First Step: Astronauts Rave About Spacewalking

Oct. 26, 2007 — -- Astronauts Scott Parazynski and Doug Wheelock had quite a view — one that very few people get to see. Earth was the backdrop for the Discovery crewmates as they added a large space module to the International Space Station.

"You guys can go out and play," station commander Peggy Whitson told the two astronauts before they opened the door to the space station hatch and floated out into space.

"We call it work, but you know better," Parazynski told Whitson. "Best job in the universe."

The shuttle Discovery launched from Florida Tuesday morning and arrived at the International Space Station Thursday. Today's was just one of five spacewalks (a record) planned before the shuttle's scheduled return to Earth Nov. 6.

Job No. 1 today was to help attach a new bus-size section, nicknamed Harmony, to the space station. It is the first addition to the station's living space in several years.

It will be used principally as a corridor. New laboratories, built by the Japanese and European space agencies, are to be attached to it.

So the astronauts had a long to-do list when they began their spacewalk today. Parazynski raved about the sunrise as he floated outside.

"You just can't re-create that shade of blue on Earth," he said.

Parazynski said he could hardly believe his good luck getting assigned to this shuttle mission.

"I am just so thrilled. This mission from a personal perspective is just beyond my wildest imagination," he told ABC News before Discovery launched. "I looked at this flight several years ago, and I said, out of all the flights I would like to be associated with, this flight is the most dramatic, complex thing I could possibly imagine. I did not have any glimmer of a hope that I would one day be assigned to it."

Parazynski's partner, first-time spacewalker Wheelock, had wondered whether he would be overwhelmed by the first step out into space and whether he should rehearse something memorable to say.

"Scott and I have sort of joked about famous first words of people when the wow factor hits them, and it hits them visually and perceptively," Wheelock said. "I have heard people talk a little bit about … not a sense of falling, but when you are on a curved surface, your brain tends to think, 'It is a big planet down there — lots of space between me and it, curved surface. I am falling.'"