 But sorry to wake you up, we have a bit of a payload problem at this point, the orbiters in fine shape. The problem basically is that we've lost our command capability to the payloads on the TAS hitchhiker. And we're losing quite a bit of science on the TAS and the IEH hitchhikers. And as well, the SLA, the laser that's on the TAS is on at this point and we have no way of turning it off. And so we had some steps for you to perform. We'd like to try those out and they'll only take a couple of minutes. We think maybe there's a possibility that on the TAS payload, the master control unit has locked up. So we'd like to reset it and we have some switch throws and checks for you on the SSP, the TAS portion of the SSP on L12 when you're ready. Hey, Mark, we have a marble call back. Copy Kurt. Now the ground is going to quickly look to make sure that everything is powered off and we're going to call you back in a second, standby to power it back on. Discovery Houston for Kurt, we're ready to power back up. The first switch that we would like you, the first and only switch is we'd like you to take the TAS avionics power switch back to on, hold it for about three seconds until you get the talk back up indication. Okay, Mark. Here it comes. Discovery Houston, it looks like that worked, Kurt. We really appreciate you getting up to help us with that and there's no further action at this time and we'll see you at wake up. Okay, Mark. Does that mean that it looks like I'll have commanding back? We have only checked the telemetry side and we'll have to check the command side. It'll take a little bit of time and if we're not successful, we'll have no further actions either way until tomorrow. Okay, Mark. No problem. We were up here to help out, so no problem at all. And we're getting you loud and clear. I assume at this point we're talking to mission specialist Bob Kerbeam. Yes, I'm speaking to you from the mid-deck of the Space Shuttle Discovery. We just passed over Sri Lanka and going towards the western coast of Australia. Lieutenant Commander Bob Kerbeam, we welcome you to KMOX this morning. You are how far into the mission so far on board Discovery? We're probably five days into an 11-day mission. Bob, how are the other experiments going? You're working with the space arm, with robotic arm on board the shuttle. How are those experiments going? Most of the experiments are going quite well, actually, Steve. We have, like you said, quite a few experiments, the robotic arm. We did some work on that this morning. Steve and Jan were quite pleased with how that went. And we also have a bunch of other experiments looking at Halebop, the comet, and various solar system, you know, celestial objects and objects in the solar system. And all those are going well as well. Bob, this mission, the 11-day mission of the Discovery, has international significance from the standpoint of some of the things you're doing. So let's talk about the role other countries are playing in what you're doing in space right now. Actually, you're right. This is a fairly international mission. We have experiments from all over the world. We have an experiment from the University of Trieste in Italy. We have Fulcon from the University of Belgium. We have various universities in the United States contributing their experiments here as well. The University of Southern California, the University of Colorado, and several of the NASA centers like Ames and also Goddard and, of course, Johnson and Kennedy participating. So this is a worldwide event, and we're just happy to be a part of it. And the satellite that is gathering the ozone data is built in Germany. Tell me about your hopes, you and your fellow astronauts, for what you are going to learn on this mission about the ozone layer and what we might be able to do to protect it here on Earth. Well, Chris, the spot is relatively unique in that not only can it look at the ozone layer and look at where we're depleting it and where we're not and where it seems to be holding up, but it can look at all the constituents of the Middle atmosphere, all the significant ones. And by doing that and tracking where we see the different constituents, we can tell more about the upper wind patterns, the weather, and just basically we can hopefully predict how that upper atmosphere will change and how long the ozone will hold out in different areas. And hopefully it will hold out for a very long time. Bob, you bear the title of mission specialist with that title. What is your role? What are you responsible for? Actually, I'm mission specialist too. I'm a flight engineer. So I do both ascent and entry up on a flight deck. So that involves a lot of helping the commander and the pilot pilot the shuttle and making sure those stages of flight go well. But also I do a lot of the environmental jobs around the shuttle, making sure the air scrubbers work fine to take out the carbon dioxide. I also do, I'm in charge of several of the experiments that are going on, like the bioreactor experiment where I'm growing colon cancer cells to learn more about how they grow and hopefully how to stop them from growing. And a lot of the experiments in the payload bay that