U.S. Rep. Cramer to talk with Space Station crew, meet with news media at Marshall Center

U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer of Alabama will talk to the Expedition Three crew
onboard the International Space Station at 8:45 a.m. CDT Tuesday, Aug. 21.
He will make the call from the Space Station Payload Operations Center at
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Cramer is scheduled to talk with astronaut Frank L. Culbertson. A veteran of
two space flights, Culbertson is commanding the Expedition Three mission
during its five-month flight. A native of South Carolina, he is the only
American Expedition Three crewmember.

Local news media may see and hear the call from Marshall’s Payload
Operations Center viewing room. Immediately after the call — expected to
last about 15 minutes — Cramer will meet with news media and Marshall
senior management. Cramer serves on the House Appropriations Committee,
which writes and approves the spending bills for most federal government
programs.

The Payload Operations Center at Marshall is the science command post for
Space Station science activities, the most ambitious research endeavor ever
undertaken in space. The center links Earth-bound researchers with their
experiments and astronauts in orbit.

Marshall is NASA’s lead center for development of space transportation and
propulsion systems and advanced large optics manufacturing technology, as
well as microgravity research — scientific research in the unique
low-gravity environment inside the International Space Station and other
spacecraft.

To cover this event, news media should come to the Media Relations
Department in room 107, Bldg. 4200, no later than 8:15 a.m. For more
information on Culbertson, visit:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/culberts.html