MISSION CONTROL CENTER
STS-70 Status Report #8

Monday, July 17, 1995, 7:30 a.m. CDT

  The Space Shuttle Discovery continues to travel smoothly around the
globe as the five men and women on board began a fourth full day of
work with biological and materials processing experiments.

  The four Ohio natives and one New Yorker were awakened shortly after
midnight CDT to the fight song for the Cleveland Indians, "Talkin'
Tribe." Mission Specialist Mary Ellen Weber responded with "Good
mornin' Houston, how `bout them Indians?"

  Mission Specialist Nancy Currie sent down video images of developing
Medaka fish eggs as part of the Space Tissue Loss experiment and
filled out responses to a human factors research project looking at
ways to optimize astronaut performance on orbit.  Weber checked on the
progress of the Bioreactor Development System, which is growing human
tissue samples better than Earth-bound methods.

  Commander Tom Henricks and Pilot Kevin Kregel continued to work with
alignment of the HERCULES camera using star sightings. So far, they
have not succeeded in accomplishing alignment, which is required to
calibrate the HERCULES geolocation equipment.

  The crew also took time to answer questions from CNN reporter John
Holliman, and to voice down answers to queries posed by Internet
surfers visiting NASA's Shuttle Web.

  Discovery continues to orbit the Earth every 90 minutes in an orbit
of 194 by 175 miles.

-end-