"Okay, I got a tallyho on the cape." "Looking good, Vance." "You can hear the wind real loud now." "At the end of a 3-million-mile journey, the space shuttle is coming home." "APUs are looking good, Vance." "The commander must land perfectly." "He has no engines to take him around again." "I tell you, that's a good one." " Yeah, looking good." " Okay." " Thrust." " Okay, got them." " Put on the gear." " Gear is on, saw the light." " 400, 300." " Gear down." "Gear's coming." " 100, 255." " Gear is down." "50 feet at 240." "30 feet at 235." "20 feet at 225." "Ten feet at 220." "Eight feet at 215." "Five feet at 210." "Two feet at 200." "One foot." "Touchdown." "195." "170." "165." "160." "150." "90 at 5." "70 at 5." "50 knots, 5 deceleration." "30 at 5." "In the middle of a Florida wildlife refuge, the shuttles land." "They are serviced and relaunched." "Houston, wheels are stopped." " Way to go, guys." " Great job!" "Magnificent!" "This is Kennedy Space Center, America's spaceport." "We hear the most about astronauts." "But there are thousands more behind the scenes to keep the shuttles flying." "They maintain the more than 30,000 tiles that protect the orbiter from the heat of re-entry." "Steven Neihardt, Lockheed Comm." "Hazardous operations are continuing in the VAB." "They watch over the components." "The solid rockets, the massive external tank and the orbiter." "All unofficial personnel clear Landing 3 in the transfer aisle." "Two weeks to launch, the shuttle rolls out to the pad." "The flight crew has trained at Johnson Space Center." "They've come here to Florida for a dress rehearsal with the launch team." "To prepare for a potential emergency they practice rapid egress from the orbiter and the possible use of an escape basket." " Okay, baby, let's go." " We got four good HPUs." "Four." "I got fourth." "All the pics are up." "Fly, baby, fly." "Thrust tailing off in SRB." "Standing by for separation." "Separation confirmed." "Nominal first-stage performance." "Okay, nominal." "Now the engines have stopped." "We are in space, 280 miles up." "At last, we can see our magnificent Earth in all its splendor." "Mission Control Houston." "Challenger crossing Baja, California." "LDEF deploying." "The LDEF satellite weighs 10 tons and is the size of a school bus." "It carries 57 experiments the work of more than 200 scientists from eight countries." "LDEF will stay up here for more than a year exposing various materials to the vacuum of space." "VTRs are running." "Next thing's at 30 seconds." "I'll delay it a bit." "I'll count by 10s till I get to 15, okay?" " 40 seconds." " Don't forget free drift, Mike." "Inside the spacecraft, there's a new experience:" "Weightlessness." "A typical crew is five to seven people." "Some are career astronauts." "Others, specialists in different fields representing various countries." " Sally?" " Yes." "We're hooked up." "Needs checking." "Above is the flight deck, with windows facing into the payload bay." "The mid-deck functions as living room, dining room bedroom, workshop and study." "Discovery, you look good for deploy." "Commander Hartsfield and Pilot Coats navigate the orbiter to a predetermined point in space so the communications satellite they are deploying will be precisely positioned." " Gee, look at that." " That's a big hummer, isn't it?" "Look at that!" "Get some shots of that." "Syncom's deployed, Houston." "Much of the time, the orbiter flies with its payload bay facing Earth." "So to see our planet's features, the crew uses the overhead windows." "That's pretty." "As we cross the Alps into Italy, Genoa is on the left home of Christopher Columbus." "Eastward, the Po River flows down to the Adriatic and just north of its mouth, glorious Venice." "This is the Italy of the Renaissance." "It was here that Leonardo first said, "We can fly"." "Now, we circle the Earth every 90 minutes at 17,000 miles an hour." "It's as if we're in a time machine looking back across the centuries at our own history." "The boot of Italy." "Islands of the Mediterranean, of Homer's Odyssey." "Now on toward Crete, site of the ancient Minoan culture." "The great city of Alexandria once the world's center of learning." "The lush delta of the River Nile spreading down to the Mediterranean from Cairo." "It is thought that thousands of years ago, everything was fertile but a change in climate turned North Africa into a desert." "What will future climatic changes do to our Earth and to us?" "We're still looking for a deploy over that MlLA pass..." "Okay." "How's that?" "In search of the answer, Sally Ride deploys a satellite called ERBS." "That's a pretty spacecraft." " Challenger, you're go for release." " We'll put it in work." "ERBS will help us know if there'll be more sandstorms in our future or blizzards or hurricanes