Astronauts Ready to Land, ‘Exhilarated’ by Space Walks

The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis described their building projects as “exhilarating” during an in-flight news conference Monday and then made preparations for landing at Edwards Air Force Base this afternoon at 1:33 PST.

The two astronauts who became the Ace Construction Co. in space, Jerry Ross and Sherwood Spring, said they hope to assist engineers who are beginning to design the first U.S. space station.

On Friday and Sunday, the two crewmen entered the craft’s open cargo bay and built and disassembled a 45-foot tower and a large pyramid. It was “as much fun as I remember Tinkertoys as a kid,” Ross said Monday.

Tired Hands

He said that his and Spring’s hands “got tired fairly fast” while assembling the space structures on Friday. Spring added that “it was a lot easier” to build the pyramid while positioned on the shuttle’s robot arm that was used in Sunday’s work than it had been to build it while floating free in space.

“I was not as tired after the second day (outside the shuttle),” Ross said, “but I was still pretty beat.” Spring commented, “I think the medics will tell me when I get back down that I put in a pretty good day’s work.”

On Monday morning, Atlantis commander Brewster Shaw was given the coordinates needed to locate Halley’s comet, “but I’m not sure if we saw it,” said mission specialist Mary Cleave. “We took some pictures, but it’s really not that distinctive yet.”

On Sunday night, pilot Brian O’Connor said, they had been able to get some good pictures of drought-stricken Ethiopia and Somalia.

Mexican Astronaut Questioned

During the 45-minute news conference, television pictures showed the seven-member crew wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with a stripe of the colors of the flag of Mexico. Half the news conference was in Spanish, with Mexican journalists questioning Rodolfo Neri, the first Mexican to fly in space. Neri said he had taken good photos of the earthquake-leveled areas of Mexico City, as well as of the rest of Mexico.

Payload specialist Charles Walker reported that all of his work on the purification of erythropoietin, a hormone that stimulates the production of red blood cells, had been successfully completed.

Later in the day, all seven crew members formed a conga line, staged a pillow fight with duffel bags and tossed a makeshift Frisbee for the benefit of television cameras.

Atlantis will land on the concrete runway at Edwards because the lake bed is still wet from weekend storms, but the forecast for this afternoon’s landing is for scattered high clouds, light winds and unlimited visibility.