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Morning News

Space Shuttle Atlantis Docks With International Space Station

Aired February 9, 2001 - 11:48 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: More on the shuttle, getting ever, ever closer to the docking.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we're inside 20 feet now.

Let take a look at some live pictures from space; this is, essentially, what the commander of the space shuttle, Ken "Taco" Cockrell, is looking at right now; that is his target -- 10 feet away from docking.

Let's listen in to Karl Herring (ph) in Houston.

Anyway, that was the public affairs officer in Houston offering a little bit of play-by-play.

But, essentially, he's going for those crosshairs, trying to line that up with crosshairs you cannot see right now on the docking ring, which is inside -- 9 feet away now, they're saying.

KAGAN: You can hear that, but we can't hear that on the air right now.

O'BRIEN: You can't hear that on the air, now? Well, I'm -- we should be sharing that with the viewers.

That's what Ken Cockrell just reported to the ground -- that they're 9 feet away. And Karl Herring with mission control in Houston was amplifying on that fact. Doesn't look like much of a picture -- it's kind of hard to get an idea of where you are -- but that helps.

This is -- if you are looking at back window of the shuttle, that is the docking ring right there. There is a sort of identical one on the space station up here. And the idea is to do that; it's very straightforward. They're moving in about 1/10 a foot a second. You can see it coming in right now; it looks like it's kind of herky-jerky because we're not getting full-motion pictures right at the moment, we're getting, essentially, what amounts to a slide show from space, but it's better than nothing, as the space shuttle and the International Space Station pass over the South Pacific.

A few moments ago we saw the three-person crew of the space station; they're able to watch this, incidentally, on an interactive TV hook-up... KAGAN: Can they see what we're seeing?

O'BRIEN: They're seeing exactly what we're seeing right now, which is kind of neat, because where they are it's difficult to, kind of, look out the window and see what's going on. They are going to be capturing some images from there, but they can't see this, right here.

You know what...

KAGAN: Oh, there it goes -- it's even closer again.

O'BRIEN: Yes, it's getting in there, now.

KAGAN: You're saying, like, 9 feet. That sounds so close, yet so far.

O'BRIEN: So close, yet so far; at the rate they're going, yes, yes -- very slowly they go. And it looks like they, you know, hurried up there with the way that slide changed, and eventually they will go right up that imaginary cone and they'll be -- the call will come down from "Taco," as they say, that they have contact.

And what happens is, after they've actually made contact between these two metal devices, here -- these devices right here are sort of like giant screws and they will screw in and form a tight seal right there. And once that seal is formed, they'll go through a series of checks and balances to make sure there are no leaks, and then the hatch, which is right in there, will eventually be opened.

About two hours from now, the three-person crew of the space station will have their first visitors of 2001. Among the things they're going to be carrying are some chocolates, some notes from home and a bunch of DVD movies for the DVD player there. And we're told they got the movie "13 Days" -- they've obviously got some connections to get that one, which is kind of...

KAGAN: The Cuban missile crisis...

O'BRIEN: A bit of irony, given that we have an American commander and two Russian cosmonauts with him. My, how things have changed since that occurred.

Unfortunately, we can't hear NASA right now...

KAGAN: Now we can hear it.

O'BRIEN: OK; let's listen in for a second.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... the U.S. Laboratory Destiny. Docking occurred at 10:51 a.m. Central time, 11:51 a.m. Eastern time, one day, 17 hours, 38 minutes into Atlantis' mission as the space station and shuttle passed...

O'BRIEN: Yes, while I of gabbing there, I apologize -- I didn't -- I wasn't able to hear Karl Herring, there -- NASA public affairs commentator sitting in mission control in Houston. The docking occurred about a minute ago and the process right now is to retract that space station and create a tight seal between the space shuttle and the space station, thus laying the groundwork for the hatches to open.

KAGAN: Right; and you just kind of explained a time frame there that I found interesting. They're docked, but it's about two hours before they kind of ring the doorbell, so to speak.

O'BRIEN: Exactly; they -- you know, they don't do anything quickly in space, and for good reason -- because if you just threw the doors open and there were a leak, that could be a big problem. So they move deliberately, they move slowly; it's something they've done literally hundreds of times in simulations on the ground.

