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Hawaiian islands. we want to get some perspective on what it's like to fly aboard the space shuttle. one person who knows is astronaut clay anderson, he's logged 167 days in space since being selected as a mission specialist by nasa in 1998. he is with us from the johnson space center in texas. thanks for joining us. obviously you've been aboard "discovery." you had a five-month tour of duty working aboard the international space station. tell us what those guys aboard "discovery" are going through right now. >> well, it's great to be here today, and i did have two opportunities to come home...

They take over just before landing, so they're going to be very focused. they've done this many, many times. steve lindsay in orbit as well as in the shuttle training aircraft. so, i think it's going to be just executing what they've been trained to do. >> and specifically in that execution, what are they going to be maneuvering? what are they actually going to be doing in those -- we're looking at the countdown clock, 20 minutes or so, before we actually see them land. >> well, at this point, they're monitoring the systems. they're making sure everything's in order, and then the nice thing fo...

Shuttle? >> yes, and jon, the reason that the convoy stays back a little bit is they have to test the air, sniff the air around the orbiter, make sure the fuel used during reentry is not drifting away from the shuttle and once that's verified they can move in and connect air conditioning systems and get the crew some cabin cooling and soon after that their van will pull up, they'll transfer it to a medical facility that drives up to the shuttle and get a quick checkup. >> how is that crew feeling now? they been in space almost two weeks, they're back feeling the forces of gravity. what does th...

Motion sickness. you have to be careful and move steadily and slowly to keep your wits about you. >> clay, we're told two minutes to landing there. can you gives us a sense of what's the most critical aspect of this to have a successful landing. >> steve's going to guide the orbiter by flying it through the stick but eric bow has to bring down the landing gear for steve. we assume that the landing gear will koom down normally, but the crew is ready to follow the steps that they would need to do to bring it down in an alternate fashion if they needed to. but i think it will be just fine. >> we'...

He's very focused on what he's doing, looking at all the data to make sure he brings it down as smoothly as possible. >> what does it feel like that moment when you're actually landing? >> it's kind of surreal. you kind of let out a sigh of relief because you're safely home and back on the ground. but then kind of immediately once you roll out to the end of the runway, you're back in the checklist. you take a second to talk to the mission control center and congratulate one another, but then you're right back in the books making sure that you shut down the orbiter appropriately so you can begi...