This
story was updated at 6:16 p.m. EDT.
HOUSTON --
Juggling ping pong balls and blobs of juice, teacher-turned-astronaut Barbara Morgan
and her crewmates described life in space to students on Earth Tuesday as NASA
ponders a possible repair for their shuttle Endeavour.
Morgan, 55,
and her crewmates discussed their
STS-118 spaceflight and answered questions for students at the Discovery
Center of Idaho in Boise in the first of three planned educational events
spaced throughout their 14-day mission to the International Space Station
(ISS).
"Well,
astronauts and teachers actually do the same thing. We explore, we discover
and we share," Morgan said when asked about her dual role. "The great
thing about being a teacher is you get to do that with students, and the great
thing about being an astronaut is you get to do it in space. And both are
absolutely wonderful jobs."
Joining
Morgan in the broadcast were fellow Endeavour astronauts Dave Williams, Alvin
Drew, Jr. and ISS flight engineer Clayton Anderson. Together they answered
questions ranging from the visible effects of global warming from space and how
stars appear out the space station's windows.
"When
we look outside, it's very much like trying to look at stars in Boise,"
Morgan, a former
McCall, Idaho, schoolteacher, said as she answered one question, adding
that the lights on the ISS and Endeavour are very bright. "You can see
some, but then if you go up high in the mountains up to McCall and you have all
the lights out, that's what it'll be like once we undock from station and turn
all our lights out."
Morgan
originally joined NASA in 1985 as the agency's backup to Teacher in Space
Christa McAuliffe before the tragic Challenger accident
in January 1986. McAuliffe originally planned to teach a class lesson from
space. NASA recalled Morgan from her teaching post in 1998 to train as a
full-fledged mission specialist and educator astronaut.
While
Morgan and her crewmates worked in space, NASA engineers continued evaluating
whether the astronauts will have to repair a small,
but deep gouge on the shuttle's tile-covered underbelly caused by fuel tank
debris during their Aug. 8 launch. A decision on whether a fix is required is
anticipated for Wednesday, mission managers have said.
In a separate
interview session with reporters on Earth earlier today, Morgan and her
crewmates said they were confident Endeavour was safe to fly home, but were
prepared for any repair work if required.
Spare
parts delivery
Before they
made their space broadcasts, Morgan and her crewmates delivered a massive new
spare parts platform to the ISS.
Dubbed the
External Stowage Platform-3 (ESP-3), the exposed hardware depot weighs about
7,000 pounds (3,175 kilograms) and has space for seven major ISS components.
The platform is stocked with a battery charging unit, a spare robotic arm joint
and a nitrogen tank assembly for the station's cooling system and was stowed on
the Port 3 truss segment of the orbital laboratory.
Morgan and
STS-118 mission specialist Tracy Caldwell plucked the new spare parts platform
out of Endeavour's payload bay with the orbiter's robotic arm, then handed it
off to the station's
own robotic appendage wielded by shuttle pilot Charlie Hobaugh for final installation.
The ability
to store large components, especially those only NASA shuttles can carry, is vital for
the ISS as the space agency prepares to retire its three aging orbiters in
September 2010, mission managers said.
"Each
time we bring spares on board, we're getting ready for shuttle
retirement," Joel Montalbano,
NASA's lead ISS flight director for Endeavour's STS-118 flight, told reporters
late Monday. "So this is just another step in that preparation."
NASA is
broadcasting Endeavour's STS-118 mission live on NASA TV. Click here for mission updates and
SPACE.com's
NASA TV feed.
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