okay. Then the solids are given the command to fire. That was the twang. The whole assent takes about eight and a half minutes, and the first two minutes get most of your thrust out of the two solid rocket boosters, which you can see so clearly there. The vehicle shakes quite a bit under the solids, and together the three main engines and the two solids put out around seven million pounds of thrust. Now, here's a good picture of the solid rockets coming off the orbiter. And again, once that happens, then you've got about six more minutes before you get to orbit. This is a view inside the cockpit. All the shaking, the main engines just lit. Again, about six seconds prior to liftoff. Then the big flash from the solid rocket plume, and a little more severe shaking comes from the solid rockets. If you look carefully out of our windows, you'll see a cloud layer that we went through, become the clouds. And again, the flash was from the reflection off of our own rocket plume. Then one more flash. This is a real attention getter when the solid rockets come off, and a lot of debris goes past the forward windows. Six and a half minutes we ride on the main engines, and that's when we get most of our orbital blasting. Once we get in space, we open up the payload bay doors. We start turning our rocket ship into a laboratory. This exposes the payload bay to the vacuum of space, and also lets us glimpse Earth out the back windows of the orbiter. There's a space laboratory in the back, and there are several experiments in the payload bay. We had 23 science and technology experiments distributed throughout the shuttle, all operated by different members of the crew. Back here in the space hub, we had both science and technology experiments, as well as all of the cargo that would be eventually transferred back and forth to the mirror. Of course, we had many mission objectives. Our primary one was to exchange the crew members, Andy Thomas and Dave Wolf. Along with that, the cargo that you can see shown here. The space hub is a multidisciplinary, objective type of pressurized cargo holder. We can perform experiments from around the world in it. In this particular scene, I'm setting up a radiation experiment from Japan called the Real Time Radiation Monitor. It actually looks at the radiation that we're exposed to in an anomaly in the Earth's magnetic field called the South Atlantic Anomaly. This is part of it called the Detector Unit. It also had some biospecimens on it that looked at the effect of radiation on regeneration. Over on the right, those spheres are part of another radiation experiment. Here, we're using materials of different thicknesses to shield from the radiation, determining what the best materials are to be used in future space station and exploration vehicle design. On the flight deck, this digital camera pointed out over the window and was connected to a computer of which students from across the country commanded to take pictures of the Earth. We also used a computer, a laptop, to look at our human performance or reflexes in space as a function of the environment. In addition to things that we looked at in space, we did look at things on the ground with some of our palettes. In this case, the mechanics of granular materials was actually looking at what happens in soils in earthquake and landslide terrains where soils can fail. By modeling these features on orbit, we are able to take advantage of the lack of gravity which over prints most of the forces, so we're able to look at the small forces that work in these systems. Well, on flight day three, we got set up and started doing the rendezvous. The rendezvous actually began with our launch and we basically chased the mirror around the Earth until we catch up through a series of burns. This depicts the way we rendezvous with the mirror. We come up from below and we try to position ourselves to stay within the green corridor. This is a view of the orbiter from the mirror and you can see clearly some jets firing as we close. Again, a view out the top window. We rendezvous at night and this works out to be a lot better for visibility. We use cameras and sun glaring off parts of the mirror can make our cameras bloom. This is Dave's view. It's a real pleasure watching you guys come out of the sky. And the actual docking itself. Couldn't even feel it from inside. And this is the view out the back window and as Mike said previously, there's no view quite like looking at a space station in the Earth attached to the orbiter. This is a view through the hatches into mirror and you can kind of see some anticipation there on the part of Anatolia and Dave. Some regret and some happiness when that hatch opens. The hatch opening, it's a Russian superstition not to shake hands across the hatch. It brings you bad luck or across a threshold. So I'm going to pull the Russian commander, Anatoli, into the space shuttle. It's really quite emotional to rendezvous and dock and see friends at such a remote outpost. And that's Anatoli, the Russian MIR commander. There's Pavel, the Russian board engineer on board MIR, the whole station. These two really know how to live in space. Anatoli is one of the most experienced space travelers in the world. It's interesting. Anatoli was also Bonnie's commander when she was in Star City training. 