 two, one, lift off of Atlantis and the six-man crew on a Department of Defense flight. Gregory, the Command Duttel, Atlantis, 195 miles above you and we just crossed the Y heading for the United States. We've had a very full, the first day of course we launched the defense support, we call it the Liberty, it's an early warning satellite. The rest of the time we've spent orchestrating moves from the mid-deck to the flight back. I'm on the flight back right now doing observations from some of the overhead windows of the flight back and doing an awful lot of medical experiments for a long-duration space to evaluate the human as the human prepares for long-duration stay in space. I'd like to go on downstairs now and introduce you to the rest of the crew here at STS-44. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the crew of STS-44. Good evening, I'm the pilot, Tom Hennick, number one. I'm doing the screen, this is specialist number two. I'm Mario Remco, mission specialist number three. For that introduction we'd like to ask you for any questions. Lantis, stand by for a call from the Johnson Press Center. Johnson Press Center, go ahead with your call. Atlantis, this is the Johnson Press Center. We're ready to begin the press conference. Hi, this is Frank Bass with the Houston Post. I've got a question for Dr. Musgrave. Can you give us an early assessment of how the bioreactor system has worked? All four test sequences and the 16 sub-sequences. I'm looking at the three spheres. It looks like the hydrogynamics that they're looking for is coming out about right. We did get some bubbles inside the chamber toward the end of the test and I think those bubbles did interfere a little bit with our test. This is Mark Carow with the Houston Chronicle for Fred Gregor in Story Musgrave. I wonder if you could comment further on your observations of the quality of the Earth's atmosphere. You made some comments earlier today if you could elaborate on those and sort of compare what you're seeing on this mission with what you've seen on your earlier flights. I'm in the African Indian Ocean, India, Philippine area. Two years ago, the atmosphere appeared to be somewhat cleaner. As we look down now, if the sun is right above us, we get a good view but whenever the sun is off on an angle and we have to look up to sea, it appears to be, from my observation, more cloudy. And of course, two years ago, we flew over things to us two years ago. Yeah, that's a very distinct feature. When STS-33 Fred and I got in orbit the first time around, he says, wow, the whole Earth is clear of clouds. And essentially, looking at the whole Earth, it was a very cloud-free Earth. We have a lot more clouds today. But also, a very evident thing is when you look straight at the 195 miles there we are now, you see Earth as it might be. The deserts are brown, the oceans are blue, the jungles are green. But as you start picking your gaze up slant-wise and you start going to several hundred miles of atmosphere, you start picking up the color of the atmosphere itself. STS-33, the Earth was a lot more blue. Now, as you pick your eyes up and you start looking to more horizon, it's more of a purple. So again, as Fred said, when you get into sun-high sun angles, the whole color of the Earth is more of a purple-lavender color when you look out the distance. Frederick Castell from the French Press Agency to Mario Ronco or Tom Hannon. Does this haziness hamper your observations and do you notice it through the binoculars? It does hamper the observations. Like I was saying, when you have a story was saying, as they flint range, when you're looking, it clears up when you go overhead near Nader and the haziness gets reduced and you can see pretty well through the atmosphere at that time. But again, before and after track, it does affect our observation capability. This is Stephen Gauvain with KTRK TV. I have a question for anyone. I was with you this past summer when many of you went and visited the Oilers camp and picked up Oilers jerseys with the number 44 on them to commemorate your trip to space. I was wondering if you were aware that the Oilers will be going for the championship on Monday night and if you intended to celebrate that on Monday with wearing of the shirts. I know that one of you has a shirt on board. I carrying one of the Oilers jerseys. It does have the number 44 on it, but it is in a location in the shell that we do not have access for. We do wish the team the best of luck and we are Oilers fans being from Houston. I'd like to add one more thing. We had a picture that our lives sent with us and each of them is standing next to each other, of course, with an Oilers shirt on with the number 44 in commemoration of SDS 44. This is Laura Tolley with the Associated Press and for Mario Runco, I wanted to ask you based on what you've seen so far on the military man in space, can astronauts serve the military in space and how? Yes, I believe the astronaut can serve the military in space. The observations we have made so far have been quite remarkable in terms of what we've accomplished in the past. They still have a long way to go, however, in terms of the equipment we use and what can be available on the shuttle or some future space platform. So as a real-time operational asset to the military at the moment, I would say that our capabilities would be marginal. However, that may not be true in the future with a little investment in some better equipment and some more training. This is Frank Best with The Post and I have a follow-up for Commander Runco. We've heard quite a bit about the two M-88-1 experiments, the Battle View and Moses. How has Nightmist been working for y'all? Have y'all had any success in communicating there? Real good. We have two modes of communication. One mode we call Network and that's going through a network of satellite systems to a field user at the side of observation or close to the side of observation. And then we have another method, a direct method where we can go from the shuttle to the ground. Unfortunately, on the direct method when we first got going with that we had a problem with the connector on our headset and the radios are working fine but the means to get the information in and out of the radio has been a problem at this point. Atlantis, that concludes the JSC portion of the press conference. Stand by