Start: Houston, TX
Finish: Houston, TX
Miles Today: 0
Miles to Date: 7267
Trooper Mileage: 176188
The
next stop was a Very Large Building used for planning and training space shuttle
and International Space Station missions. Inside this building were numerous
full-size mock-ups of the shuttle and various space station modules.
On the left are life-size training modules for parts of the space station
(I think these are the Japanese contributions, but don't quote me on that).
In the
picture to the right I've outlined these modules as they would be located
on the actual complete station. This gives you an idea how big the entire
station is going to be (Gerry in his good-natured manner agreed to pose here,
but had a hard time not laughing).
Many of the space station modules are carried into orbit on the space shuttle.
I know at least one was launched on a Soyuz rocket from Baikunur in Kazakhstan.
All of the deployment operations most be planned and practiced extensively
before the actual mission. To the left here is a mock-up of the shuttle cargo
bay deploying a module. The module itself has a robotic
arm, like the shuttle, but with some extra capabilities. It has attachment
units on both ends, with the power and control connections. The space station
structure has multiple anchor points. The arm can move itself from anchor-point
to anchor point like and inch-worm, positioning itself where-ever it is needed
on the station.
While we were walking about with Gerry, these two people came up and started talking with us. Obviously they knew Gerry very well. The lady on the left is Pam Melroy. Pam is a shuttle pilot. The gentleman on the right is Dave Wolf. Dave is the American astronaut that was on Mir when it had the collision with the cargo rocket. At the time, Gerry was controlling his EVA missions from the control center in Russia. There are some very interesting stories about that mission that I don't have the time or space to go into here. Pam and Dave are scheduled to crew STS 112 in August, which will be the 15th flight for the purpose of constructing the International Space Station.
This was all, for me, so way beyond cool that is was all I could do to keep
from drooling. What came next, however, was for me almost a religious experience
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