15 months at one point. And then Dave, we've got him back on American soil. Good to see you, commander. And the first thing we do is get together for a meal. We have something to eat with the Russians and exchange a few gifts before we get settled down to work. Here we are in the crystal module and you see the air hoses that provide ventilation. Very important in zero gravity not to have dead spots. And we can reroute these hoses as necessary to change the airflow depending where the hot and cold spots are in the vehicle. That's a yellow oxygen tank you just saw on the left. There's a space suit on the right. This is a storage area and you can see that we have to transfer all the 9,000 items down this corridor to get into the rest of the MIR space station. It's not very wide. There's the area I slept in above. We pull ourselves with sets of these mungies. You see that black mungie on the top. So we have prepared this area before the shuttle dock and cleared it. It's actually much more crowded than this during actual life. Storage lockers on the left, panels on the right. There are systems and storage behind all these panels. There's the treadmill above. That's really the floor. You might say we were upside down. We're approaching the main node to which all the modules, six main sections of this station are attached. Now we're turning, literally turning, rolling into the base block. These modules are attached so orientation is not necessarily the same in each module. And there's Andy. We're spending our time transferring information. I'm making sure he knows where things are and giving him the tips I've learned in four and a half months in space. And here we've turned to the PROTA module. It's our main laboratory. It's actually packed up at this point. I'd spent the last two to three weeks packing up items. So final preparations. There's the computer. Very important. There's many purposes for a laptop on orbit, including watching videos, which I had some, not much time to watch. But they were interesting as they impacted me strongly as an attachment to Earth. Somehow the movies seemed very important. They're inventorying the materials and equipment that he's taken back to Earth, and here he's brought some of the stuff to space have on the orbiter. And we transferred approximately 9,000 pounds of equipment, which covered all of Dave's equipment, plus all the stuff Andy was going to be using for the next four months. That was approximately 1,400 items, all told. In 0G, you have the advantage of being able to maneuver and carry the items just about any way you want, as Terry was showing here. And one of the people who really helped out here was Salajan Sharipa, our cosmonaut who was part of our crew. His knowledge of the mirror was invaluable in being able to transfer all that material. And even at the height of transfer, when we had stuff tempstowed all over the space have, we were still able to operate as both a freighter and as a laboratory. This is module quantum. You see some of the little things. This is a gerodine that I bought 15 on the station that used for latitude control. This is our pressurization unit. This is a bioreactor, and many medical discoveries will be made in space that can't be made on the ground. Here we're growing three-dimensional cancer tissue, breast cancer, in a way it can't be grown on the ground, and this is a great tool for cancer research. Well, this is a microgravity laboratory, and I'm way back in the back there, but working on a technology experiment that is going to be used for space station, looking at contaminants in our air, about 23 different compounds. It has a lot of technological applications to the ground as well. We also carried the first telemedicine instrumentation package to orbit, which allows doctors on the ground to monitor crew members. For instance, here Terry is looking at my eye. He was taking my blood pressure earlier. We can send EKGs or heart monitoring data to the ground. It's also being used as a remote package in rural areas across the United States. Well, as I say, all good things have to come to an end, and after five days of docked operations, we exchanged the traditional gifts and said our goodbyes. Terry and Mike here are prepared to close the hatch, as Anna totally closes the hatch on the mirror side, followed by our closing of the hatch on the orbiter side. We undocked, and this view is from one of the payload bay cameras. You can see the two docking adapters separating there. And then the next scene is the view that we had from the orbiter through our centerline camera and through the overhead window. You can see the docking target there that we used to align the vehicles during docking and during undocking. It looks nice and peaceful in those pictures, but it's a flurry of activity on the flight deck as we take a look at the attitude of mirror and the attitude of the orbiter position and adjust the relative velocity between the vehicles. You can see the view here that the mirror crew had as we separated. As we backed away from mirror, we moved to a position about 240 feet below them so that we could fly around the mirror to do a photographic survey, taking still photography and the video that you see here. And as beautiful as this scene is, it frankly just doesn't compare with the view that we had there looking out the overhead window seeing this beautiful spacecraft slicing through the horizon of the Earth as we flew around it. On the right side of this picture, you can see the Perotum or the Spectre module, which is the module that was damaged in the collision. You can't quite see the damage to the solar ray in this view, but in the next view, I believe you can. You can see the Soyuz spacecraft at the bottom of the node there, the black and gray spacecraft that's docked to Mir and used by the cosmonauts to rendezvous and dock for entry. And in the case of an emergency escape, it's comforting to know it's there. As we