STS-114 Return to flight crew.
Why do the astronauts who will return the Space Shuttle to safe flight believe human space flight is worth the risk? How has their approach to space flight changed as a result of the Columbia accident? How have they dealt with the events of the past year? These are among the questions answered by the next Space Shuttle crew, STS-114, in a series of videotaped interviews.
STS-114 Commander Eileen Collins
Commander Eileen Collins said: "Our country's relying on us to do these tasks and to do them, correctly and safely. So that's where we're focusing most of our time and energy ... [We] see ourselves as servants to the American people and the international community. We are carrying out a space policy that is, frankly, extremely important to our country ... It's important for us to let people know what we're doing."
STS-114 Pilot James Kelly
Pilot James Kelly said: "I think if you look through history, you see that the explorers and the countries that were doing the exploring were really the ones that were making mankind better and the world a better place to live in. I think that's still true, and I think the minute that we turn off our eyes that are looking heavenward and our voices that are talking about going to other places, as soon as you cut off those voices and say, well, we need to only be looking inward, I think that's the time when we start falling back ... [Human space flight is] something that's written in the character of our country."
STS-114 Mission Specialist Charles Camarda
Mission Specialist Charles Camarda said: "Spaceflight will always be an experiment; it will never be an operational, routine venture, and we need to learn from every flight. We need to improve and make sure that we're ever-vigilant that we can make this vehicle as robust and as safe as we possibly can."
STS-114 Mission Specialist Wendy Lawrence
Mission Specialist Wendy Lawrence said: "It's very important for us to get back to space -- that is the mission of NASA -- and if we don't return to space flight I think we will not honor the Columbia crew in an appropriate way, and their deaths will, to some degree, not have very much significance. And, I personally want to make sure that for the families' sake, we continue the commitment that their loved ones so strongly believed in, and that's flying in space and the benefits we reap from that."
STS-114 Mission Specialist Soichi Noguchi
Mission Specialist Soichi Noguchi, representing the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), said: "The Space Shuttle is a magnificent spacecraft. It's robust, and powerful, too, for the space development. All the International Space Station construction relies on our return to flight of the Space Shuttle. As a matter of fact, our Japanese Space Agency has the Kibo module, Japanese experimental module, which is supposed to fly in the cargo bay of the Shuttle. Without a Space Shuttle return to flight, our Kibo module will be in jeopardy. So this is a key to the International Space Station."
STS-114 Mission Specialist Steve Robinson
Mission Specialist Steve Robinson said: "I am very ready to go back into space as soon as the hardware is ready. I think, at this point now, or almost a year after the accident, we're emotionally ready to pick up the flame that our 107 crew was carrying, and carry it forward. So I think we're all looking forward to getting back into flight when we feel that it's safe to do that."
STS-114 Mission Specialist Andy Thomas
Mission Specialist Andy Thomas said: "The flight is going to be challenging because it's new, but also because we are the first flight back to the International Space Station. It hasn't seen a Shuttle in a long time. It needs the resources that we're going to bring to it, so there's a huge workload facing us just in that nominal aspect of the flight."
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/preparingtravel/STS-114_RTFinterviews.html