for a call from the Kennedy Press Center. Atlantis, this is the Kennedy Press Center and we're ready to begin. Bill Harwood, United Press, we're ready. For Tom Hennan. Can you give us a little, we asked you before launch rather military man in space and human observers could, what they could do that satellites can't do. Now that you've been up there firsthand and you've been able to look down and see these targets as you go by, what can the human observer in orbit bring to tactical reconnaissance that you can't get just as well or better with the satellite? There's more on the area of research and development not so much trying to add to situations from observing on the shuttle. I think Mary could give you some more insight into that particular experiment. My particular experiment is to kind of characterize how a human observes this particular environment and try and translate that later on to unmanned sensing device. The work has a long ways to go. This is the first step in that particular endeavor. Give us a shot. I think the advantage to a military man in space might be for situations where the tactical field commander doesn't have the information that he needs readily, something like where his adversary might be located. In that case, if you happen to have a space platform such as the shuttle or a space station or some other future platform in orbit at a time, and that station is going overhead of the area where that field commander is operating, in that case, he might be able to help the field commander on the ground and relay the information, and that's kind of what we're working on at this point. Marsha Dunn, Associated Press for Lieutenant Commander Runko. Are you able to see more or less detail with the M88 cameras than you had anticipated, and could you give us some idea of just how much detail you can pick out? To the level of detail I've been getting is I've been able to see large ships and airplanes. That's kind of the level of detail I've been getting at. Whether I can identify those ships as particular types or airplanes, I haven't been able to do, mainly because the imagery I'm getting is kind of at the limit of its resolution, and that's what I was getting at earlier with regard to a little bit better equipment. Beth Dickey with Reuters for Fred Gregory. Before your launch, Dr. Lenore said that the shuttle software would be adapted so the orbiter can land on autopilot. The question is, would you be happy to let the computers take over at that crucial point? Right, because of the limited amount of testing that the auto system has gone through in the single-string, essentially, autopilot system, I would feel comfortable allowing it to land urgently if neither Tom nor I could land it. But at this point, I would much prefer to land it. This is Irene Brown with Florida Today. I also have a landing question for Fred Gregory. I was wondering if you and Tom Henrich have subscribed to the Mike Coates, Brian O'Connor Shuttle Landing Video Club to help keep you prepared for landing after 10 days in space? Well, we brought it with us, and we'll let you know after the fact. This is Sheree Shtatte with the Orlando Sentinel Sentinel, I guess, for Jim Voss. A couple of you got, like, four-hour stints coming up in the LBNP. I'm just wondering what you plan to do to amuse yourself in that time. Well, the other day, I almost took a nap while I was in it for just an hour. For four hours, that's a long time. I hope that story can push me up into the interdeck axis and let me look out the window for a while while I'm in the lower body negative pressure for four hours. It's quite a long time. Solid joy at four-hour time, which I think about what the meaning of spaceflight is. Think about good things to do here and think about what this experience is. It'll be great to have four hours that I'm not racing to follow a checklist to be productive just four hours to think about spaceflight and humanity in space. This is Harry Colcomb from Aviation Week for Tom Hennan. Are there any observational qualities that surprised you from space as opposed to the work you had done before? The work I'd done before had never been from this vantage point. It was always after the fact. I think probably one of the biggest things that helped the observation, and this is even with the naked eye. And let me just say, before going on any further, that we're not trying to compete with any existing equipment that's out there with the equipment that we've brought on board Atlanta for this mission. We're just trying to characterize a variety of different observation techniques in this. I think probably the biggest thing that it has added from this vantage point is color. We just don't seem to get the total qualities that you get film-based or electro-optical or digital types of products. We just don't seem to have the same kind of color properties as you have here with your naked eye right out the shuttle window. So probably color is probably the biggest factor that I really hadn't anticipated. Dan Billow here at WESH-TV for Story. Story, you and some of your crewmates have shown that you're not really afraid to show people you have a sense of humor. With that in mind, I'd like to hear how you describe Fred Gregory. Describe him as a man with a fantastic sense of humor himself. He keeps us laughing most of the time. I think most of all he's just dead to us. Ross Cavett with WFTV in Orlando. This is especially for the four first timers up there. This mission, like a couple of the recent missions is studying the effects of weightlessness on the human body. What effects have you noticed immediately upon going into orbit and since you've been up there? What's been happening to your bodies? What have you noticed that perhaps has been unexpected? The surprising thing for me was absolutely spectacular. Although we were launching at night and you wouldn't expect us to see much out the front window about six minutes into Ascent we were climbing directly to Orion. And that was absolutely spectacular from my point of view. Once we had main engine cutoff the floating sensation wasn't as strong as I expected but I did make sure that I went through motions very slowly and deliberately for the first day or two and I was adapted shortly after that. And at most it's just adaptation to a new environment nothing all that dramatic. And from my perspective