continued our fly around through our last 90 degrees or so, this is the picture that you would have seen from Mir had you been there with us and were prepared to do our separation burn to move away from Mir, enter a different orbit and continue our preparations for coming home. In this view in the middle, you can see in the middle of the spacecraft, the space station, you can see the node and above that is the Perotum module and above that is the Kristall and the docking module and orange down below it. To the left of the node is Kevant 2 and to the right of the node is the Specter module and if you look from left to right, the first array that you see on top there is a ray that was damaged in the collision. And the last view here is from Mir as we burn to enter a new orbit and you can actually see the, or could see the lights of cities below the earth in the picture. As big as that looks, our new international space station will be three times as much volume inside and increase our science productivity. After we left the Mir, it was back to science. This is a Canadian-built experiment called the Orbiter Space Vision System. We're going to use this to build an international space station. It actually uses the orbiter's camera sort of like electronic eyes to help us determine the exact position and orientation of grappled payloads. This is one of the best scans or getaway specials on board. Two from Germany, one from the University of Michigan and one from the Chinese Academy of Science. This is how you take your weight in space. This device takes advantage of Newton's second law of motion. It actually allows an astronaut to measure his mass. It's going to be important for long-duration spaceflight members who want to keep a close track of their health and fitness. You know, I lost 20 pounds. We don't know why exactly. This is another experiment that we flew up there and it was a closed aquatic ecosystem. In board this aquarium, we had over 200 sore-tailed fish, a variety of snails, and aquatic plant life. Here's Salajan taking a few brief moments to look at the Earth out of one of the many viewports. We have to use our time room wisely up there. Nine days without gravity takes a toll on your legs, so it's important for us to exercise, keep in shape. The shuttle provides a great platform to view the Earth. Here you see Terry using some of our cameras to take some pictures of the Earth below. We have a lot of computers on board the shuttle, and we use them for a variety of things. Here you see Joe typing out an email message to his wife back home. He's actually on the ceiling of the orbiter while he does this. And first-time spaceflighters just cannot resist playing with their food. Here you see Joe using a bunch of M&Ms to simulate the expansion of the universe. A strawberry drink can be used to demonstrate some pretty advanced principles of fluid physics. You know, in the absence of gravity, surface tension alone is enough to keep a fluid in a perfect sphere. If you blow on it, you can cause it to wiggle, but it still stays together pretty nice and neatly there. Of course, the best part about an experiment like this is when you're all done, you can actually drink it. But when we were finished with all the science, we put everything away and closed up the space ab and prepared to come home. Just like when we went up there, we opened up the payload bay doors. Now it's time to close the payload bay doors. We get our final good view of the Earth below and get ready to say goodbye. You know, we sort of do this with mixed emotions. We're kind of sad to go home and leave space. We've had a really wonderful mission, had a great time up there and really enjoyed doing what we did. But at the same time, I think everyone was sort of eager to get home and share this experience with their family and friends and their loved ones and really tell them what it was like up there in space. This is a view over my right shoulder in the commander's seat during entry. You can see the Earth down below us out to the left windows. We go from 25 times the speed of sound or about 17,500 miles an hour down to a landing speed of around 230 miles an hour. We usually overfly the landing runway and then descend in a left turn down to line up with the runway to touch down. Our descent path is about six times steeper than a commercial airliner's. And again, we're decelerating the entire direction. Here we are on the left turn down at the Kennedy Space Center. 300 knots. You'll see the heads up view here in just a moment. Here's a view out the pilot's window and it gives you all your descent, glide path, your airspeed, your altitude. We're doing almost 300 knots going through 11,000 feet and you can see the runway overlay. This view really gives you an appreciation of how quickly we're descending. At about 2,000 feet, we pick up the nose of the orbiter to ease the descent rate. Pilot Joe put the gear down at 300 feet. It's about 15 seconds prior to touchdown. View out the back. If you look carefully, you can see some of the smoke from the tires get caught up in the wing tip vortices. Touchdown's around 210 miles an hour. The chute gets deployed at about 200. The runway is over three miles long. It's nice to have something like that drag chute help bring you to a stop. You continue to roll out and then you'll see in Jettison the chute at about 70 miles an hour. That hatch was open. The smell of that grass was almost overwhelming after four and a half months of processed air. After 138 orbits and 3.6 million miles in a little over nine days, we come to a wheel stop and Terry gives him the call. That about wraps it up.