The four capcoms for the mission were astronauts Charlie 'Scorch' Hobaugh, Ken Ham, Stephanie Wilson, and Linda Godwin. They acted as the Mission Control's 'voice' giving the astronauts instructions and answering their questions. Three engineers, Lora Keiser, Brad Korb, and Beth Vann, served as the Crew Interface Coordinators (CIC) - representing the Spacehab payload control center for the science activities.
One of the most amusing discussions during the mission was when Willie adjusted the temperature of the cooling system inside Spacehab. Capcom Charlie 'Scorch' Hobaugh radioed the instructions to turn a knob to adjust the flow and took the opportunity to teach McCool how to count to eight!
Hobaugh also took the opportunity to tease Laurel. She wanted to transmit some video showing the crew's activities inside Spacehab and asked if the video was being transmitted to the ground. Hobaugh's reply and Laurel's reaction are in this video clip which was transmitted about half way through the mission.
Capcom Ken Ham complimented Dave Brown's performance. Ham commented that he could recommend Brown for a position as a capcom after the mission. Brown's reply?
Two Line Elements are a series of numbers that define a satellite's orbit. They include the inclination, altitude, shape of the orbit, serial number, when the parameters were calculated and how long the satellite has been in space. They are used by satellite tracking programs which predict a satellite's location in orbit. Tracking information for unclassified satellites can be obtained on the Internet. After the accident NASA temporarily disabled access to the STS-107 two line elements, but the information was restored afterwards. These STS-107 two line elements were released during the STS-107 mission.
Wakeup Calls
Mission Control traditionally sends wakeup music to the astronauts each morning. In most cases the astronauts are already up and busy preparing to go to work, but it's still a nice tradition. The astronauts's families or Mission Control select the songs and some have a theme related to what's happening on the shuttle.
Two of the red shift wakeup calls were videotaped and survived the accident. Flight Day 12 for Ilan Ramon, and Flight Day 15 for Kalpana Chawla.
After John Lennon's Imagine was played for Willie on Flight Day 15 he took the opportunity to make some comments about how peaceful the world looked from space and Ilan translated his comments into Hebrew.
E-mails
Mission Control sends each shift of astronauts a series of messages called the 'execute package' with the astronauts' tasks. These include the status of their payloads, Earth observation sites of interest, repairs, and even a cartoon for the day. Only a few reporters bother to go to the effort to get the execute packages during shuttle missions but after the accident all of the STS-107 execute package messages were released.Each day's execute package's cover sheet includes a summary of the contents along with a cartoon. For STS-107 the back page of many of the cover sheets was a spoof of the "this page left intentionally blank" which you see quite often in technical documents to assure the reader that a page wasn't missed when copies were made. The archives released after the accident put all of the cartoons into a single document. Don't worry if you don't get all of the jokes, some require a true insider's perspective to understand.
The shuttle has excellent communications capabilities. In the past family members could send one or two line messages to the crew in space but couldn’t receive messages from the crew. Now family members can send normal length e-mail messages and the astronauts can send e-mails to anybody in the world. Here Laurel is using a notebook computer on Columbia's aft flight deck.
Dave’s brother Doug decided to compile his own top ten list of reasons for flying in space, with a humorous twist, and solicited Dave’s family for their thoughts. He got more than he bargained for and sent 14 responses, some serious but mostly humorous. Several of the thoughts came from kids, including Dave’s nephew and niece, who had their own pre-teen priorities for what’s important in life. The e-mail was sent to Columbia five days after launch.
The astronauts are extremely busy and have very little free time to just chat or read long messages from their friends and family. But they generally take the opportunity to send an email to a list of their friends talking about their mission, and occasionally special messages to VIPs or the people responsible for making the mission happen. Here's a sample of some of the e-mails which the crew sent to friends and colleagues.
The astronauts take digital photos of themselves for close family members to give them a special memento. Here's photos Rick, Dave, and Laurel emailed to their families.
Rick Husband poses with a photo of his family |
Dave emailed this photo of his family framed by Columbia's windows with the Earth behind |
Laurel kisses a picture of her son in space |
Photos
These photos are electronic digital photos transmitted during the STS-107 mission, frames from video feeds, and film which survived the accident.
