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Morning News

Space Shuttle Inches Toward Contact With Space Station

Aired February 9, 2001 - 11:36 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Also keeping our eye on the space shuttle, which is getting ever and ever closer to docking with the International Space Station.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Without further ado, let's go to space, shall we?

Some live pictures -- this coming down from the space shuttle Atlantis. You are inside, right now, the docking ring; and these are the crosshairs that the commander, Ken Cockrell, is using. His goal here is to take that point, there, and line it up with that point, there.

Now, it sort of looks like he's off kilter a little bit; I think that may have something to do with the camera alignment. But that's -- in any case, he's within the margin of error. I wouldn't worry too much. We're within 70 feet right now, moving in at a very slow rate of a -- excuse me, I always get this wrong, a 1/10 of a foot per second, which is about an inch per second, even though the both vehicles are traveling at 17,500 miles an hour.

KAGAN: That's what I don't understand; how are they traveling so quickly, yet moving so slowly toward each other?

O'BRIEN: It's all relative motion, OK; this is like...

KAGAN: OK, because they're kind of moving together?

O'BRIEN: They are moving together; exactly. And they're in, you know, more or less identical orbits right now. They're getting close to being exactly in the same orbit, of course, once they become attached.

But -- so relative motion is what counts up here, and it's not unlike what a fighter pilot does flying close to -- in formation, except it's a little -- probably in some case easier because you don't have the wind disturbance, you're out there in the vacuum of space.

KAGAN: So if one -- if they're kind of moving at the same speed at this very quick rate, is one slowing down to make it happen, or one speeding up?

O'BRIEN: Well, actually, what's happening is the shuttle is rising up toward the station. The station is the stationary object in this case; the shuttle is actually coming in faster and underneath.

Now, there are some more, little bit of mechanics here...

KAGAN: All right, help us.

O'BRIEN: And basically, think of a yo-yo. When you're spinning a yo-yo, the longer the string, the slower the yo-yo goes, right? The closer it gets to your finger, the faster it goes? That's why the shuttle comes up underneath -- it can move faster as it's lower, and then it gets right on up underneath the space station. I feel like "Bill Nye, the Science Guy" here, but, essentially, that's what's going on in space...

KAGAN: He's probably watching, too.

O'BRIEN: ... we're watching the docking, and we'll be back with more in a moment.

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