DOCKING DAY—And the "rookie" astronauts meet the real "veterans" February 9, 2008—Space Shuttle Atlantis docked to the International Space Station, and the new kids in town may be finding out how far they have to go to learn how to function in space. At least that was the experience of European Space Agency astronaut Crister Fugelsang.
Atlantis’ rookie astronauts, Alan Poindexter, Leland Melvin, and Stan Love will have a few days to get more used to life on the space station as the crew installs the ten-ton Columbus lab on the orbiting complex. A total of three spacewalks will be needed to hook up the module. Many thanks to all who tuned in for today’s re-airing of my talk on "Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program" on C-SPAN’s BookTV. I also greatly appreciate Scientific American’s inclusion of "Final Countdown" in its book club. If you haven’t picked up your copy yet (horrors! ;), they have an introductory offer for new members. Here’s the link… More to come... |
|
|
||
Atlantis carries the ESA Columbus lab bound for the station, and Fugelsang of Sweden, was at Kennedy Space Center to cheer on his fellow European astronauts Leopold Eyharts of France and Hans Schlegl of Germany. Fugelsang flew on Space Shuttle Discovery on a space station mission of his own in December of 2006. He's pictured here during a spacewalk to re-wire the complex. There were five rookies on that flight, including Fugelsang, and there are three first-timers on Atlantis’ current flight with Columbus. The veteran astronaut says it took about two days for him to get used to floating in weightlessness inside the Shuttle. Then, came the docking, and his chance to see the space station crew operate with greater ease inside the outpost. "You think you doing great," says Fugelsang of working in space. "Then, you see these guys in the station who’ve been up there for months, and how they moving around, and then I thought "Oh, oh, I’ve still got a way to go."