 And we have, we're still working on the execute package. We'll have it up to you shortly. And we see the waves and we could use some extra light there. Okay, Winston, thank you. And Debra Houston, the flight director wants to know who Buzz Lightyear is down there. Dan Rindeminde. Hi, Dan Berry. Debra, Previer. Go ahead, Previer. Yes, sorry. We've completed checkout except for the last 15 minutes of battery charge check and both seats look good. Great news, Dan, and we concur. Yeah, we got a bunch of thumbs up down here, too. Riz, we're just about to go live to the shuttle endeavor where the astronauts are about 250 miles above us, hurtling our on the grove at about 17,000 miles an hour. And joining us up there on the flight deck is Commander Brian Duffy. First of all, good morning, Commander, or whatever time of day it is for you. I'm first of all curious about the evasive maneuver you had to perform to avoid a dead Defense Department satellite. Tell us a little bit about that and how that worked out. Sure, Miles. And, you know, it wasn't any big deal for us. There are a lot of things in orbit in space. We know where they are. And just what happened, we were going to get close enough to one to just make the folks on the ground say, if we just made a small maneuver, we could avoid it completely and make it no problem. So, but we did that. It was no big deal. I'm curious, were you able to see anything at all from the orbiter? Were you able to see that dead satellite or were you too far away? Well, actually, by the time we did the maneuver early enough so that we were so far away from it, I don't think we could have seen it. The U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs, Colorado, attracts some 7,000 man-made objects up there that are either dead or active satellites, especially as you look toward building an international space station. How big a concern is all that space junk? I mean, the fact that it's here is certainly a concern. Now, quantifying the size of that concern is a different story. You know, we're not that worried about it. We think we have very good models and a fairly good understanding of the situation. And it's one in which, you know, we're very comfortable with proceeding with building a space station. You know, we're happy to come find the shuttle with all that stuff up here, too. I guess for the folks at home, though, they should understand that even a small fleck of paint can cause some damage to an orbiter when you consider the speeds at which the two objects meet. True, and that's just because of the physics of the situation. You know, it's one-half the mass times the velocity squared. There's that kinetic energy involved. And if you have vehicles and objects going very quickly, yeah, it could be a concern. All right, I want to shift gears here a little bit and I'll open this up to anybody who'd like to take this. During the launch just the other day, one couldn't help but think a little bit about the challenge, the Challenger disaster, which occurred 10 years ago this month. The temperature was kind of chilly at the Cape and a lot of the parameters for launching under those circumstances were developed after the Challenger accident. How much was Challenger on people's minds that morning? Well, Miles, I'll take that one. The reason I'll do that is because I'm the only member on the crew that was in the astronaut office at the time the Challenger occurred. And we're very aware, of course, of the 10th anniversary of Challenger. It's hard not to be. They were our friends, our good friends and our, you know, companions. We think we're carrying on. We know we're carrying on exactly what they set out to do. We know they'd be very proud of us. We weren't worried about it that morning, but the fact that the 10th anniversary is coming up, the Challenger has been on our minds. I'm curious how much on a day-to-day basis within NASA, does the Challenger accident loom in discussions, decisions, planning? Well, you know, the after Challenger occurred, we took a look at the agency and the way decisions were made, and we made an awful lot of changes, and the system that we have produced as a result of the changes that we made is very good. You can look at our crack record here. We've done an excellent job, and we're all very confident in the system, and we think it'll continue to launch vehicles safely. Are you satisfied, and that could go for all of you here, are you satisfied with the pace of development on a next generation of manned spacecraft, a single stage to orbit craft, for example, or would you have predicted, perhaps 10 years ago, that we would have been a little further along? No one wants to take that one. I think we're all very happy flying the Shuttle. It was designed many years ago, but this is a 74th mission, and it's proved to be very reliable. We learn more and more on each mission about the vehicle itself, and that data are going to be used to design the next generation spacecraft. There are some efforts underway, although not full blown for a replacement for the Shuttle, but of other manned vehicles being looked at, and we're hopeful that we'll go ahead and forge on when the Shuttle gets old enough that we'll want another vehicle. I know recently NASA Administrator Daniel Golden was actually critical of the pace of new rocket development within NASA. There really hasn't been a ground up new rocket developed in the US recently. Would you be among those that would call for such efforts, especially in light of the budget constraints in Washington? I think a new vehicle would be a good thing. I think we ought to start planning for a new vehicle. We don't need one right now. The Space Shuttle has been doing fine, even though a lot of the technology is what you would call by today's standards old. It's proven to be a very reliable vehicle again, and we have no need to immediately replace it. But I think we ought to start looking at a new vehicle. By the way, for our viewers, that's mission specialist Leroy Chow and let me shift into the spacewalks which are planned here. I know you will be involved in two of the spacewalks. There are two. Each of them six and a half hours long. The object is to look at tools, techniques and