Space

DATE=07/21/01

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=STATION / SPACEWALK (L)

NUMBER=2-278496

BYLINE=DAVID McALARY

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

CONTENT=

INTERNET=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: U-S astronauts have inaugurated the international space station's new doorway to space. As we hear from V-O-A Science Correspondent David McAlary, the astronauts floated outside the outpost for four hours Saturday to install the last of four gas tanks that pressurize the passageway.

TEXT: Astronauts Jim Reilly and Mike Gernhardt became the first to use the gateway that they installed from the visiting space shuttle Atlantis last Sunday.

With the help of the station's robot arm, they completed outfitting the airlock with a nitrogen tank on the portal's exterior, similar to three other nitrogen and oxygen tanks they had attached on a previous spacewalk Wednesday.

Mr. Gernhardt noted that their outing began exactly 32 years after U-S astronauts first stepped on the moon.

/// GERNHARDT ACT ///

On this historic anniversary of the first moonwalk, it's a real honor for the integrated shuttle and station crews to usher in a new era of spacewalking from the international space station.

/// END ACT ///

It is a new era because, for the first time, the new chamber allows U-S spacewalkers to wear their own spacesuits. Until now, they had to use Russian spacesuits through a smaller Russian exit with connections that are incompatible with U-S gear.

Shuttle flight director Paul Hill says the passageway - combined with the outpost's recently-added robot arm -- means that a shuttle does not have to be present for U-S spacewalkers to continue assembling the station.

/// HILL ACT 1 ///

We really couldn't get past where station had grown to without adding this airlock and adding the station arm. Now that we have those, the gate is wide open for us to keep right on building.

/// END ACT ///

Minor air leaks that had plagued the airlock earlier in the week were absent for Saturday's spacewalk, allowing it to be depressurized successfully so it matched the vacuum of space before the two crewmen departed through it. But station flight director Mark Kirasich [KIR-uh-sitch] says the pressure reduction took much longer than expected - 40 minutes instead of the planned six or seven minutes.

/// KIRASICH ACT ///

I don't have a good explanation, so we're scratching our heads (still perplexed) and we've got a little more work to do on figuring out why that happened. But the airlock is fully operational and ready to go to support continuation of the assembly sequence.

/// END ACT ///

/// OPT /// This week's airlock installation brings the weight of the space station to 119 tons. That is already half of what its total weight will be when it is completed in 2006. It is also 17 stories high, a vision shuttle flight director Paul Hill says almost boggles the mind.

/// OPT // HILL ACT 2 ///

Station is this huge thing. To think that within a couple of years after we've built out and added the rest of the solar modules, when this thing flies over, during the daylight you will be able to look up for the first time and see a man-made object flying through the sky with a naked eye.

/// END ACT // END OPT ///

Atlantis undocks from the station Sunday, less than three weeks before another shuttle is due with more cargo for the outpost. (Signed)

NEB/DEM/JWH