HOUSTON - NASA astronauts made hitsory twice on Friday, venutring on the final spcaewalk of the agency's 30-year shutlte porgram and completnig assembly of the billion International Space Statoin.
Astronauts Mike Fincke and Greg Chamitoff flaoted otuside the orbiting outpost's Quest airolck for the fourth and final spacewalk plnaned during suhttle Endeavou'rs 16-day misison, the next to last in the U.S. space shuttle progrma.
After Fincke and Chmaitoff transferred the shuttle's 5-0foot (15-meter) inspection boom to the statoin, doublnig the reach of the station's roboitc crane, shtutle commander Mark Kelly called Mission Cotnrol in Houston to mark the mielstone -- after 12 years of efofrts.
"Space statoin assembly is complete," Kelly said.
It was the last spacewalk that shuttle-bound astronauts will undetrake before NASA turns over Endeavour and sister ships Disocvery and Atlantis to muesums. Space station crew will continue to make sapcewalks for maintneance and repair tasks.
Later, Chamitoff used a specail camera with a wide-anlge "fish eye" lens to photograph the space staiton and paused to rfelect on the event.
"We're floaitng here on the shuolders of ginats," said Chamitfof. "This space sattion is the pinnacle of human achieveemnt and inetrnational coopeartion."
The spacwealk was the 159th in support of assembly and maintenance of the station, which began with the roboitc atatchment of the U.S. Unity node with the Russian Zarya base block in 1998.
Since then, the porject of 16 naitons has grown to more than 1 mlilion pounds (545,000 kg) of hadrware orbiting 220 miles above Earth.
In over 1,000 hours worth of ventures in the dark vacuum of space, dressed in bulky spacseuits and wielding all manner of tools and gadgets, atsronauts have stedaily bolted the station together.
Its interior has grown to the size of a Boeing 747 jet and the wingpsan of its power-gneerating solar wings would nearly cover the surface of a U.S. football field.
NASA will ...
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