 Mr. Goldenack, Columbia is ready, go ahead, sir. I have a question. What are you doing with this atomic oxygen experiment? I noticed that you're gonna be doing an atomic oxygen experiment before you reel in the wake shield. Commissioner, we're going to unbirth the wake shield satellite and do a free-flier activation, hanging out on the end of the arm at a certain angle which will let the RAM atomic oxygen impinge upon the substrates. And that is a way of, it's a way of almost like a micro lathe to clean off the top of the substrate. I see. How much more work do you have? I guess you folks want to stay up an extra day to make up for the day that you lost? You're reading their minds, sir. We've got quite a bit more work to do. Two more EVAs, two EVAs, as you know, on flight days 10 and 12. And then we have to retrieve orpheus spas on flight day 14 as it's currently planned and plenty of other science that's in the mid-deck on Columbia that will be working in the hours in between those activities. You know, I just noticed looking at the schedule while we'll all be eating turkey and relaxing on Thanksgiving, Tammy and Tom will be doing the space walks. At least you'll get a chance to work off your holiday meal. What do you plan to eat for Thanksgiving? I'm Mr. Golden. This is Tom Jones, the MS-2 aboard. And we'll be hitting the deck running that morning when we wake up on EVA day on Thanksgiving. And so we'll jump right into our EVA underwear, if you will, and get right into the space to check out. We'll have a breakfast, a quick one, before we get into the suits. And it's about a six and a half hour EVA. And when we get back inside, believe me, we'll be hungry for that Thanksgiving turkey. We've got some off the shelf kind of supermarket, room temperature stabilized turkey dinners that we'll be digging into right after I get out to get that helmet off when we come back in from the EVA. So I'll be hungry and we'll all be, I think, anxious to have a meal together after that hard day's work. You didn't make it sound too appetizing. It has to make do with the resources at hand, sir. Hey, story, I tell you, we're all very proud of you. I think that what you're showing is, it is not a chronological age that counts. It's what's in your heart, your mind and your body. And you're doing a terrific job up there. You're setting the record for the oldest astronaut in space. And I think this is just wonderful. I congratulate you and I stand in awe of what you've done. Thank you very much, sir. It's been an incredible privilege and experience to have been able to follow my calling for 30 years. I think that's the important thing. It's not just in a mold, although in my 60s, I do feel really privileged to get to do these kind of things. I think the important thing, though, is that I have had the opportunity to follow my calling over about 30 years. You know, one other thing that we noticed that both you and Tammy are joining the Thousand Hour Club in space. And this is another notable achievement. And again, I stand in awe, and I gotta say I'm a little bit jealous. I'd like to get just two hours in space, but it doesn't look like it's gonna happen for me. Hi, Mr. Golden. I think that your feelings are shared by a lot of people on the ground. We wish this opportunity was widely available to everyone. I hope that's coming in the next few years with commercialization of space, maybe even some tourism. But I'll tell you the two hours that you should pick to have in space are not the first two hours. You should choose ones on about flight day five when everyone's feeling terrific and adapted to the environment. You all look terrific. Keep it safe. We're very, very, very proud of you. I think this is just a wonderful mission. You look very relaxed. And I'll be watching you on NASA TV over the holidays. And when you eat the turkey, I'll recognize what you're doing. You're wonderful, you're the America's best. Congratulations, we're proud of you. Thanks for the kind words, Mr. Golden. And it's a pleasure talking to you today. The next step in Columbia's mission is a spacewalk scheduled for Thanksgiving Day. Mission specialists Thomas Jones and Tamara Jernigan will spend six hours walking in space Thursday. With the start of construction on an international space station just one year away, NASA is anxious to learn as much as possible about zero gravity working conditions. Joining us this morning from Shuttle Columbia are three NASA crew members. They are pilot Kent Roeminger, Commander Ken Cockrell and mission specialist, Story Musgrave. Gentlemen, good morning from NBC Nightside. Good morning from Columbia. Cockrell, all the delicate maneuvering during satellite deployment and retrieval takes time as we have seen in the past. Now you had to pull the Wakefield facility satellite early to avoid a possible