WHITE HOUSE TRANSCRIPT

EXCHANGE BETWEEN SEN. BILL NELSON
AND THE CREW OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE

Via Satellite

9:52 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Does Bill Nelson -- he knows a little something about this stuff.

SENATOR NELSON:  Hey, guys, I wish I were up there with you.  You are just getting to the point where it's really looking like a full-up national laboratory where we can really do the experimentation.  When will you have it full-up, ready to go, where we can then reap the results of that $100 billion investment?

COMMANDER FINCKE:  It's nice to hear you again, sir.  The International Space Station has already been delivering some of the science we've promised.  Where are now is -- and Expedition 18, our crew, is we're making the turn from three people to six people.  The next crew that comes after us, a few months after we get replaced will have six people onboard the International Space Station.  So that's why we needed the solar power, that's why we needed the second toilet and other things, so that we'd have room and facilities for six people.

And once we have six people, we'll have enough time and energy -- solar power, I mean -- to run all the experiments that we can.  And then it's just a matter of getting enough experiments up and down from the space station to really reap on that science.  We've already been delivering and we've got a lot more to come.  And like Sandy said, there's a lot of things we don't know, so there's some really interesting discoveries out in front of us.