AstronautEileen Collins explained to an agog David Letterman Tuesday night that thespace shuttle goes from zero to 17,500 miles per hour in less than nineminutes.
"You arehauling," she acknowledged to laughter.
On "TheLate Show" on CBS, Letterman prepared a sight gag for the commander ofDiscovery's recent mission -- a "zero gravity" coffee cup floating on a wire.
"Whenyou're in outer space, everything is weightless. Everything floats," he said,try to manipulate the cup by its handle as water sloshed out.
"You need away to keep the water in there," Collins said when she saw it.
Sheoutlined the basics of Discovery's mission for the talk-show host, answeringhis questions about the speed and sensations of launch. "If you had not trainedto launch in a space shuttle, you'd be terrified," she said.
Collinsalso reiterated the crew's commitment to exploring space, despite the loss ofseven friends in the Columbia disaster.
"We believethat's what the Columbia astronauts would have wanted us to continue doing,"she said to applause.
She saidshe had no safety concerns about her flight, given the "labor of love" forworkers in the space program.
Still,Collins said, "The shuttle program has been tremendously successful, but it'stime to move on to something else."
Tonight,Collins, a native of Elmira, N.Y., and her crewmate Charlie Camarda, a Queens,N.Y., native, will toss out first pitches together at the New York Metsbaseball game.
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