 Talk to you before we wake up time again, same thing. Yeah, Hoot, we're on a string here. We also here you have a seminal stowaway on board. I guess we're going to have to confess to it. He wasn't on board when we launched, and he's on board now, so he must be a stowaway. Shuttle commander Hoot Gibson and pilot Charlie Precourt have been involved in final setups of equipment, a boarded lattice, and the transfer of some logistical hardware from the mirror into the shuttle, which will be returned to Earth. Much of that equipment and experimentation was accumulated by the MIR-18 crew during their three and a half month stay aboard the mirror. The Lannis Mirror Space Lab, Houston, spot meter. That's impossible, Dave, go ahead. This view from payload bay cameras looking up the crystal module. Yeah, up there. There's two more spot meters on board. Let me tell you where the stowage is for three spot meters, as we're not sure which one you're holding. One should have been an A6. Okay, stand by Dave, we were just wondering if we had any extras because the Russians have a spot meter that is lacking in batteries. Oh, now I understand. We have not identified extra batteries yet. The last spot meters are fine, it's just that the Russians are wondering if we might have a battery if we could launch it. The Lannis, Houston, Hoot. Let's delete M-Gas, check out, we can work that during MIR-19. Jim McKenna Aviation Week for Dr. Thagard. What is the number one problem or issue that you believe should be addressed before Shannon Lucid arrives at MIR next March as well as with regards to long duration U.S. spaceflight? The question is, psychological aspects probably loom largest. There doesn't really seem to be big problems physiologically, I think we still have to find out what's happening with mineral loss from bone, for instance, and obviously radiation is an ongoing problem if it's long as you're in space. But I think anybody can do three months or four months as I'm doing and six months, in my opinion, and longer is a different matter entirely. I think Shannon won't have any problem, but I think we need to address some things for the folks who plan to be up here six months and longer. This is Paul Hoverston with USA Today. For Norm Thagard, sort of following up on the same question, what about the systems on MIR or the setup or configuration should absolutely not be done with the International Space Station if there is anything? Well, from what I saw, it takes a considerable effort from two folks to keep MIR Station operating. I think you would want to minimize the amount of maintenance ongoing that were required for a new space station. I don't think I'd run conduits both there and electrical through hatches, which make it difficult, if not impossible, to close those hatches rapidly if you needed to. And lastly, I would certainly pay a lot of attention to storage because if there were a problem that we had, it was fine in places to store things. Next, Sorokin for the Voice of America. This is for Vladimir Dijurov. Nikolai Sorokin is a US speaker, Vladimir Dijurov. Why was it more difficult to get used to the MIR? It's your first time there. Probably, because the installation is unusual for the Earth, which exists on the station and on all space ships, it's the most difficult thing to get used to. There's a installation where the circumstances of space, of the cosmos, where things just kind of fly around by them, you know, where you leave something somewhere, it kind of floats there. And if you try and put something in a particular place, it doesn't stay there. And the trick is to learn how to arrange everything and to make sure that it is convenient for operation in space. Todd Halverson of Florida today for Hoot Gibson. Hoot, the mission to date has been remarkably smooth, but like with all the enterprises, there's probably room for improvement. What types of lessons have you learned that can be applied to future shuttle MIR missions or the assembly of the space station? Todd, like you say, it has gone pretty smoothly. There's an aspect of it though that you don't see, and that's how hard we're hustling here on board every day to accomplish all the things that we need to get done. On a long duration flight or a space station flight, you're not gonna be able to keep up the kind of pace that we've been keeping up. And a lot of it has been associated with the rather difficult area of transfers of material from the orbiter to the MIR and from the MIR back to the orbiter, both equipment, future test equipment, completed test samples and all those sorts of things. Now we expected that this was gonna be a pretty big effort and there was gonna be a lot of uncertainty and there was actually gonna be a lot of unknown when we actually got up here and tried to do it, and that in fact is kind of what we've bumped into. And we've been working a little bit extra and a little bit harder to try and accommodate all of those things. But that's the one area, and I think for the future docking flights, the transfer plan, the locations, the storage, all of it needs to be detailed down to a T for us to really be able to do it smoothly and efficiently and I think that's one of the big lessons that we will have seen out of this flight. Let me finish by saying that was not unexpected. We pretty well knew that that was the kind of situation we were facing when we got up here and I think we've adapted to it about as well as you could. Irene Brown with UPI for Dr. Thaggerd. If you had to do it all again, what would you have done differently or brought with you that you didn't have to prepare for four months in space? Bought my wife along, I probably would have done that. I think I would have paid a lot more attention to the food that was stored for us on board. I think that in general, we thought there were areas room for improvement there, but otherwise I felt pretty good with what I already had on board. I don't require a lot. I had two good companions and that made up for a lot of the efficiencies. Earl Lane, Newsday for Norm Thaggerd. When you said that psychologically, a six month mission is a different matter entirely. What did you mean? Did you get on each other's nerves or were you starting to get on each other's nerves? I had nothing to do with crew relationships. Those remain fine throughout. In fact, I can honestly say they were never any serious. It disputes among the crew and probably wouldn't have