Aug. 20, 2001

 By Steven Siceloff
 FLORIDA TODAY

 CAPE CANAVERAL - The Expedition Two crew checked under the figurative
 beds and in the drawers to make sure they had everything as shuttle
 Discovery prepared to leave space station Alpha and its new residents
 Monday.

 Pat Forrester completed one of the last tasks Sunday, moving the
 20-foot-long cargo cylinder known as Leonardo off the outpost and back
 into the shuttle's payload bay.

 Inside Leonardo was more than a ton of used gear, completed experiments
 and trash.

 Forrester was taken aback by his first excursion outside the shuttle.

 "They can't prepare you for ... just how beautiful the Earth looks from
 outside the shuttle," Forrester said.

 Astronaut Dan Barry, Forrester's partner on the spacewalks, had seen the
 Earth from inside a spacesuit before, but was unsure what to expect from
 the space station that has grown exponentially from the two small modules
 he visited in 1999.

 "The sheer size is amazing," he said. "You truly feel like you are
 climbing a mountain (or the) side of a building."

 During his previous spacewalk, Barry said it was no problem figuring out
 where on the station he was. This time, the station's additional modules
 and jutting solar arrays made navigation trickier.

 Discovery's four crewmen plus the station's former crew will depart Alpha
 at 10:52 a.m. today, leaving Expedition Three commander Frank Culbertson
 and his Russian crewmates Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin behind.

 After springing a small test satellite from the cargo bay today, the
 astronauts and one cosmonaut will spend Tuesday preparing the orbiter for
 Wednesday's 12:48 p.m. landing at Kennedy Space Center.