Aug. 23, 2001

 Discovery returns crew from Alpha

 Perfect landing ends mission

 By Steven Siceloff
 FLORIDA TODAY

 CAPE CANAVERAL - Discovery glided smoothly out of a cloudy sky Wednesday
 afternoon, then lifted its nose and gracefully touched down on Kennedy
 Space Center's shuttle runway.

 The flawless landing ended a 12-day mission to space station Alpha for
 four of the astronauts and wrapped up 167 days in space for the three
 others.

 The crew got an extra 90 minutes in space because a bank of stubborn
 clouds blossomed in the morning, blocking the shuttle's first try. Rain
 disappeared and the cloud bank evaporated in time for a 2:23 p.m.
 touchdown.

 On the way down from space, Discovery commander Scott "Doc" Horowitz and
 astronaut Dan Barry said they got a feel for how fast they were going as
 they got closer to Earth.

 "The thing that strikes you first is at these kinds of speeds, the world
 is going by in a real big hurry," Horowitz said. "There's Houston,
 there's New Orleans, OK, now turn left."Russian cosmonaut Yury Usachev
 and astronauts Jim Voss and Susan Helms rode on Discovery's lower level,
 with their backs to the floor and their feet resting in lockers. The
 three have spent the past five months living aboard Alpha.

 Terry Taddeo, NASA flight surgeon, said the reclined position keeps blood
 from pooling in their feet as gravity takes hold of them for the first
 time in five months. The three were told to move their heads around a lot
 as Discovery made its way home to get their body's balance senses back in
 shape.

 "They don't have as much blood on board as you or I would," Taddeo said,
 explaining that in weightlessness, the human body does not need as much
 blood as on Earth, so the body doesn't replenish its supply as quickly.

 Soon after Discovery came to a halt on the runway, a bus similar to the
 "people movers" seen at airports drove out and raised an air-conditioned
 room up to the hatch. NASA and Russian Space Agency doctors were on hand
 to help the crews out of the orbiter and see how they adjusted to
 gravity.

 After several hours of medical tests Wednesday, Horowitz said the
 Expedition Two crewmembers would get to eat some of their favorite foods,
 including hamburgers, salads and real coffee and cheese.

 "They're cooking them over in the crew quarters right now," Horowitz
 said.

 Most heartwarming to the shuttle crew was the reunion the station
 residents had with their families shortly after landing.

 "It really struck me what we had done on this mission," Horowitz
 said.Horowitz, pilot Rick Sturckow and astronauts Barry and Patrick
 Forrester climbed out of Discovery with little problem and looked around
 the orbiter while Usachev, Voss and Helms waited inside the bus.

 "It's a little warm," Horowitz joked while touching Discovery's nosecone.
 The area heats up to more than 2,300 degrees during the orbiter's plunge
 into the atmosphere.

 The crew will fly back to Houston today. The former station residents
 will begin weeks of rehabilitation. Usachev will spend several days in
 Houston before returning to Star City, Russia for the rest of his
 reconditioning.

 The landing ended an 11-month phase of the International Space Station
 program that saw eight shuttle missions add segments to the outpost and
 carry astronauts and cosmonauts to live aboard it.

 The outpost grew from two sections of less than 60 feet to more than 120
 feet that on Earth would weigh 280,000 pounds and stand 12 stories high.
 The living space is about the same as a three-bedroom house.

 The project has run into significant difficulties in the past year, with
 its costs ballooning another $4.8 billion.

 NASA Administrator Dan Goldin said minutes after the landing that the
 program would be a success.

 "We're going to solve all the station problems," he said, pointing out
 that other countries may build a living quarters and escape ship to let
 the station host six or seven crewmembers at a time. "We've cancelled
 nothing. We're NASA, we don't shrink from problems."

 Discovery will now be grounded for more than a year so the ship can
 undergo a series of inspections and some modifications. The work is
 expected to be done at Kennedy Space Center instead of at the Boeing
 plant in Palmdale, Calif., where the shuttle was built. It will mark the
 first time since 1992 that the intense work will be done in Florida.

 Goldin said the agency is still making its final plans for Discovery, and
 its trying to decide the best way to schedule its shuttle fleet for
 maintenance.