equipment which might be used to build the International Space Station. You almost get the sense that NASA is doing its best to get as much spacewalking experience in as possible so that you have an experienced group of astro-construction workers when it comes time to build that space station. Is that what's going on? Well, that's certainly part of it, Miles. You know, we'd like to get some folks' experience so that we can have that experience to draw upon when we do get in a full swing of station assembly. Winston Scott, behind me, he's going to do the second EVA with me and Dan Berry, who's working on the middeck right now, will do the first one with me. And that'll be three new EVA people on this flight that get some experience. But along with that, we're also, as you mentioned, looking at the design concepts, building concepts and maintenance concepts for the space station. This is very critical. The results that we get from these flight tests are going to feed directly right back into the space station program to make sure, you know, they'll tweak what they have to tweak to make sure that we get a buildable and a reliable station. Not long ago, there was some talk that the Russians were attempting to modify plans for the International Space Station. They were suggesting that perhaps their current space station, the MIR, become a core feature in the new International Space Station. That would presumably delay things and raise costs on this end. I assume at this point, astronauts would prefer that the design stay as it is. Tomorrow, I guess I'm going to try to avoid that question a little bit. You got to remember, we've been training for a year for this flight, and especially the last couple of months, we've been very focused on our mission. And although we've sort of been aware of what's been going on around our mission, we probably haven't paid as much attention to it as you might think. So I think we'll just kind of maybe dodge that one a little bit. Maybe it's more appropriate for somebody in our management. Pilot Brent Jett showing that astronauts are good at all kinds of evasive maneuvers. Let's move over to Winston Scott. I know when you're on your spacewalk, you're going to spend a little bit of time in the shade of the shuttle. 100 degrees below zero Fahrenheit are the projected temperatures. And I suppose folks in the Northeast concerned about a blizzard should think about that for a moment. Tell me about the thermal modifications on this space suit. Are you satisfied that you're going to be nice and toasty up there? You know, as a matter of fact, I am. I'm very confident that I'm going to be nice and toasty. The modifications have been worn before. They've looked at how the other guys felt when they wore a couple of missions before me, and they made improvements. And I'm really not that concerned about it. In fact, I'm looking forward to it. But you're a Florida boy. Yes, indeed. But they've got a couple of modifications. As a matter of fact, I've got heated gloves. We just finished our EMU check out, our extra vehicular mobility unit check out. I powered those gloves up. They got nice and warm for me. I've got what's called an LCDG POT bypass. You know, that's supposed to keep my torso warm. And I think it's going to be exciting. Besides, if things start to get too cold up there, I can get these guys to signal and they'll rotate me towards the sun and maybe send me a cup of hot chocolate out there. I think I'll be OK. I suppose if you bang on the door or window, they'll let you in. I sure hope so. They owe me something. I didn't bring my trumpet up here with me. Winston Jett is also a big band, orchestral trumpet player. That would be interesting to try that in the space shuttle. I'd like to see and hear how that would sound. I think it'd be a lot of fun. Of course, that's been done many times before. People, I think, don't realize how many astronauts are also musicians. I happen to be probably the only one with a degree in music, but we've got a lot of folks around the office that play music and they can have a good time. And I certainly would not be the first to bring an instrument up and play. By the way, for our viewers that to translate a little bit, NASA jargon there, that bypass he was talking about allows the astronauts simply to turn off the cooling unit in the space suit. Now, that sounds like a simple idea. Why didn't they ever do that before? Well, Miles, it's a difficult question for me to answer being a new guy, but I suspect they probably never needed to have that before. We're looking at going to colder and colder temperatures as we get into a larger international space program. We start constructing stations and all. We'll be seeing colder temperatures and therefore we need these improvements to the suits. All right, not pictured here are 66 Astro Rats. I'm surprised they didn't come and join you for the interview. We were hoping at least one of them would. Tell us a little bit about that experiment. I understand you're testing out some high tech rat cages. Why is that important? Well, Miles, on this flight, we're flying the animal enclosure units to test them out, really. It's a flight test for the enclosure unit. There's no specific experiment with the rats right now, except to see that if they like their new house. And right now, from what we've seen, they're getting along just fine. You'd really be surprised. They're doing great. I guess that's particularly important as NASA looks toward that international space station. I assume there'll be some long-term rodent residents of that space station, right? Sure, there'll be a place for them. And even closer than that, down the line, we're going to have some life sciences, space lab missions in which we'll probably be using those same enclosures. All right, thanks so much to those four members of the crew of Endeavour. We appreciate you joining us at whatever time it is for you in York, the course of your day up there. And the mission of Endeavour will continue until January 20th. A night landing is planned at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Now back to you, Riz. And I've got the pre-sleep stuff for you, page 3-2 of the orbit ops. When you're ready, no rush.