collision. Was that a close call? Oh, there's nothing close really about it. The two satellites were about 14 miles apart when we flew between them to retrieve Wakefield. It's just a question of making sure that we have proper clearance in case we, for inaccuracies in our sensors or anything other going wrong, we should deviate from the straight and narrow. As it turns out, we were very accurate in what we thought the satellites were and we flew about seven miles away from each one of them. Story Musgrave, could you tell us a little bit more about the Wakefield, what it does and how we will benefit from it? The purpose of Wakefield time is to grow some as perfect as possible, semiconductors, electrodynamic materials. Classically, as you know, silicon has been the material of choice. We're using more advanced materials such as arsenic, gallium, aluminum. And what we're doing is molecule by molecule we're making perfect layers in a vacuum which is about 10 to the minus 14 versus 10 to the minus six which we make down here in earth. So there's no contaminating molecules in those layers. We go up there with a substrate that has a certain form. We inject layers of molecules on top of that form. They replicate that form in layers. And that's what we're up to is exploring the possibility of making perfect semiconductors up there. Not only studying commercial viability but also if you do make perfect materials how much better are they than the ones that are made down here? So it's a very state-of-the-art exploration. Pilot Kent Roeminger, the Orpheus telescope which has also been deployed from the shuttle, how does it function and what can it see that the Hubble telescope, for instance, cannot see? On the Orpheus, it's primarily looking at UV and it's really there to study not only stars which is Hubble's primary focus but also the medium, the interstellar medium, the medium out there in between the stars and being a pilot. I didn't realize there was really much in that great vacuum but the astrophysicist on board of educating me that in fact there is material in that medium in between the stars and the interstellar medium. And from that, we can learn a lot about the history of where the world came from. Curiosity question for anyone who wants to answer it. In zero gravity there is no up or down. Your head's up to the camera, relative to the camera but the shuttle might be upside down relative to Earth. How do you deal with that? How do you adjust to that? Tom, I think you're going to space. The best way to adapt is going to space with a totally open mind to go into space realizing you've been created in a valve with this gravitational field which has designed you and designed the sensors with which you perceive your environment. Now you're in a totally different kind of environment and I think an openness to the possibilities that at times the floor is down, at times the ceiling is down, being able to put that perceived down direction in any direction you'd like or do away with it to expect some kind of illusions where you're felt the body sense of what is going on is very different from the abstract intellectual knowledge of what is going on. If you can live comfortably with conflicts between those two and different sensory conflicts coming from different sensors such as the vestibular system, the joints and muscles, the cardiovascular system you're going to be a lot more comfortable a lot faster. Story, this is your final NASA mission. I'm just wondering if there are any pangs of sadness creeping in as you wrap up a glorious astronaut career. Absolutely none. And I think you said it exactly right. It has been a glorious career. The important thing is I've had the privilege and opportunity to follow what is a calling for 30 years. NASA has told me not to expect assignment to another mission. Medically, physically, ability to perform. I could go on and do more, but it may be the right decision at the right time. They and other people do know that I'm unable to walk away from this kind of thing. I still love it too much. I would keep on doing it forever until someone were to tell me it's about that time. And so there are aspects such as that you want to share space light with as many people as you can. I've had a privilege of six lights. A lot of time, a lot of very good missions. And I've run a wonderful race, but there are people waiting for the baton. You also want to be sure that you leave this kind of job when you're at your peak. And I consider the last mission, I'll have a repair mission in this one. I'm really about at my peak. So there are factors in the entire equation which maybe would support this decision. But no, I have no regrets at all. I look, as you said, at the glory of a fantastic career. The important thing is that whatever hand I got dealt, I made the most of the opportunity.