"It's that same feeling I've had three times before this," Cockrell, a veteran of three previous shuttle flights, told SPACE.com's Andy Chaikin during a space-to-ground interview Friday."At wheels stop on the runway, you don't want to get out of your seat. There are a couple of reasons for that. One is that you don't really feel like standing up yet. But the other is you're really not ready for all this to be over."
Nine days after their launch from Kennedy Space Center, the Atlantis astronauts on Friday headed into the home stretch of a hugely successful mission to deliver the $1.4 billion U.S. Destiny science laboratory to the international station.
During a whirlwind week at the outpost, shuttle robot arm operator Ivins mounted the 16-ton lab to the station with a spacewalking assist from Jones and crewmate Robert Curbeam.
The spacewalking duo also wired up the new lab, helped put a shuttle docking port in place, stowed a spare communications antenna and carried out a number of other construction chores during three excursions outside the outpost.
The astronauts also joined forces with the station's resident crew -- Bill Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev -- hurrying to activate crucial lab systems and haul some 3,000 pounds (1,350 kilograms) of supplies and equipment into the complex.
They also packed some 850 pounds (382.5 kilograms) of discarded station equipment and trash aboard Atlantis for a return trip that began with a spectacular, half-loop fly-around of the growing outpost.
Soaring some 237 miles (379 kilometers) above Earth, Atlantis slowly backed to a point 450 feet (136.5 meters) directly below the 112-ton station and then set out on a tail-first victory lap around the station.
The precision piloting job fell to Polansky as camera-wielding crewmates snapped pictures and beamed back stunning video of the gangly station with both the blue planet Earth and black space serving as backdrops.
"It was, in a word, just awesome," Polansky told Chaikin, who is SPACE.com's Executive Editor for Space and Science as well as Editor of SPACE Illustrated magazine.
Breathtaking beauty
"I think the biggest thing was just to go ahead and see the most beautiful sight you could imagine, which was the space station," Polansky said. "Even at 450 feet, it's still very large and you're able (to see) the backdrop of the Earth. It was just quite breathtaking really."
Jones used the same word -- "breathtaking" -- to describe the spacewalking view from the top of the 17-story outpost, a perch from which he and Curbeam did some detailed photography for station engineers on the ground.
"The view of the Earth, when you have a 180 degree panorama from your helmet, is just breathtaking," Jones told Chaikin. "Emotions well up in you when you have a moment to stop and think about where you are and what you're really doing."
The strong emotions for Ivins have more to do with the amity she shares with her crewmates -- a team that trained together for the better part of three years.
"Well let me just say that we have been finishing each others' sentences for the past seven or eight months, so I think we've gotten pretty tightly knit. And when I start to quote lines from the guys' bad movies, I think we're pretty well bonded," she said.
The four men on the crew thought that was a hoot, and clearly were tempted to poke a little fun at the only lady on the ship.
"I could start quoting some of those lines, but I think I'll just leave it at what Marsha said," Curbeam offered with a hearty laugh. "I think we've gotten pretty close in the last 15 months, two years, or whatever it's been. And I've just had a lot of fun up here. I know my stomach is going to hurt from laughing so much when this is all over."
"All this" is scheduled to end with a supersonic dive back through the atmosphere Sunday as the astronauts speed toward a planned 12:52 p.m. EST (17:52 GMT) landing here at the Florida spaceport.
The astronauts at that point will feel the tug of normal gravity for the first time since Feb. 7, and body fluids now pooled in their upper torsos will be pulled back toward their feet, creating the woozy feeling Cockrell alluded to.
Like their crucial station construction mission, that too will pass. And within a few days it will be back to business as usual as the astronauts set out to take on new roles helping NASA prepare for outpost assembly missions still to come.
"We'll talk about [the flight] for awhile," Cockrell said. "But [then] as we should, we'll focus our energies and our efforts toward the next flight and the flights after that to continue this great effort on the space station."
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