been even on a six month mission. For the American on board or Russian space station, you're the only English speaker on board in general. The cultural isolation is extreme. There were times when I went 72 hours without speaking to an English speaking person. I didn't get a lot of news up here. All of those things start to weigh heavily after a while. Since I knew from the start I could do anything for three months, it wasn't going to be a problem for me. If I'd been looking at six months, I would have been real worried at about three months that I wasn't gonna make it. Their impressions of the coordination between the ground control centers and the orbiter and mirror, especially with the science crew and Norm seems to have gotten a bit testy at times in the last couple of days over things that you all are being asked to do and there've been concerns that you've been overbooked. Could each of the commanders please talk a little bit about your impressions of that? Do you feel overbooked? Is this just a knit that's being picked or is this a serious problem that will have to be worked out before the next joint mission is flown? Beth, with regard to Norm's sounding testy, let me just say that Norm always sounds like that and I don't believe that Norm has been testy or meant to sound testy during any of this. I have to give the ground tremendous, tremendous grades on the coordination and the way they've put everything together and the way that things have flowed up here. This is not an easy thing to coordinate the activities of Mir 18, Mir 19 and SDS 71. And I think that both mission control centers, the soup and Houston, in my view and from what I've seen have done just a spectacular job of learning this all out and making this flow smoothly. So that's what I think about the whole thing. I would like to hear a Russian translation come up of the question for Anatoly and for Volodya at this point. We really didn't have any concerns. And such a question really surprises me because Norm was prepared for all experiments and he performed them spectacularly without any help from us. And he didn't ask for any help from us and he didn't need our help. So there weren't really any complications. Isn't that true, Norm? I would like to say to answer a somewhat different angle on this question when we're talking about coordinating the two ground control centers and the coordination of crews in orbit. I think this is a very important issue and I think that it must be carefully prepared very much like a sports team. This sports team spend a lot of time training and coordinating an understanding among team members so that the team members can play well on the field. For example, like the Houston rockets. And then you can achieve very great successes in this way. And everything must be carefully prepared for a flight. So that the flight will be a good training ground for future work. This is Seth Borenstein from the Orlando Sentinel for Norm Thaggerd. After spending nearly four months on MIR, you're just about to leave it. Can you tell me what parts of MIR are you gonna miss and what's gonna be going through your head as you pull away and watching it? The first thing that comes to mind is not too long after the flight is over, the MIR 18 crew goes it separate ways, which means the Logen cannot be back to Russia while I remain in the United States. That makes me sad, of course, because I think we've gotten to be good friends. And this may well be probably is my last space flight, so I have to think about the fact that I won't get to experience this again. And that also, whether we're on MIR station or on space shuttle, I would think about that. This is Phil Chen, Earth news fan, Atoly. You were aboard MIR five years ago when Kristal first arrived. What was your impression going through the docking tunnel, especially since you came from a U.S. shuttle rather than a Soviet shuttle? A question for Atoly, you were at MIR station five years ago when Kristal arrived. What was your impression of the docking tunnel, especially considering the fact that this time you arrived at the American shuttle? I think that the docking module, the docking node, is in a good technical condition, although, of course, the station itself has been in orbit for a long time. And it should always be kept in mind that in space, space is a very aggressive environment. And right now we're testing this engineering technology over a course of many years. My impressions of the dynamics of controlling the complex from the shuttle, and then we alternated with controlling the complex with MIR. All of this depended on the docking module and I think that the structure showed itself to be a excellent piece of equipment. And we always keep in mind that highly qualified specialists were engaged in fabricating it. This is James Ford from WFTV in Orlando for Dr. Thagger to sort of follow up to set Born Science question. What's your concern as you get ready to land and come back into 1G after being in microgravity so long and what are you gonna do once you get back here on Earth? Perhaps the answer to that question explains what was interpreted as being tested with the ground. I did complain this morning that because of a task I was assigned, I missed my exercise period. I'm concerned about physical condition when I get back on the ground. The Russians believe that you need to exercise with two one hour periods a day and that it ought to ramp up in severity toward the end of the flight just before coming home. And I concur, I think that's important too. So we ought to do something and we ought to do what we can to protect those exercise periods just before coming home. Other than that, I'm not sure I've been so testy, but that came out of a real concern about being healthy and being able to walk and do well immediately upon return to Earth. Question from Ekho Moskva. To the Russian commanders. I wanted to know about your colleague, colleague Polyakov, that there was a female crew member who performed traditional female tasks such as washing dishes. I wanted to know your opinions on this. It's difficult to say, but such particular changes, there weren't any such changes. Of course, up here on the station we have a particular way of working and it really doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. Everybody's got their responsibilities and everybody tries to do them to fulfill them. I would say that with all these people