"Hello everybody. This past week the space shuttle "Endeavor" blasted off into space, and now here we are again, 'Prime Crew', that is to say, we are the crew that will fly the next shuttle into space! We being the crew of space flight STS-107.
This time, it looks like everything is progressing well, and everyone is doing their best to ensure that the flight takes off on time. NASA has said that it will make sure the flight takes off on time, whatever the cost, including making people work on holidays. The only thing that could delay this flight would be security problems.
This time, there is a feeling that we are making progress in the right direction. The crew's preparations, as well as the preparations of the rest of the people involved in the shuttle's journey into space (and we are talking about hundreds of people) have entered the final stages.
Next week we will be carrying out a long training exercise in the simulator. This exercise will last two full days and will simulate two flight days out of the 16 days that we will be in space.
Following our two-day simulation, we have two other training exercises, also in the simulator. Both of these exercises include full simulations of situations we will have to face in space, and we will even be required to wear our space suits.
The first simulation will be the first four hours of the flight, including the nine minutes prior to lift off. In these four hours we have to transform the shuttle from rocket configuration to shuttle configuration, or in other words, to transform the shuttle into a space laboratory. This laboratory will enable us to carry out the dozens of experiments we have planned to conduct during our 16 days in space.
The second training exercise will simulate the last five hours of flight. In these last five hours we have to prepare the space shuttle for landing. Like a plane with no engine and from an altitude of 240 km and a speed of 28000 km an hour (8 km/second) we have to land our shuttle at Florida's Cape Canaveral.
These two phases of the journey are the busiest, and most critical to the flight, especially the first, which determines how the rest of the flight will progress. In our first four hours in space, Laurel and I, (Laurel is one of the three mission specialists) will open the laboratory situated in the back of the space shuttle.
After opening the laboratory, we will hover into it through two openings and a pipe, and set it up for use. That is to say, we will switch on the electricity, the air pressure and communications devices, which will enable us to carry out our experiments.
The week after our two simulation exercises, we will all be flown to Cape Canaveral for the general rehearsal before the actual flight. The general rehearsal, also known as Terminal Count Down Test (TCDT), lasts for three full days. During these three days we will experience a simulation of everything we have to do in the last three days leading up to lift off.
The rehearsal ends with something called "T Zero", which is basically a rehearsal of the lift off itself.
Col. Ilan Ramon at the start of his journey
Aside from all the training exercises and rehearsals, we also have to study in our own time. There are hundreds if not thousands of things that we have to know and remember for our 16-day voyage.
Sometimes I think to myself, why so many training exercises for merely 16 days in space? The answer is that the whole operation is so intricate and complicated. To get everything right and to ensure that everything is executed as planned, much time and many exercises are required.
The Real Excitement Has Not Even Started
Ok, so we were supposed to have been in space two years ago already, but that's just the way things go and now the preparations and training are stepping up, as take off finally nears.
And this time, we all feel that it is really going to happen, even if we are not yet feeling the excitement.
The experienced astronauts here at NASA tell us that the real excitement only starts a few days before the actual lift off. I can tell you that we are all very much looking forward to that moment. Cross your fingers for us!