like Josephine 500 miles in diameter and packing winds of 90 miles an hour." " We're seeing not even half of it." " There's the eye of the storm." "The U.S. East Coast is to the right." "Now the mid-deck has become part gymnasium and part factory." "While Steve Hawley exercises Charlie Walker operates a compact laboratory on the far bulkhead." "This is a commercial venture to develop new kinds of medicines that can only be made in zero gravity." "Ten seconds." "Nine, eight, seven, six, five..." " Got it armed?" " Got it armed." "Three, two, one." "The five-string arm is off." "The nexus is inabled." " Congratulations, three for three." " I'm gonna close the sun shield." "The satellite is deployed by Judy Resnick and photographed by Mike Mullane." "Deploy was on time." "Discovery, Houston." "We're watching it and a lot of smiles down here." "There's a lot of them here too." "The crew eats and sleeps pretty much to the same schedule as on Earth." "In the early days, we heard complaints about the food which was mostly squeezed out of toothpaste tubes." "Now, the crews eat what they want:" "Steak, strawberries, shrimp cocktail." "The extension was about as nominal as you could expect." "We copy that, Henry." "This flight, we've extended an experimental solar array." "It's not budging one iota." "It's solid as a rock." " We're about ready to retract now." " It's folding smoothly." "Such a device may use the sun's energy to power the space station." "It's wiggling a little." "The leaves are so thin and the mast so ingeniously contrived that the 100-foot-high structure folds into a box seven inches deep." "While the crew sleeps, ground flight controllers watch over the orbiter." "The Hawaiian Islands." "The Andes Mountains in South America." "Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center, our home port." "South Florida and the Keys." "The deep blue of the Gulf Stream and the turquoise reefs of the Bahamas." "The vast craters of the Galapagos Islands." "An orbital sunrise." "Altitude: 2000 feet." "Range: 12,000 feet." "As this is Discovery's maiden voyage, Hartsfield will land on the runway at Edwards Air Force Base in California." "He has lots of room but he'd like to touch down on those two black stripes on the runway." "Touchdown." "Discovery safely back on Earth after having traveled 2.17 million nautical miles in six days and 57 minutes." " Welcome home." "Discovery rides back to Florida atop NASA's 747." "With four orbiters in the fleet, new astronauts are needed." "Thousands of candidates apply." "Few make it." "Check your body position." "Bail out!" "Bail out!" "Bail out!" "Hook is down." "Keep on walking!" "Although some are pilots, many are engineers medical doctors and scientists." "Keep your heels in the water!" "Good job!" "Keep those lines tight!" "Deploy canopy for a release." "Release!" "Okay, coming on down." "Eyes on the horizon." "Put your elbows in tight." " Keep it together." " There you go." "All right, elbows in." "Once selected, the astronaut develops specific skills leading to a flight assignment." "Then, training for that mission begins." "This is James van Hoften, otherwise known as "Ox"." "And this is George Nelson, known as "Pinky"." "Together, they'll attempt something never done before:" "The capture and repair of a satellite in space." "The satellite, Solar Max, broke down after its first few months and is now rotating in orbit, partially crippled." "Okay, we show a dock." "Len, how about if I roll Pinky upside down and get him back here..." "They will be assisted by astronaut T.J. Hart." "He's going with a roll." "I'll pick him back up." "The shuttle's arm is vital in the repair and "T.J.", as they call him, is an expert." "And back up to the satellite." "An astronaut, fully dressed in a spacesuit, weighs close to 400 Ibs." "In space, he'll weigh nothing at all." "They practice the repair in a tank at Johnson Space Center." "It's the closest one can come on Earth to weightlessness." " What was that?" "Must be space." " Isn't that great?" "Houston to Challenger." "Unreadable." "Big echo." "Divers, take the subject down for final ballasting in heads-up position." "Sam, bring the pressure down on EV1." "I'm gonna jump out of restraints into a check fly." "Pinky has a mockup of the Manned Maneuvering Unit." "A one-man spacecraft that will propel him over to the ailing satellite." "We'd like you to press on with the MEB count." "Keep the stuff out of the spacecraft." "It won't work." " You've got all day to do it." " I know." " I'll get it, I promise." " I figured you would, eventually." "I tell you, it's not as easy as I had thought." "For one year, they've rehearsed this scenario over and over again." "And now, it's time to go." "T minus 20 seconds." "T minus 17 16, 15 13, 12 11, 10." "We are