here that it is more interesting up here. Can Gennady add anything? Well, of course, women are needed and the more the better. First of all, we have this gigantic complex in orbit. This is a new step in the creation of... This is something that Ciel Kovsky at one time had dreamed about. All of these dreams have been practically implemented and are being implemented. And of course, you can't do that without women. Houston, I guess, story, I guess we're ready to proceed. We have come to that point in the mission that I guess all of us have actually been dreading to quite some degree and that's the point where we have to say farewell to the mere 19 crew and I'm glad we called it farewell and not goodbye because we are going to see them very shortly. They're going to be gone much too long. They're going to be gone 60 days but we are all of us, I think, looking forward to when we get them back on Earth. We have started with the mission of mere 18, SDS-71 and mere 19, what is intended to be and what will be a very long program, a very fruitful program. SDS-71 is going to be drawing to a close here in a very few days when we return with the crew of mere 18 back to the Earth. However, none of us feel like the mission is really going to be complete until we get not just our comrades, our compatriots on mere 19 but our very good friends from mere 19 back to Earth. We're hoping to be in Kazakhstan when they come back in the Soyuz but our mission, none of us have felt would be complete until all of our fellow crew members are back again to the Earth. So we're here today to tell them farewell and the mission that we've set out on is a very long mission. Our phase one is a continuation of what we started with mere 18, mere 19, SDS-71. International Space Station will be the next continuation of what we started and what we're preparing to say farewell to just one small part of that long continuing overall program. So we are drawing to a close one mission, the bigger mission, the continuing mission is a mission of many, many years and that is going to continue on long after we have landed and long after mere 19 has landed. Mere 19 is going to be very much in our thoughts and in our hearts. We want to leave them with a few presents to remember us by and so we have a couple of presents to present to Anatoly and to Nick at this time. So they'll be able to think of us. We have a couple of our crew pins so that they can keep us in their thoughts during the next couple of months before they come back and we also have a SDS-71 wristwatch for Anatoly and Nick. Very shortly we're going to be closing the hatch tonight and tomorrow we'll each climb into our own individual rockets. Speaking of rockets, how about them Houston rockets? I don't know if you noticed but during the press conference, during the press conference Anatoly mentioned the Houston rockets and it turns out he's a very big fan of the rockets and so we have another another present that we'd like to present to Anatoly and it's the new emblem of the Houston rockets. We have a Houston rockets t-shirt that has the brand new emblem and Anatoly, it's a Drugy Podorek. It's another present for Anatoly. Novi Emblem, Houston rockets. Are you able to see this new emblem on the TV? Yes sir, we certainly are and boy talk about basketball players in the air. You all are getting more airtime there than anyone ever. Anatoly can really jump. At least they'll tell you, at least they'll. We have a couple of other small presents for them. We have just a little bit of fresh fruit and just a little bit of a real American tradition, I guess. We have a few bags of tortillas that we'd like to leave with them and we have the remainder of our fresh fruit that we'd like to leave with Mirror 19 because I'm not sure. It may be a while before they see fresh fruit again. Nikolai is saying this will be my happiness so I guess we hit home with many of our presents. Hey Hoot, we're looking at some great smiles there. Someday we'll be growing oranges up there. Not too long from now. I guess we're going to leave Rodnik which is Anatoly's call sign. Anatoly's crew call sign. I guess we're going to leave just Rodnik 1 and Rodnik 2 up there. Maybe a word or two from Rodnik 3. In case you didn't know, we were called Rodnik which is a word which means a spring and then a water spring in the woods and Anatoly was Rodnik 1 and Nikolai Rodnik 2 and I was Rodnik 3 and we trained together as the backup crew to do the equipage for over a year and I really enjoyed the experience. A great commander and a great board engineer and I have some emotional thoughts about saying goodbye to them but I know they'll do just an absolutely great job up here until they're landing, this soft landing, the Akipasadka in August and I wish them a lot of luck and success. I don't know how to say this in Russian but we wish you fair winds and following seas and soft landings. We will count the days until you come back and we get to see you again. I hope we'll meet in Moscow in August with our very big crew and I think it was a very good job on the Space Station Mir on the Atlantis and in some day you'll meet your family it will be a good time for you and I think in two months we'll meet our family too and I want to set a control mission in Houston for his very good job and helps us during our flight. Eastern Mir Atlantis I guess we are about to the end of our farewell ceremony I want to acknowledge once again Bob Castle Phil Engelhoff Bob Berry all of our Capcoms all of the folks on the ground that have done the spectacular job of putting together this very challenging mission we've reached another milestone in that mission but as I mentioned earlier it's just one of the small milestones along a much greater journey but at least we have begun that very long journey thank you very much sir it's been an incredibly memorable event for you all for us controllers down here it is a memorable event for us too it is a major part in our lives working with you all is something that we will not forget and as you said Hoot very appropriately yes it is a farewell but it is also a very important beginning you all have started us out on an unbelievably great beginning cooperation in which the humans of planet earth together pursue the heavens thank you very much for being who you are and for the fabulous job that you've done on this flight and the same words back to you story thank you very much for all your help