 Discovery, this is Houston. Larry King is on the line. Are you ready to begin the interview? Larry King, this is Houston. Please go ahead with your interview. Columbia in 1989. Colonel James Buckley, mission specialist. He's flown three times prior. And Captain John Creighton is the commander of the shuttle. He has flown twice before. As we joined them and we can see them, and they all look terrific, the shuttle. We've got this special satellite hookup. The shuttle is moving at 17,000 miles an hour. It's over the Marshall Islands off the west coast of Australia. By the time we finish in 20 minutes, they'll be approaching the west coast of Canada. And first we have to say, does the capsule communicator in Houston ready to put us in touch with the astronauts? Larry King, this is Houston Capcom. Please go ahead with your interview. Guys, how are you? You can all hear us, right? We're doing fine. We're going to read you loud and clear, right? I'll read you loud and clear now. Is that Captain Creighton? That's me. OK, Captain, you look real good. There was a near, we'll start with you, Captain. We'll take some calls from listeners. There was a near miss in space today. Discovery had a change orbit to avoid a piece of Soviet cosmos upper stage. Is space junk becoming more of a problem, Captain? And some altitudes it is. Normally at the altitudes that we fly the shuttle, why it's self-cleansing most of the material out there decays in relatively short period of time. But as you get higher, objects stay longer and then it becomes more and more of a problem. But yes, it is becoming a problem and it is a concern, particularly for space station freedom that's going to be up in space for years. Sam, you're going to land at night about 24 hours from now. Is that more risky? Well, I think if you ask any pilot, there's a little more risk involved in landing at night than in the daytime, just because you don't have the depth of perception that you've got in the daytime. But Ken and I have done all of our practice for the last year at night. And so we both feel confident that we'll be able to bring the shuttle in right on the money. Now, Ken, this is Ken's first one, isn't it, John? Yeah, he's the only rookie on this flight. And we hand the mic over to him because I just I'm a rookie, excuse me. Right. How does it feel? Can Ken hear me? Which one is Ken? Yeah, go ahead. What's the first one like? Well, I can tell you it was quite a ride going up hill. And when we got here, it was like nothing else I've ever felt in my life. Would you guys all like to work with the Soviets more closely? Anyone can take this. I'll see if they've got one mic that they're handing around to each other, so and it floats right to them. Or who's that responding in the green shirt with the white? This is Jim Buckley. Hi, Jim, would you like to? And the answer is I think all of us would. I think as we get further into our space programs, it will become evident that all of us throughout the world need to cooperate in that effort for our own, everyone's mutual benefit. OK, what we're doing is if you'd hand the mic back to Captain Creighton, we are going to start taking calls from listeners now. Now, this is the first time ever. We have our five astronauts. They are Kenneth, Sam, Mark, James, and John. John is the commander of the shuttle. We are going to go to the first caller from San Antonio, Texas. Hello. Hello, thanks, Larry. It seems like going into space would be a life-changing experience. What is it? What caused or what really changed you when you went up to space? John? I don't know that I could point to any one single thing. I think that what all of us spend any pre-time we have doing is looking out the world and looking out the windows and watching the world go by. And you know, instead of just watching street signs go by with and by the cars you drive down the highway, we watch continents with by. And it tends to give you more of a global perspective and an appreciation for the environment. When you look out at the horizon and you see the atmosphere and it's only about an inch thick, you realize just how fragile this planet can be. And we better learn to take care of it. Austin, Texas is the next caller. Hello. Yes, would any of you gentlemen like to be the first man on Mars? Well, let's pass it around to someone. Is Mark Brown there? Mark is over on the right of the captain. Mark, would you like to go to Mars? Well, probably not this week. That's kind of a long trip. I think it's something that we definitely do need to do. I'm not sure that I personally will be in the program long enough to do that. But I'm sure there'll be a lot of people that volunteer to go. Our next caller is from St. Petersburg, Florida. These guys are going 17,000 miles an hour. You're talking to them live. Hello. Gentlemen, what is it like to sleep when you're weightless? OK, what is it like who wants to take that to sleep when you are? This is the only one we haven't heard from, so this would be who? Let's just say I'm going to talk to you later. OK, Sam Jamar, what's it like to sleep in space? Well, I think the big thing that I noticed in sleeping is that your body feels totally supported. And it's very restful, very serene. And I've never had any problem up here in my previous flight or in this flight sleeping. It tends