For the first time in history all the major countries in the world are pushing together to reach this goal... building something in space that is really for all humankind.
I was, I remember, I still remember when the first time I pointed the telescope at the sky and I saw Saturn with the rings. It was a beautiful image.
Also we will be carrying food and clothes for the Expedition Two crew. And as well as spare parts for the EVA that will be conducted from the station in the following months.
But, what we need to get out of the first EVA is to have the arm completely unfolded and powered so that they can keep the temperature under control. That will really the call of the first EVA.
I remember; I was 15 years old when Neil Armstrong put feet in the moon.
At that point, there will be the handover between the shuttle arm and the station arm so that the shuttle arm will take the cradle and put it into the cargo bay.
And then I graduate two years later, in 1998, with my class. And, since then I've been here in Houston for training basically. And I was very happy to be assigned to this mission.
And so, I will be probably, since I am not involved in all the activity, I will have some spare time to devote to document all this busy part of the flight.
And then my chance really happened in 1996 when we added the second flight of the tether satellite.
During that space walk there will be some repositioning of the power so that the arm can be fully controlled by the robotic station that is in the Lab.
When this space walk will be completed, then the arm will be fully operational and ready for the next activity that will be pretty much the testing, the first flight testing of the space station arm.
And just when we were at the end of our design process there was the news that the Italian government and the U.S. government had signed an agreement to fly the first Italian astronaut on that flight.
And since Italy was involved in the space station as well as signed an agreement with NASA. And when the possibility to enter the 1996 Mission Specialist class.
In particular, this arm has 7 degrees-of-freedom that makes the overall motion of the arm very complex so that, before you start driving the arm, you should be very familiar with all the position it can get.