are looking at Jupiter, the Sun, the Earth's atmosphere, and also doing some laser mapping of the Earth. Bob, you mentioned a little bit ago about an experiment to observe the Hale-Bopp comment that so many of us saw from afar when it passed by the Earth a couple of months ago. What are you hoping to see and to learn about Hale-Bopp? Well, the big advantage of being up here in space is that you don't have the atmosphere attenuating a lot of the light that Hale-Bopp is getting off. So it's a little bit clearer in different frequencies as far as, especially, frequencies that we can't see with the naked eye. So by being up here, we can look at what we call spectral lines that the comet is giving off and tell more about what kind of trace elements are in it and hopefully learn more about the formation of our own solar system because comets are considered some of the remnants of the original formation of the solar system. Bob, you're married, you have a couple of children. Since this is your first mission, how do you prepare them for 11 days away in space on board the Discovery? Being in the Navy, my wife, I think, because I am in the Navy, my wife understands that at certain times I have to be separated from my family, but of course it's a little more difficult for our kids, especially since tomorrow is my daughter's birthday and I won't be able to say happy birthday to her tomorrow, so I'll say it now, happy birthday Eva. And so it's a little more difficult for them and they don't understand why Dad has to leave for two weeks all the time, but I think that by preparing them for it, talking to them a lot beforehand and explaining to them just how important the missions that we go on are, they're much more accepting of it and they know that we're having fun before the mission. I think they enjoyed the launch and will have a whole lot of fun after it, too. My name is Amanda Gerbrandt. I am in grade 12 at Wilton-Marie in Saskatoon. Bjornie, we know that one of the programs you have been working on for a long time is aboard the Space Shuttle with you. Is NIMM operating the way you hoped it would? Yeah, I think you might be able to see it here. The lower part of the view here is right beside me to my left here and it's been working very fine. We've turned it on the first day of the flight. It's been operating well in the last four days and right now it's doing some analysis. I don't know whether you can see the little screen beside me here. It's working very well. We've got good isolation. Some of the things we've tried on it haven't worked as well as we'd like, but as part of the experiment that we're doing with it is to learn how to make it work better. My name is Heather Ponds. I am in grade 11 in Saskatoon. What and how much of Canada can you see from space? We're pretty lucky that this mission is a high inclination orbit, so we're going up to 57.5 degrees, which takes us well north of Edmonton and Saskatchewan for Saskatoon. I've got a beautiful look at Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, good look at the Maritime, so some of the great lakes have been fabulous to see Canada from up there. My name is Barnard Brooks. I'm in grade nine at Holy Cross High School. Describe how it felt to be launched into space. I've seen a number of shuttle launches over the past few years and they're pretty spectacular when you look at them from the ground, but being inside is a very unique experience. You wait there in anticipation on the launch pad as you come to the last few minutes of launch and then you finally feel the kick of the main engines coming on and the shuttle sort of pitches forward a bit and then sprays back and then you get this little kick in your back when the solids come on and that kick just stays there and propels you upwards. It's quite a sensation. It's a lot of vibration. It lasts for a couple of minutes and then those solids are off and then you just get a steady clean push and just keeps pushing your onwards into space and it builds up to about three Gs after about six minutes and by then your beat is a little bit labor because you've been under this G load for a long time but it's quite an exciting ride. It went a lot faster than I expected and it was a little smoother than I expected as well but it was just an incredible ride up into space and it goes so fast. My name is Nicholas Kinner. I'm grade nine at Holy Cross High School in Saskatoon. Bjorni, my question for you is this. Have you or any members of the crew experienced space motion sickness or back pain and if so, how has this affected what you have been able to accomplish? Back pain and motion sickness are pretty common up here. Most of this crew has been pretty good. I was green on the second day of the flight but I managed to do all of my work and after a couple of days everybody's just fine. Back pain is something that happens because your spine elongates a bit because you're not under the compression force of gravity all the time up here so you get a little bit longer in space and that puts some pressure on your spine so I've had a little bit of back pain but not very much, not enough to disturb my sleep and right now it's basically all gone away.