even last night the space shuttle endeavor, the commander mark pulanski had this to say before lights out. >> we noticed in the news uplink that a gentleman and a pioneer passed away. that person, of course, is walter cronkite. we thought that we'd be remiss if in not recognizing him for what he meant to a bunch of us who happened to grow up in the era where the early astronauts and mercury, gemini and apollo were going off. i certainly remember watching television and watching many astronauts sitaling next to him providing commentary from a desk somewhere down in florida. >> smith: john glenn, you got to know him personally. what kind of a man was walter cronkite? >> very friendly. very... he was pretty much to me off the air the same as he was on the air. he was just a good guy to be around and a lot of jokes. a lot of fun. in addition to it. there were a lot of pranks down around the cape in some of the early days. walter was right in the middle of some of them. he was highly interested in every detail of the space program. he wanted to get into it himself. i think later on when th

bill: tom jones, you know the pilot aboard who landed. >> yes, mark pulanski was on his first flightith him. he is a former air force test pilot. the best thing about this plan is they are right there with their family waiting for them. bill: down to phil keating. what are you seeing? >> probably the largest crowd we have seen for shuttle landings. most of the time they are here for the lunches, -- launches and but you get the feeling that more and more people are getting excited about this. the sonic booms were loud when it came into the atmosphere. it is not like dropping and care plan come down the runway. it drops fast. perfect landing. bill: you have seen a number of these. by the book? >> that is right. everything looked by the book. they came over cuba, right over the fort myers area, and then turned around to land here at the kennedy space center. it is a good thing that the landing opportunity was right now. later on this afternoon, classic florida thunderstorms could be on the way. bill: thank you. back to you, tom. this was an historic mission. you have 13 people on board