the most remarkable thing was the way that the human body adapts to the space environment. Within the first couple of days we were bumping into things except the story and Fred who were experienced. The rest of us were bumping into things kicking things with our feet but within just a couple of days we've all adjusted. We swim around here like we were born up here. The human body is just amazing in the way that it adapts to very strange environments like this. When I first got up here and oddly enough I said you don't appreciate gravity until it's gone and then after a couple of days you said well I could do without that and I enjoy the floating around and I've adapted to the environment up here and having a grand time of it. Well I'm having a great time as well. I think the biggest joy I've had today is kind of hanging around with story for the most part while Fred's been upstairs flying the shuttle and just looking at life from his perspective and the perspective he's had from his previous three flights that he's bestowed on the rest of us and I think it's just an amazing way to go through this experience with folks like Fred and the story who've been here before. Rob Navias, UPI Radio Network for the Commander. Fred, you served as NASA's operational space flight safety chief after the Challenger accident more than three years after return to flight how do you view agency-wide attention to safety and can it be maintained in future years with a heavier flight schedule and four orbiters coupled with diminished resources and personnel to process those flights? Before and I think before Challenger we were getting to a point where even I was feeling a little uncomfortable in the program after the accident I think suddenly we became aware that safety was turned on to operational success and mission success and life we became very proactive in that safety activity immediately after Challenger very proactive and we pulled safety out of organizations such as engineering or operational operations and made them separate organizations that had oversight and detailed power what I've seen since Challenger has just been a marvelous change and I feel very comfortable that I feel very comfortable with the safety program that we have now and I have no reason to believe that the NASA safety program would change at all This is Dick Ulliano of the AP radio network for Commander Fred Gregory you've landed twice at Edwards are you looking forward to adding Kennedy to your resume and if you do land here what differences do you expect compared to Edwards and do you think the painful gout you experienced last time might crop up again I think that's something my daddy gave me you know when you bring this big bird in you really don't know where you are until you turn on final about 18 or 19,000 feet above the surface of the earth and about 8 or 9 miles and then when you look at a runway or a desert from that position they all look the same to me of course I would love to land at Kennedy and I hope the weather cooperates this is Jim Bankia, Florida today I have a Star Trek question for Mario the show is famous for its special effects, drama and optimistic vision of the future how does the show compare with the real thing and how has your spaceflight experience affected your vision of what this nation should do in the future in space Mr. Roddenberry his vision of the future of humanity striving toward goals that are common all mankind toward a future where we can work together and see past our differences and work toward the betterment of all human beings and all creatures whether they be men, the animals on the face of the earth our environment or otherwise and I think working up here and seeing the perspective this is a small start in that direction we're trying to achieve that when you're up here looking at the earth and seeing the past borders you see the earth as one unit and that is the perspective I've gotten Bill Chun Earth news for Story Musgrave eight years ago on Challengers Maiden Flight you helped launch the first IUS from the shuttle with TDRS how different was launching this IUS with the DSP and how much have you seen changes in the program I launched the IUS and the STS-6 and Jim Boss here launched that STS-44 in a lot of ways you did a much better job than I did the IUS is a very mature program it has not changed a whole bunch since STS-6 it's a very mature program it's had incredibly good performance and a good record don't have much else to say about it it's a very good program very successful for Commander Gregory, Marsha Denneth the AP again you became the second crew in less than three months forced to dodge space junk does that worry you and do you see space junk as an increased risk of flying in space I maneuvered the other night to avoid a piece of a rocket this is not a crowded area up here there's an awful lot of debris up here but our chances of running into something are much less than hitting somebody in a car in Orlando I don't have a fear about it the American Space Program using the shuttle does not leave any debris in orbit other than liquids that we pump overboard and so from the shuttle point of view it's an absolutely clean vehicle of course our solid rocket boosters are recaptured and recovered in the Atlantic Ocean I'm sure at one time soon someone will have a collision and space but I don't think it's going to be a major problem Beth Dickey with Reuters for Story this is your fourth flight after this flight you'll have more hours in orbit than any other shuttle astronaut what about this particular space flight experience is new to you I'm being in space give me a 100 day flight I'll take that one too the most important thing is it's 10 day flight I have had a chance to do some medical experimentation we are very very heavy on what we call detailed scientific objectives we have a lot to do with proving people for longer duration space flights in this particular environment running some tests like low about a negative azimuth which we've not done before even though on skylab we did look at forecasting how reaction to Earth would be later I think those would do things 10 days in flight and I do love space and also some more medical environment than I've had the best Lannis this is Kennedy Press Center that concludes our press conference thanks for taking the time out to talk with us