Pam Melroy interview - ask a question

[apollo13]

My question would be,
Do you think it was the chance of a lifetime to command a mission?

[kimmern123]

Good question, apollo13! However the interview has already occured.

[ShuttleDiscovery]

kimmern123 - 9/12/2007  11:35 AM

Good question, apollo13! However the interview has already occured.

I thought that question was a bit late! Never mind...

[BWP]

I would ask any astronaut is it hard or easy on final approach to landing? I know the shuttle has a new cockpit.  Atlantis was the first to upgrade to glass.

[MKremer]

BWP - 6/2/2008  10:52 PM

I would ask any astronaut is it hard or easy on final approach to landing? I know the shuttle has a new cockpit.  Atlantis was the first to upgrade to glass.

"Glass" is insignificant once you're in the HAC - it's the HUD, your training/experience, and a good PLT to back you up that determine easy/hard.

I'd guess an average orbiter landing is probably easier overall than landing a high-performance fighter on a very wide, very long runway. The difference is handling the pressure of landing a one-of-a kind national treasure -vs- a production line fighter aircraft.

[kimmern123]

Hey everybody! I'm sorry for the delay. We've had some computer issues related to getting the magazine printed and I didn't want to post anything here before the magazine is published. I'm starting to run out of patience here so I'm going to give it a few more days before posting some of Pam's replies, at least to those questions that I managed to include from this site. Therefore, I wouldn't lock this thread just yet

Thank you for your patience. I'll be interviewing Leland Melving and Hans Schlegel tomorrow and I'll make a thread for it over in the Atlantis section. It's kind of short notice, but hopefully some of you will submit a few questions.

[kimmern123]

Absolutely not
I'll be posting Pam's answers during the next few days. I may not write up all of them at once, but I think I'll post at least a couple tonight, or early tomorrow.

[kimmern123]

Wildthing - 4/12/2007  12:58 AM

I'd ask her what her secret was to having such a fun crew. They were high-fiving, cracking jokes, etc throughout the mission....I'd say they set a new record for most fun orbit by any shuttle crew. How did she set the tone for the type of crew experience..??

I mentioned to Pam that to many of us that watched the flight, the crew always were joking and having fun. Here's her reply:

"That is exactly how I feel about it too. It was just a wonderful crew to work with and we loved to laugh. That was a big thing I learned about the crew very early on, that the more stressed out people got, the more the jokes were flying, and that was how our crew dealt with difficult situations -- was by making jokes and laughing, and relieving the tension that way. And, you know, that is unusual, it really is and it was just very special. We are like a big family and we all love each other very much"

[kimmern123]

ShuttleDiscovery - 3/12/2007  10:39 PM
- You performed a perfect landing at the end of the mission, what was going through your mind during those final minutes before touchdown when you were guiding Discovery back to KSC?

Here's what Pam said about the landing. That's also the last question from Pam's interview that I managed to include in my interview:

"The landing was very exciting. It's the highlight for any shuttle commander. What was interesting, though, that I perhaps should've thought more of, was what 15 days in microgravity would do to my body. You know, in space you get used to doing these slow gentle movements, fairly quickly, as bumping your head everywhere isn't that comfortable in the long run, but now all of a sudden I had to react very quickly. The six or seven minutes I had of manual flying really just seem like seconds. In one moment I started pulling the nose up and in the next I felt the gear touching down. When I look back it's really just the last few seconds before touchdown I can clearly remember"