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Crew installing treadmill at space station |
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September 17, 2000
SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - The crew of the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis began installing a special exercise treadmill aboard the international space station early Saturday, one of their last major tasks inside the orbiting complex. The seven-man crew also began wrapping up the transfer and stowage of some 6,000 pounds (2,700 kilograms) of supplies and equipment for the station's first permanent residents, who are due to arrive in November. Pilot Scott Altman, astronaut Edward Lu and cosmonaut Boris Morukov began fitting the treadmill - about the size of a four-drawer file cabinet - into a pit in the floor of the Russian service module Zvezda. They hit a small snag early on, having some trouble getting a mounting pin to fit, but Mission Control figured out a solution. No off-the-rack treadmill, this one was designed so that an astronaut running on it would not transfer any vibrations to the station's structure. The reason: to keep intact any sensitive microgravity experiments. Vibrations would skew the data from the experiments, which will be performed throughout the space station. The treadmill vibration isolation system includes a frame of guy wires, bungee cords and computer-controlled dampening mechanisms. The complexity of the system made for intricate work, the U.S. space agency, NASA, said. "There were a lot of pieces," space station lead flight director Mark Ferring said. Astronauts must exercise while in orbit to prevent their muscles from atrophying in the weightless environment. The station's first permanent crew, an American and two Russians due for a four-month stay, will be the first to use the treadmill. Atlantis' crew has just one more day inside the station, and they'll spend it getting ready to leave. "That's going to take the lion's share of the day," Ferring said. The crew will seal up the station on Sunday, with undocking planned for around 0400 GMT. The station won't be empty for long. Space shuttle Discovery, already sitting on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, is scheduled to blast off Oct. 5 for some serious orbital construction work: the attachment of an exterior truss and a connecting segment for later station modules. Atlantis is due back on Earth early Wednesday. On the Net: NASA: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/index-m.html
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