go for main-engine start." "Eight, seven, six." "We have main-engine start." "Three, two one." "Solid motor ignition and liftoff." "Good roll, standing by to throttle down." "Throttle's down to 67%%% through its period of maximum dynamic pressure." "Standing by to throttle up." "Pass through the speed of sound." "Go at throttle up." "This mission is one for the Guinness Books with the size of flight crew aboard: 3305." "That is, five humans and 3300 honey bees." "The bees are part of a student experiment." "Their efforts to build in zero gravity soon capture the curiosity of the crew." "There's too many to see a hive, but it looks like they're having fun." "48 hours into the mission, Commander Crippen and Pilot Scobee bring the orbiter toward rendezvous with Solar Max." "12,000 feet, closing at 16 feet per second." "The Solar Max is ready for capture." "Roger." "We copy." "Ready for capture." "Accordingly, Pinky dons the Man-Maneuvering Unit." "Mission Control is optimistic." " Looking good, Pinky." " Okay." " This is a pretty good flying machine." " I can see your smile from here." "Satellite's condition looks excellent." "It doesn't work." "Picky, picky, picky." "Pinky, are you reading us?" "I don't know if he's docked yet or not." "The jaws didn't fire." "The jaws didn't fire, do you have...?" " They didn't fire again." " Okay, didn't fire again." "The trunnion pin adaptor did not latch properly." "No joy there." "The orbiter backs away." "To make matters worse, the satellite is now tumbling and losing power." "All night, the flight team concentrates on finding a solution." "Finally, near dawn, a new plan for the capture is hammered out." "It'll call upon Bob Crippen's skills to bring the orbiter within arm's reach of the satellite and on T.J. to grapple it." "We know we're in good hands." "Use nice soft gloves." "This is Mission Control Houston." "Loss of signal at the tracking satellite." "Crippen's maneuvering fuel is nearing the red line, running low." "There are serious doubts the operation is possible at all." "The remote manipulator arm was in motion at the time of loss of signal." "So hopefully, at reacquisition we should have confirmation of whether the first grapple attempt was successful." "Okay, we've got it and we're..." "Outstanding!" " That is fantastic, T.J." " You make it look easy, Crippen." "I'll tell you, when Crip flies like that, it makes it so easy." "Solar Max, now safe in the cargo bay is rotated into position for repair." "If they can't fix it here, they could take it back to Earth repair it there and redeploy it using another shuttle." "But nobody wants to do that." "This is Mission Control." "The next step:" "EVA for both repair functions." "Ox and Pinky prepare to move outside to begin work in the payload bay." "Without their suits, they couldn't survive in the vacuum of space." "The suits provide protection, warmth and oxygen and will keep them alive for up to 81/2 hours." "Mission Control, the EVA is working along very well." "They've pulled the old ACS module endeavoring to take the new one and place it in the Solar Max." "We're about an hour and nine minutes into the EVA." "Don't drop anything on us, guys." "Okay." "Hey, Jerry, the hinge is on." " Roger." "It's all downhill from here." " Yeah." "Right." "I've double-checked all the clips that are over the connectors and I'm buttoning it up." "Houston, has Ox got a go?" "Because Ox finishes faster than anyone expected he has time to take the Man-Maneuvering Unit for a test flight." "Hello, Houston." "Hello, space." "Have we got a go for Ox and Pinky to come in?" "It's time for Jimbo and Pinky to come wash their hands for supper." "Sounds like a winner." "We got steaks tonight." "Solar Max's circuits are checked and the Goddard engineers make certain that it works." "T.J. holds it facing the sun until its batteries are recharged." "Then, gently, he returns it to orbit." "And we have release." "As Challenger and her crew pull away they leave behind vivid proof that we can work in space." "This repair is only the first step." "Already, people like you and me are beginning to travel into space." "Some of our children will live in space and their children may even be born there." "Soon, we will build a space station in permanent orbit operated by international crews." "Jon McBride prepares David Leestma and Kathy Sullivan for an EVA." "Kathy will be the first American woman to walk in space." "I hear somebody kicking the orbiter." " Hi, there." " Hi, guys." " I can't believe we're doing this." " That makes two of us." "Floating free, we look back at the majestic panorama of Earth our home." "Like Columbus, "We dream of distant shores we've not yet seen"." "Now that we know how to live and work in space we stand at the threshold of a new age of discovery."