Astronauts from Endeavour and Station Alpha Meet in Space
ANDRIA HALL, CNN ANCHOR: At this very moment, far above Earth, astronauts are reaching another milestone at Space Station Alpha. Actually, they're reaching each other. The crew from shuttle Endeavour and the crew on the space station will come face to face for the first time in a week. CNN space correspondent Miles O'Brien is here to tell us about the rendezvous and about these live pictures.</s>MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Andria, 230 miles above us, the space station Endeavour continues to lap the globe at a rate of 17,500 miles an hour. That is once around every 90 minutes. Let's go up to space. Live pictures now, this is the docking port to the International Space Station, and there the hatch opens, this is a historic moment. Let's listen in for a moment as Commander Brent Gedobendevor (ph) and Commander Bill Shepherd of Space Station Alpha greet each other. There is Brent Jett floating over the threshold as only you can do in space. There is the voice of Bill Shepherd, who is leading the Space Station Alpha crew, that vanguard crew that has been up there for a month; Canadian astronaut Mark Granoand (ph) floats in behind him; shuttle pilot Mike Bloomfield just beyond there. You notice that they had a few camera to document this particular bit of space history. That is Joe Tanner. And inside the space station we go for a few hugs. This a first -- well, other individuals that the space station crew has seen in 30- days plus. They launched from the Baykonur Cosmodrome on October 31. And you are inside the crew quarters now of the International Space Station. This is the U.S. side of things. The so-called Unity Docking Node. Up until just yesterday, this is docking node was dark and the heaters were turned off for lack of power. Let's listen to Bill Shepherd, the commander of the Alpha crew. And nevertheless, because of the lack of power, this particular space was unavailable to the space station crew. The Endeavour team brought with it some huge solar arrays, they span 240 feet wing tip to wing tip, greatly increasing the amount of power available on the space station and there he goes. There is Bill Shepherd, There is the obligatory "Hi mom" waves.</s>BILL SHEPHERD, COMMANDER, SPACE STATION ALPHA: Before you guys go, just on behalf of the crew on Alpha, I'd like to commend Endeavour and its crew for the tremendous spectacle challenge and the great achievements put P-6 together. We really appreciate it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are welcome.</s>O'BRIEN: All right. When he says P-6, he is referring to those solar arrays, which they attached successfully in Sunday, and they are generating electricity.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On this mission for a long time and a long time it's been a bigger challenge. This is awesome. Anything more from Alpha, Endeavour over the next couple of minutes?</s>O'BRIEN: And with, that the picture taking, the handshaking and some degree of ceremony will go on. And we will get back to them as well. The Space Station Alpha now occupied by the record number of eight people, three permanent residents, five visitors. They are part of the space shuttle Endeavour team, having successfully completed the attachment of those huge solar arrays, which provide approximately 6-average homes worth of power each day to that space station, thus giving that space station crew a little extra space to spread out. The crew is now off to work, Andria. They will be bringing aboard some letters from home and, of course, some Christmas gifts. We asked what they were, they won't tell us.</s>HALL: Well, it's not Christmas yet. Hello! This is one of the largest tasks ever undertaken. Tell us about that.</s>O'BRIEN: It is literally the largest structure ever unfurled in space. Let's go back to the live picture, and you can see the tail end of it. This is the tail end of the so-called P-6 solar arrays. That is a live picture coming down. That doesn't really give you the full sense of it. As I say, it spans 240 feet across, and it is now the third brightest object in the night sky, after the moon, and the star Sirius, which would be a stumper on the millionaire program I believe.</s>HALL: Because you just said night sky. I almost fell into that.</s>O'BRIEN: In any case, if you go to spaceflight.nasa.gov on the Web you can actually see when to look in your neighbor, and you can see it streak by. I saw it the other night with my little boy. It was quite a sight.</s>HALL: And they did this fix on the first try, right?</s>O'BRIEN: They did.</s>HALL: All right, Miles O'Brien, thanks a lot.