Does that make the Return to Flight of Space Shuttles critical to the future of ISS?
Oh, yeah, I think so. I don’t know how we could run the Space Station as we have it without the Shuttle. It would be very difficult. You know, I flew on the Mir space station, the precursor to the International Space Station; that was a remarkable vehicle that had been built without a Shuttle. And you could see the consequences of that. For example, large pieces of equipment that were no longer needed were still there, they were just floating around tied off somewhere; there was nowhere to put them. You couldn’t send them in the Progress because they were too big. In fact, the Mir space station was extremely cluttered as a consequence of that. We don’t want that to happen to the International Space Station. It needs the Shuttle for these missions. The Space Station right now has four Control Moment Gyros. One has failed, one is suspect, and I’m sure they’re biting their fingernails over the other two. One of the things we will do on our mission is repair one of those gyros. That’s a ve