to, again, we work pretty hard by time at that time where we've put in a 16-hour day and always been busy, and I'm always ready to go sleep. Just close the eyes and sense the drift off in just a few minutes. You dream? Any of you guys dream in space? Captain Creighton, John, do you dream? Not that I remember, but being a captain has its privileges. My particular sleep station is right under the overhead windows on the flight deck so that if I happen to wake up during the middle of the night and we sleep with a mask on because it gets daylight every 45 minutes, you can take the mask off and look out the window and watch the world go by. And if it's something interesting, I may stay awake and watch for about 45 minutes to an hour and as we go around the world and then put the mask down, go to sleep for another couple hours. New York City is our next caller for Kenneth, the writer, Sam Jamar, Mark Brown, James Buckley, and Sean Creighton. Hello. Good evening. Hello up there. Suppose if you were like me, who always wanted to be a national, but because of medical reasons, have finally concluded that he couldn't and already had to find terrific training, what other jobs in the space program would attract you? What would attract you in space if you couldn't fly? Anyone could take it. Mark? Let me take a crack at it. This is Jim. I think probably even more than being a member of the crew, being part of the shuttle team is just as rewarding. And one needs to remember that while you're able to see the five of us on board the shuttle, literally thousands of people getting us ready to go fly, getting payloads ready to go, integrating the program and getting the vehicles ready. And each one of those jobs is an integral and very rewarding part of the whole program. Everyone I've talked to seems to have that same feeling and that same dedication and sense of purpose. So the best answer I can say is any part of the space program is a great job. And each part is recognized as being a very integral and very important part of the whole. Ithaca, New York, hello. Ithaca, are you there? Yes. Go ahead. They travel all through your dreams. Did you bring your wallets? Did you bring them? What do you bring along? Anybody bring them? Captain Creighton is laughing. We can see the astronauts, by the way. We have a special hook up here that we can see them. Did you guys bring money? John? Well, yeah, we did bring money. They take pretty good care of us here. I'm afraid our wives have got our wallets back home. New York City, hello. Yes, gentlemen, hello. Do you think we'll ever see civilian space flight in how soon? How soon for civilians? Who wants to take that, Jim, or Sam? Sure, I understand the question. If the question was, do you think we'll see civilians, non-professional astronauts in space any time soon? I think that when there's a need, and in fact, I think that another school teacher has been designated to be the first civilian to fly on a future flight, that flight has not yet been named. I think it will happen just how soon. I really couldn't say. Now, right now, I'm looking at all five of you. You're all very relaxed, you're wearing comfortable look like South Florida kind of wear in August. Who's piloting the ship? I mean, who's looking out? None of you are looking out the window. Who's running things? How do we forgot something? Ha, ha, ha, ha. We have a very good autopilot on board. And generally speaking, does a very good job. We just tell him occasionally, which direction to point us. New Haven, Connecticut for the astronauts in space, hello. Thank you, Larry, gentlemen. It's an honor and a thrill to speak with you. I'd like to know what was unusual or different about the position of the sun and the orbiter that made you visible to the naked eye so long after launch as far to the north as you were able to be seen? Okay, anyone could take that. The phenomena you saw because of the whole sun angle and the altitude of the flight and again, the direction that we launched the orbiter in, which was up the east coast, we were clearly visible. I suspect probably all the way up beyond New York. And in some cases may have been up the coast in Newfoundland. Again, it was because of the whole sun angle and the high altitude that we launched and the direction up the east coast. You're also gonna be pretty visible coming back here to Palm Bay, Florida, hello. Hello, how are you, Larry? Fine. I just wanna talk to one of the astronauts, anyone will do. Okay, they can all hear you, go ahead. I just wanna know, do they ever have any scary thoughts when they look down, when they look back at us? Okay, let's hand it over to Jim Buckley, who hasn't been heard from in a couple of moments here. Is that Jim, which one is, who's on the right of you? Captain, I'm a little lost now. This is Mark Brown over here. Mark hasn't been heard in a couple of seconds. Mark, is there anything scary about this? The view down is not much different from flying a high-speed jet at the high altitude. I guess the difference is that the space shuttle continues to go around the earth without jets constantly firing. And you can't just stop and land anytime you want to. It takes rather coordinated rocket burns to decelerate the orbiter to come in for landing. There is some sense of remoteness from the earth and the people down