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Space Shuttle Columbia Astronauts Take Fifth Spacewalk

Aired March 8, 2002 - 05:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, it's time to head up into space with Miles O'Brien. The space shuttle astronauts are on their fifth and final spacewalk, right?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, yes. And some people say it's like watching paint dry. I personally like it.

COSTELLO: We have been watching the live feed from NASA all morning long, and work moves very slowly in space, Miles.

O'BRIEN: It's a personal favorite of mine. Let's take a look at live pictures coming from NASA right now. We don't have a TV picture for the Shuttle Columbia; hence we have these cartoons.

COSTELLO: Oh, great!

O'BRIEN: They really aren't cartoons. This is real-time animation. It shows you first of all -- oh, hey, there's the control room. The folks in our control room said, right before we went on the air, to show the control room. Let's put them on the air. They never get any respect. Sort of a control room thing going there. So there is the control room. Those are the people that really make these things happen after all. Right, control room, here? All right. There's -- and that gives you a graphical depiction of exactly where the astronauts are and where the robotic arm is.

Let's take a look at some pictures that have been fed down in the past few minutes, as John Grunsfeld and Rick Linnehan have been busy working to put a $21 million air conditioner on a device that hasn't been working since January of '99. It's an infrared camera called NICMOS, Near Infrared Camera Multi-Object Spectrometer.

COSTELLO: What?

O'BRIEN: Yes, whatever. You don't really need to know all of that stuff. This is Grunsfeld up here. You can tell, because he's got the red stripe down his suit. That's a little trick right there. See those stripes?

COSTELLO: Oh, yes.

O'BRIEN: That's how you can tell. His sidekick, Linnehan, has the pure white suit right there. He is attached to the end of the robot arm. Now, this particular cooling device is to resuscitate NICMOS. And let me just show you, looking at some animation, I'll explain what this is all about. When NICMOS was launched in February of '97, attached in the second repair mission, it came up with a thermos full of nitrogen ice. And that was supposed to last in space, but there was a leak in it, kind of a short circuit in the heat system or the heat exchange system.

So we're going to put this thing, and it has neon in it, and the neon circulates around and keeps it cool. It has to be negative 100 Celsius in order for NICMOS to do its job, but it also has a radiator on that side to expel the excess heat to make it a little bit easier.

Now, let's look at some images very quickly and show you what NICMOS is all about. This is what you would see in the visible spectrum of the Orion Nebula. Pretty shot.

COSTELLO: Wow!

O'BRIEN: Now, let's fade into the NICMOS shot of that, and let's take a look at what that looks like. Now, many more stars are evident there, because the infrared part of the spectrum is the heat-detecting portion. You know, these night scope images we see from the war in Afghanistan?

COSTELLO: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Same thing. You look at, you know, what appears to be just black -- the blackness of night, put on the night vision, and all of a sudden it's alive with things. This is what NICMOS does.

One more thing here. Look at this on the left. That is the visible spectrum, and this is the infrared NICMOS spectrum. By the way, this distance, Carol, from here to here...

COSTELLO: Yes.

O'BRIEN: ... is 200 times the diameter of our solar system, just to give you a little perspective on it.

COSTELLO: Pretty darn big then.

O'BRIEN: That's a big thing. That's a big thing. Anyway, that shows a dying star, and it gives astronomers new perspectives on what's going on as stars die.

This is the fifth and final spacewalk. So far, the astronauts are on a roll. Let's hope for the best, as they continue this, the fourth Hubble servicing mission.

COSTELLO: And this weekend, you are headed to Houston.

O'BRIEN: I am headed to Houston. We'd like you to participate in that. I know you will be watching.

COSTELLO: Absolutely. O'BRIEN: Tomorrow morning, 7:00 to 10:00 Eastern Time. I'm going to be there with some astronauts. We are going to be in the Space Station simulator, the Shuttle simulator. We are going to show all about this $300,000 cordless screwdriver that I'm fascinated about, the $14 million spacesuit.

And now is your time to send us any questions you might have about space, about Hubble, about the Shuttle, about whatever you want. Wam -- W-A-M -- @cnn.com. is the place. We would love for you to participate in the program all morning long tomorrow on "CNN SATURDAY MORNING."

COSTELLO: Well, we can't wait -- thank you, Miles, and you are going to join us again next hour, right?

O'BRIEN: I'll be back.

COSTELLO: Fabulous.

O'BRIEN: All right.

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