KAGAN: How do they do that? I can't imagine how you'd practice for something like this on earth.

O'BRIEN: Well, they literally have a big, 3-D computer game, if you will, and they have a complete mock-up of the space shuttle that is real in every way. And they look out the windows and see a very high-fidelity computer rendition of the space station, and this is how they practice their docking maneuvers, as they throw all kinds of curveballs in them as they're coming in. They lose their laser system and their radar system and their thrusters and still have to try to persevere, if they can, to make that docking happen.

Bear in mind, you want to make this go the first time because every time you fly a shuttle it costs the taxpayers approximately $500 million.

KAGAN: Really?

O'BRIEN: So you really want to make sure you get that delivery done right the first time.

KAGAN: How long are the Americans staying up there?

O'BRIEN: It's a six-day docked portion of the mission, and throughout the course of that there will be a series of space walks. It's kind of a little interesting scenario; they'll open the hatches today, give them some of the things they've been dying to get, like those candies and letters from home...

KAGAN: DVDs.

O'BRIEN: And DVDs; they want to see that "13 Days" -- Bill Shepherd is a big movie buff.

And then, at the end of the day, they're going to shut the hatches again; and the reason is, they have to lower the cabin atmosphere pressure of the shuttle to make it more conducive for the spacewalkers to do their job. Anybody who scuba dives knows about what it is like to get the bends; and by lowering the pressure they reduce the amount of nitrogen in their blood -- I don't want to get too technical, here -- but, essentially, it allows them to go out into and spend time doing the spacewalk without having to breathe pure oxygen for quite as long.

So when they do that, they have to shut the hatches again, because the pressure remains the same in the space station.

KAGAN: So they'll be hooked up together, but not together?

O'BRIEN: Yes, there will be a period of time. Then they'll open them up again, bring some more stuff in, close the hatches. They're going to go through a period of opening and closings here.

Eventually there will be an airlock on the space station that will make it unnecessary to go through this whole process, but that's quite a few years down the road. In the meantime, they're so close, yet so far in some cases.

KAGAN: And then when do they come home?

O'BRIEN: They are due home Sunday the 18th, a little after noontime -- that's assuming all goes well here. And, so far, so good; Ken Cockrell proving he -- it's actually, as they've told me many times, when they do these successful dockings, they say all of that good training down the tubes, because when they go through this training -- I've been on the flight deck when they actually do these dockings, and the stuff they throw at them is just incredible. You know, everything is failing at once and they have to just figure out how to, you know, compensate for it. Is it go; no go? Do you break off; do you continue the docking? They are so drilled in this thing that when they go into space and everything goes routinely, they're kind of like, that's it? Is that all that happens?

KAGAN: Those people on ground going, oh, come on, they had it too easy.

O'BRIEN: Yes, right.

KAGAN: Now, once again, I think we're seeing the pictures again; these are live pictures -- but 11:51,so about four minutes ago Eastern, this is what took place.

If our viewers are just joining us, describe again what's taking place, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well, essentially, this is the end of a procedure that began, actually, on Wednesday with the launch. What happens when you're trying to rendezvous with something traveling that quickly, the launch has to happen at a very precise of a time, just like a quarterback has to release that football at exactly the right time to hit his receiver.

They timed that launch so that this would happen just when we're seeing it. That shows you how much they have to think about when they're doing all these things.

There's -- looking at a live picture, there. That is, I believe, a little piece of the space station seen from a Russian camera -- and we just lost it there. So there are some close-up pieces of hardware there -- yes; and I think that is from the space shuttle. It's hard to make it out with that darkness. But that is the service module, I believe; but don't quote me on that for now.

In any case, the docking occurred just as predicted; the sixth shuttle docking at the space station -- the International Space Station. A joint protect of 16 nations; $100 billion dollar project supposed to build out over the next five years. This is a key component that they have onboard with them.

KAGAN: And they could park my car anytime.

O'BRIEN: OK.

KAGAN: If it doesn't work out as NASA wanted, valet parking might be in their future.

O'BRIEN: Absolutely; they nailed it.

KAGAN: Miles O'Brien, thank you very much.

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