there. Your inner reaction with the planet is different from when you're down in the atmosphere and that you don't feel the air in your face or smell of flowers or anything like that. It's very much a visual sensation of all the hues and colors to the point where the earth very much looks flat except for sphericity because even mountains that are a couple miles high look relatively flat when you're over 300 miles above them. So it's a different sensation but not necessarily one that's scary. Mid Pines, California, hello. All right, what a thrill. Greetings from just south of Yosemite National Park. I hope Dr. Fisk will take note of my question too and perhaps comment later. Greetings to all the astronauts. What's the question? You launched the UR satellite tonight to study ozone destruction but it's ironic and here's the question because every space shuttle launch puts out 75 tons of chlorine which destroys the ozone and that's larger in one launch and there's only a... You agree with that, Captain? You think you're putting out more than you're investigating? Well, I certainly hope not. I'm afraid I'm not qualified to answer that question. I know there isn't concern with the solid rocket bloom but I think on the whole we're doing more good than harm. Champaign, Illinois, hello. Hi guys. I just wanted to say I think we all dream about going off in space and I wondered what your feelings were when you finally realized whatever age you were that you were actually going to be astronauts. Hello, they all can't answer it so let's let Kenneth, this is his first flight, answer it, what's this all like? I think most of us in the program have wanted to be astronauts for a long time. I certainly have and worked hard to get down there in the program and work in the program until we were selected for a flight and I can tell you from my perspective right now it was worth every second of the wait. It's a great experience, a great opportunity to make a contribution to the nation and the world and I'm real proud to be a small part of that. Rogers, Minnesota, hello. Hi, I have a question about space-based space and freedom. Go ahead. What? What is it? One day I plan on being on space-based as an astronaut and I heard that you're planning on purchasing from the Cosmonauts' space-based space. Is that true or are we still going ahead with that in the conversation with Mike? I think that's a better question for someone here on the ground purchasing from freedom in space. Grand Rapids, Michigan, hello. Well, real quickly, seeing as how the astronauts have an advantage point of the universe that most of us do not, I'd like to know one or all of their opinions on possible extraterrestrial life in UFOs. Okay, does anyone can take that? Well, I guess we'll, how about, how about Sam? Sam is... Yeah, thanks, Ray. Well, let me just start off by saying in the nearly 10 days I guess that my limited space experience, I haven't seen no evidence of extraterrestrial life for any UFOs and in talking with other people. I've never talked with anybody that, at least in the astronaut office, that has had any evidence of any either. I guess the rest of it is also philosophy, whether or not we believe that we are the sole beings of the universe and beyond, or whether there are other life forms out there. One of the dangers in answering the question is we have to first understand what it is we're looking for when you talk about extraterrestrial life. We know life is a carbon-based object and our search may involve species that are something other than that. So again, I think it's a question of individual philosophy and I've seen no evidence of it, but I think that there is, I think it's beneficial to continue the question of our research. Last caller, Fields Landing, California, hello. Hello, this is Randall Norris Bell from Fields Landing, California. I'd like to say, first of all, bless y'all in outer space and hope you have a very good time. Like, no, what do you do when you're about all your oxygen, huh? How do you know when to fill the tanks up and how do you know when you're out of here and with... Captain, what about oxygen supply? Ever worry about that? We only have about a minute. Probably obviously you're concerned with all of our consumables, not just oxygen, but hydrogen, monomephylhydrazine. We carry all sorts of propellants on board that, and we watch them very closely and so does the ground. And all of those consumables determine how long we can stay up and when we start running out it's time to come home. And if we should have a lake or something, we just come home a little early. Do you get any turbulence or is this very smooth? Well, smooth once you get up here, but it's quite a ride on the way up. There is turbulence on the way up. A lot of shake, rattle, and roll. You guys, we thank you for this 20 minutes. This has been historic. Certainly the people that we're able to get through will always remember it. The people that listen will remember it. We're able to see you. I thank you very much, Captain Creighton, on behalf of everyone here on Earth. We look forward to a very safe return. When do you guys come back? Tomorrow night, about 24, a little after 24 hours now. Thanks very much, guys. You can all say goodbye to Captain Creighton. There they go. Discovery, Houston, that was great. Thanks a lot.