Public Affairs Events
Astronauts spend much of their time performing public affairs functions, whether it's interviews with world leaders or the press, special presentations, or posing for photographs. Sometimes it's also a bit of fun.
The red shift on Columbia had the opportunity to talk to American astronauts Ken Bowersox and Don Pettit aboard the International Space Station.
The path for the International Space Station (red) and Columbia (green) for their ship-to-ship call. The contact started as Columbia flew over South America and ISS flew over Europe - literally on opposite sides of the globe!
The STS-107 mission overlapped the 17th anniversary of the Challenger accident. Author Philip Chien asked manager Phil Engelhauf, and scientists John Charles, Arny Fernando, and Scott Smith about their memories of that watershed event. Commander Rick Husband took the time to honor the memories of the Apollo 1 and Challenger astronauts on the anniversary of the Challenger accident.
Just four American reporters attended the on-orbit press conference - Chris Kridler with Florida Today, Bill Harwood with CBS, Jim Banke with Space.com, and author Philip Chien. Each reporter had the opportunity to ask the crew several questions. The best question during the press conference came from Chris Kridler who asked each of the crew to describe their favorite "oh wow" moments.
Some public affairs events were transmitted during the STS-107 mission. Other scenes which the astronauts filmed in space were not seen until videotapes and film were recovered after the accident - offering an unique view into the hidden moments in the lives of the Columbia astronauts.
VIP Phone Call
Whenever an international astronaut flies from a new country NASA makes arrangements for a high level official from that country to talk to their astronaut in space. What's amusing is in almost all cases most of the interview is in the native languages of that country, and the rest of the crew who are participating just float and wonder what's being talked about.
NASA arranged for the red shift to talk to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon on Flight Day 6 (January 21). During the interview Ramon held up a miniature Torah which was given to MEIDEX scientist Joachim Joseph when he was a teenager in a World War II concentration camp.
An audio of the conversation, mostly in Hebrew. NASA provided an English translation later.
Internet Questions
NASA gives the public the opportunity to send a question to the astronauts in space - but there's a catch. You email your question to NASA and a public affairs person has to like the question and select it out of the many submissions. The public affairs personnel will always select bland non-technical questions over thoughtful technical questions. In most cases the answers to the questions are easy to find with a little research - hardly something where the astronaut in space can provide a unique or special answer because of their perspective.
Strangely the public affairs personnel who select the questions often select questions for the automated experiments which the astronauts don't touch during the mission. There's a higher likelihood your question will be selected if you claim that you know one of the astronauts. If you've met them, if you teach one of the astronauts' kids, or have some other connection it appears to increase the chances your question will get selected.
Most astronauts think it's a big waste of time, but to make the public affairs people happy they'll answer a couple of questions, even though they've got plenty of time to answer more.
Willie McCool and Dave Brown chose to answer just three of the 30 Internet questions which were submitted to NASA's website and selected by public affairs.
An audio of Dave Brown's answer to a question.
An audio of Willie McCool answering a question.
An audio of Willie McCool answering another question.
Food in Space
For astronauts 'don't play with your food' is a childhood lesson long forgotten. Even if you're eating on the run meal time is a chance to play, socialize with your crewmates, and enjoy yourself.
The NASA STS-107 crew web page has links to each astronaut's standard menu items.
The crew transmitted a video of Ilan Ramon eating some snacks and at one point 'encouraging' the snacks to come towards his mouth and even doing an acrobatic flip while eating.
During the mission Laurel demonstrated how she opens up a foil container of soup and tortillas.
A video showed K.C. cutting open a bag of peanut M&Ms and floating several and picking them out of the air.
A video recovered after the accident showed Willie McCool making breakfast - granola and pineapple drink.
