Journalist Report 8-4-01

Mission Support Crew
Mission Director: Tony Muscatello
CapCom: Jim Rankin
Engineering Officer/Journalist: Dewey Anderson

A very quiet day.

Steve Braham reported that Pascal's computer had caught the SirCam virus and so reports would be delayed for the moment.

Pascal Lee sent email saying we should include Kelly Snook's email address when sending email to the field team. This may have to do with them not wanting to use Pascal's computer because of the virus.

Kelly Snook sent us an initial greeting message saying they would "transmit soon". No further reports were forthcoming.

Questions were received from KSC and Tony Muscatello recorded answers at Mission Support. It appears that the Field Team responded with answers in time for KSC to use them, but the standard telephone connection with KSC failed (they didn't answer the phone) so we don't know if they got them OK. They have not sent an email confirmation. As we understand it, there is a new crew working at KSC and some procedures might not have been passed on to them, and they are no doubt going through a learning curve on the process.

Pascal mentioned, in they're KSC reply, that the team was about to head out on EVA. This gave us the impression that we would be getting nothing from them.

Given the complete lack of contact from the Field Team, the Mission Support team took at dinner break at 5:00 pm MDT until 6:30 MDT at a local restaurant. We sent the Field Team a message letting them know we were doing this before we left. There were no messages from the Field Team upon our return.

This was Jim Rankin's last day in Colorado and we thank him for his TREMENDOUS support during his support. He returns home to New York tonight.