Flawless end to historic flight

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Sunday, November 8, 1998

BY TIM BONFIELD
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Discovery makes a perfect landing (AP photo) | ZOOM |

It was a textbook landing to a storybook flight.

John Glenn, the first American in orbit and now the oldest person to fly in space, returned safely to Earth on Saturday. The space shuttle Discovery touched down at the sunny Kennedy Space Center in Florida exactly on time at 12:04 p.m.

"Welcome home, Discovery, to a crew of seven heros from a mission dedicated to improving life on Earth. Beautiful landing, Curt!" Mission Control said to Cmdr. Curt Brown.

The landing ended a nearly flawless nine-day mission that included medical studies of Mr. Glenn and other crew members, launching two satellites and retrieving one of them, 83 microgravity experiments, testing new equipment for the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomy studies of the sun, and more.

NEXT FOR GLENN

What's next for John Glenn? After a morning press conference and some time with his family, John Glenn returns to Houston today for about three weeks of follow-up medical tests. An institute will be named for Mr. Glenn at Ohio State University. The NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland also will be renamed in his honor. Mr. Glenn likely will do a round of interviews and talk shows. Jay Leno - who joked with the crew in space - is among many who want an appearance. Mr. Glenn has hired an agent to sort through assorted book deals, endorsement offers and movie ideas. In coming months, Mr. Glenn likely will do work for NASA and the National Institute on Aging and will make community and educational appearances.

The next steps for Mr. Glenn will be a reunion with his family, about three weeks of follow-up medical tests in Houston, a national round of media interviews, and speculation about book and movie deals.

The next step for NASA will be to get started on the five-year International Space Station construction project. The first component is set for launch Nov. 20 in Russia. The shuttle Endeavour, already mounted on launch pad 39-A, will carry the second component to orbit on Dec. 3.

After touchdown, Mr. Glenn¹s first words were: "Hello, Houston. This is PS2. I'm better known to a lot of you as John. And I want to repeat a statement I made a long, long time ago, except this time it is one G and I feel fine."

In 1962, Mr. Glenn made three orbits of the Earth. This time, he completed 135 orbits, traveling a total of 3.6 million miles.

The first post-flight views of Mr. Glenn came at 1:54 p.m., after the crew completed medical checks inside a bus-like Crew Transport Vehicle and changed from orange spacesuits into their blue flight suits.

The senator-space hero was the third crew member to walk down the steps for a walk-around inspection of Discovery. He walked gingerly and several crew members clearly paused to walk at Mr. Glenn's pace. Still, he smiled, shook hands with NASA officials, and made it into NASA's silver astronaut van with no slips or other obvious problems.

Glenn is greeted after leaving Discovery. (AP photo) | ZOOM |

Later, Dr. Sam Pool, NASA's assistant director for space medicine, said many astronauts have trouble with their footing after landing. Mr. Glenn was expected to show more signs of unsteady footing than younger crew members.

But Mr. Glenn did not appear to have any serious difficulty with his footing, and Dr. Pool noted that at least two other crewmates seemed to be in similar condition. However, it will be months before medical experts truly know how well Mr. Glenn recovers from his time in zero gravity.

"We have much to study and analyze, now that we have such a tremendous amount of data," Dr. Pool said.

The landing

People often compare the shuttle to an airplane, but no commercial jetliner comes in so fast and so steep. The orbiter drops like a brick at a 20-degree glide slope, far steeper than the standard 3 degree approach of a jetliner.

In just 16.5 minutes, the Discovery dropped from 40 miles above central Texas to touchdown 1,100 miles away at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It slowed from 12,500 mph over Texas (more than 16 times faster than the speed of sound) to 236 mph at touchdown. The wheels come out only at the last seconds, with the massive orbiter just 300 feet above the runway.

Saturday's landing looked perfect on TV. But the cameras could not show how close NASA ground control came to waving off the landing attempt while the shuttle was still in orbit.

Up to nine minutes before giving the "go" for the de-orbit burn, crosswinds at Kennedy Space Center were peaking at 16 knots. NASA's safe limit is 15 knots. The shuttle is built to handle 20-knot crosswinds, but NASA sets its limits lower to allow a safety cushion.

NASA officials decided to allow the landing attempt because the winds seemed likely to dip in the next hour and practice landings by a Gulfstream jet that mimics the shuttle showed no major problems. In addition, weather conditions were no better at the main alternate landing site, Edwards Air Force Base in California ‹ and the weather looked worse for today at both sites.

Turns out, the winds at landing were steady at 9 knots with gusts up to 14 knots.

The science

Mr. Glenn has said all along that his ride on STS-95 was about the science, not about him. The Discovery crew certainly did a lot of science.

They got hundreds of images of the sun, of Jupiter, the Earth's atmosphere, and of clouds of interstellar dust.

They launched a satellite for the Navy, tested a space furnace, and ran more than a dozen commercial experiments. They grew protein crystals that may lead to better medicines for cancer, diabetes and other diseases. They tested a way to grow antibiotics in space. They grew bone implant samples and heart tissue patches.

They produced an amazing material called Aerogel, a transparent foam that's nearly as light as air yet can insulate against heat as well as 30 panes of glass.

They did some astronaut business, like checking spacesuit radios, air quality sniffers, automatic guidance systems and other tools to be used to build the International Space Station. Then there was Mr. Glenn, the human guinea pig.

Scientists will spend months poring over data gathered about the bodily functions of the oldest man in space.

He swallowed pills that tracked his internal temperature. He slept four nights with his head wrapped in a net of 21 different sensors. He gave repeated blood and urine samples. He wore a device on his wrist that measured every movement and a device on his belt that tracked his heartbeat for a 24-hour period. He recorded everything he ate in a log book.

Even after landing, Mr. Glenn's work for STS-95 won't be done. He'll do all his medical tests again while living in Houston until nearly Thanksgiving.

The flight was supposed to "showcase" the versatility of the shuttle, said Tommy Holloway, space shuttle program manager. "We had absolutely exceptional performance across the entire system," Mr. Holloway said.

"I've been intrigued by the intensity of focus on this flight brought on by PS2," Mr. Holloway said. "It demonstrates to me that the American public is still interested in the space program."

After the camera crews went away, and the astronauts departed the runway for more medical checks and debriefing, it still took several more hours for crews to "safe" the orbiter then tow it back to the Orbiter Processing Facility.

The runway work included purging dangerous gasses, dumping data from flight computers and removing time-sensitive experiment lockers from the mid-deck and the Spacehab module.

The crew also inspected the shuttle's tail area to see what might have caused the drag chute door to fall off during blastoff. But no answers were available Saturday.

The next era of the shuttle program begins Dec. 3, when the first space station launch occurs. The next flight for Discovery will be STS-96, set for May 13, 1999. It will be the second space station assembly flight for the shuttle program.

In his radio message, Mr. Glenn praised NASA for a job well done and thanked the many people who watched his return to space.

"And seriously, to those whose prayers ‹ along with my own ‹ followed us around the world, our heartfelt thanks and appreciation."

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