The food that got the most attention was Ilan's Kosher meals. He decided to eat some Kosher food in recognition of his religion's heritage even though he didn't normally keep Kosher. The Kosher foods were standard off-the-shelf theromstabilized meals. But only some of the menu items were the Kosher meals. None of Ilan's meals included pork, shellfish, or other prohibited foods and he didn't mix meat and dairy products in the same meal. However the rest of Ilan's meals could not be considered truly Kosher because the meat wasn't slaughtered by a Kosher butcher or processed in an acceptable manner. At most it could be said that Ilan's food was "Kosher style".
The Incredible View Outside
Astronauts spend as much time as possible looking out the window. Not at outer space but at the Earth. It's a magnificent planet and up close - almost like you could touch it if the windows weren't in the way.
During the mission the crew transmitted a video clip of Israel and the surrounding area.
In a videotape which survived after the accident Laurel Clark and Willie McCool talk about watching incredible sunrises in space.
An exclusive GIF animation of a 15 photo sequence showing a sunset in space. The unusual color effect is due to GIF's limited 256 color palette. Astronauts say the number of colors you can see in space are incredible - more colors than you could describe - far more than any film or digital images can show. One of the STS-107 astronauts used a digital camera to take photos about once every three seconds as Columbia traveled into the darkness as it flew over Australia.
Photos of the Earth
The STS-107 crew took 519 digital photos of the Earth which they radioed to the ground during the mission. Here's a sampling.
Note that in the Mt. Fuji image you can really feel the three-dimensional nature because of the shuttle's altitude.
Recovered Photos
These 35 mm. photos of the Earth survived the accident. Some have stains caused by the heat and rough exposure the film experienced.
An oblique shot of Israel |
Egypt and the Sinai |
Israel from space |
The Sinai from space |
The Red Sea |
The 'toe' of Italy |
Astronaut Fun in Microgravity
Insiders joke about 'stupid astronaut tricks' - all of the fun which astronauts have in space. It's not intended in a derogatory manner, just pleasure at watching your friends and colleagues enjoy themselves with all of the fun you can only have in microgravity.
Some of these video clips were transmitted during the mission, others were on videotapes which survived the accident. It showed the astronauts enjoying themselves during their rare moments of free time, and how astronauts live aboard the shuttle.
The 15 foot tunnel from the crew cabin to Spacehab was the opportunity for lots of fun. During the on orbit press conference Dave mentioned that you could do rolls within the tunnel. One of the videotapes which survived showed Willie trying to roll through the tunnel without touching the side. Another video clip showed Rick going down the tunnel feet first, and another showed the point-of-view of an astronaut floating through the tunnel.
Perhaps most amazing the tunnel appeared to have some magical qualities. At one point Rick Husband narrated a video clip of K.C. entering the tunnel and Laurel coming out of the other end!
Many of the astronaut tricks demonstrate simple physics principles. Every physics textbook shows a diagram of an ice skater spinning and pulling in her arms (for some reason it's always a female ice skater). As she pulls in her arms her spin rate increases because of the laws of angular momentum. Rick demonstrated the same principle in space - as he pulls in his arms he spins up, as he extends his arms he slows down. Laurel demonstrated how a spinning audio CD in her player acts like a gyroscope so the player stays in the same orientation.
Dave was a gymnast in high school and college and even a circus performer one summer. In space all of the astronauts could outperform any gymnast on Earth. Here Dave and Ilan show off their microgravity acrobatics skills. Here's the raw video of Ilan's flying segment which survived the accident.
In an impromptu experiment Laurel wondered if she could make her hinged checklist 'fly' and was astonished when it worked.
Willie somersaults into the Spacehab module.
K.C. uses a handful of markers to demonstrate why you never want to have more than a small number of loose items.
Ilan brushed his teeth. He put so much vigor into his brushing that he vibrated himself, causing Mike Anderson to suggest that the vibrations could affect the mission's ultra-sensitive microgravity experiments!
Dave shaves in space, although it seems like he's using much more effort than necessary for this video demonstration.
Willie demonstrates how taking out the trash can be an enjoyable activity when he figures out what to do with the ball of trash.
Satellite tracking map by author Philip Chien.
Satellite tracking information from NASA's Orbital Information Group.
Personal in-flight photos courtesy of Evelyn Husband, Brown family, and Jonathan Clark.
Other photos from the author's collection and NASA.
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