STS-116 Crew Mission Presentation

[John44]

video - STS-116 Crew Mission Presentation

http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1538&Itemid=1

[Gary]

Thanks so much for this - I love these presentations - Do you have any more?

[kimmern123]

I was supposed to attend a similar event here in Oslo today (with about 1100 others, so no chance for questions). But instead I got to attend a reception ceremony at the US Ambassador's residence, also in Oslo, yesterday evening. I got to meet all the crew members and most of them actually just came up to me and introduced themselves.

 Nicholas Patrick was a class act. He really took his time answering all questions people had thoroughly and told me a really vivid description of the launch. Mark Polansky talked about the docking and I asked him later what it's like taking the orbiter in for landing. He said the orbiter's amazingly responsive and is quite easy to manouevre for "such a lousy design of an aircraft". Christer was, not unexpected, the most popular of the astronauts in attendance. I did however manage to ask him a bit about finally getting into space after wating for 14 years, and a few other things.

The only thing I'm a bit sad about is that I didn't get to speak to Joan Higignbotham. She came up to me when they arrived, shook my hand and introduced herself. She was really nice, but I never got time to speak to her after that. I didn't get to speak with Beamer either yesterday, but I met him today and he was a really great guy.

There was one other person that also helped make the night special and that was Ambassador Benson K. Whitney. He was a great happy, cheery guy and we talked much about what opportunities in education there is in the US for people in Norway and Europe.

I have many, many more stories from these two days, but if I should've written all of it I'll be writing well into next week.

Sorry for going on, contact me if you have any queries.

Kim