everything looking very good on board the orbiter. by the way, the weather down in florida is perfect right now. yes. that was nice to hear that everything is looking perfect for the landing. now, back with us is tom jones, he s been through this before as a former nasa astronaut. and this will be the last time and also standing by is phil keating telling us what s going to be happening on the ground and how we re preparing for the landing of atlantis. first off, tom, we re pretty close. 400 plus miles. seems far away but not for the space shuttle, right? no, you know, you re still supersonic at this point and covering that ground and eating it up very quickly, about 10 minutes they ll be overhead spiralling down to the final approach. this is when the cockpit crew feels the sense of time accelerate. it s very exciting inside. it s like going down a dirt road in a dump truck. how much a little bumpy. tom, how much of the landing is actually done by computers vs. a per
and also standing by is phil keating telling us what s going to be happening on the ground and how we re preparing for the landing of atlantis. first off, tom, we re pretty close. 400 plus miles. seems far away but not for the space shuttle, right? no, you know, you re still supersonic at this point and covering that ground and eating it up very quickly, about 10 minutes they ll be overhead spiralling down to the final approach. this is when the cockpit crew feels the sense of time accelerate. it s very exciting inside. it s like going down a dirt road in a dump truck. how much a little bumpy. tom, how much of the landing is actually done by computers vs. a person? well, it s autopilot, steve, all the way from the indian ocean over to this point. as they get overhead as they drop into subsonic speed at 600 miles an hour, that s when chris ferguson, the commander takes over flying through his control stick. by the way, if you are in