Posted on January 10, 2013 by Thomas Pesquet
Capsule Resource Management
A pie and a pint. A pint of British ale, to be specific, lukewarm and flat as it’s supposed to be, and served in a cosy english pub, sitting close enough to the fireplace to let the flames warm me up a little bit from the chilly outside temperature (after all, it’s May in Cheshire, so I can be happy with 8 Celsius). What does it have to do with CRM? Everything. I will explain. But what on earth is CRM, to start with? Don’t worry, I won’t start a theoretical lesson here, and I will mention beer again, just to keep your attention up… CRM has numerous meanings, from Certified Risk...
Posted on July 18, 2012 by Andreas Mogensen
#Shenanigans09
In The Matrix, one of my favourite movies, Neo is walking up a set of stairs when he spots a black cat in a corridor. The cat disappears around a corner only to reappear in the corridor a few seconds later. Neo casually dismisses it as a case of déjà vu. However, Morpheus and Trinity immediately recognize it as a glitch in the Matrix and as a sign of the danger that is about to befall them. The same sort of situational awareness and attention to detail is necessary when you are a member of the Shenanigans 2009 class of ESA astronauts. Is your coffee cup still on the same side of...
Posted on June 12, 2012 by Samantha Cristoforetti
Leonardo and the guardian angels
If you ever have a chance to visit NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) – and it’s well worth a visit – you will notice a brightly coloured painting on the wall of the main control room. On the left side is an unusual depiction of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, which seamlessly fades into a human being in the same pose, but dressed in a white spacewalker’s EMU. That’s the Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or simply “the suit”. I love how this painting strikes a connection between human spaceflight and Leonardo, a figure who explored the potential of the human genius in engineering, art and the observation of nature. I wish I could...
Posted on May 28, 2012 by Samantha Cristoforetti
We expect the best, but prepare for the worse
Most astronauts dream of having the opportunity to perform a spacewalk at least once in their career and I am no exception to that rule. There’s something appealing about the idea of leaving behind the relative safety of the Space Station wearing your own little spaceship, about the thought of driving bolts while oceans and continents majestically pass by, about the challenge presented by the most physically and mentally demanding activity ISS crewmembers are confronted with. There are also specific risks inherent to a spacewalk and one of the most dreaded scenarios involves a spacewalker going unconscious due to a medical issue or a malfunction of the pressurized suit. Over 150 spacewalks...
Posted on May 13, 2012 by Samantha Cristoforetti
Outdoor staircases and brain gymnastics
I’ve been in Montreal for a week now, staying in the charming neighborhood of Plateau Mount Royal and spending full days of robotics training at the Canadian Space Agency. I haven’t ventured far beyond the commute route so far, except for the brief stroll to nearby cafés for breakfast, a little daily ritual that has progressively shifted later in the mornings as I have slowly digested the six-hour time shift from Europe. I have taken great pleasure in exploring the little quaint streets flanked by trees and row houses, each with a unique façade and with an outdoor staircase leading to an independent entrance on the second floor. Straight or curved, simple...
Posted on April 29, 2012 by Samantha Cristoforetti
No molecule shall stand still!
As part of my training on the systems of the International Space Station (ISS) I have passed my ECLSS exam a couple of weeks ago at Johnson Space Center in Houston. ECLSS is the Environmental Control and Life Support System and is one of the ISS systems that the crew interacts most with. What nature does for us when we are on the planet, we have to engineer for ourselves when we are in space. Things like water or waste management are very much on our minds on Earth as well, as we realize that we might be pushing the limits of nature’s ability to support our needs. But how about something...
Posted on March 28, 2012 by Thomas Pesquet
Patches, Watches, and Sunglasses, episode I: the patch
Patches, like watches and sunglasses, are a pilot’s thing. Worn on flight suits, leather jackets, or T-shirts, pinned on corridor walls or printed out on coffee mugs for the briefing room or the squadron mess, they are part of the decorum at every group of flyer’s hideout. They usually convey messages for the happy few who know how to read them, and if sometimes the message is encoded with an esoteric subtlety, sometimes… well, not that much (like that patch of a squadron whose name or country of origin I won’t mention, proudly sporting the motto “pulling G’s” above a stylized bulldog actively pulling on…a poor lady’s G-string clenched between his teeth....
Posted on February 9, 2012 by Luca Parmitano
Training in the Soyuz
Strapped in my cramped seat in the small cockpit next to my commander, I scan the instruments looking for trouble. There’s nothing obvious, but there’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll have a failure, probably more than one. We only undocked a few minutes ago, and already we had to use a reserve procedure because the automatic undocking sequence never started. So, as we wait for the spacecraft to reorient itself in space, I check every parameter and mentally compare it with the numbers I have memorized, knowing that I’ll find something, hopefully before it’s too late. I hear the commander talking to Ground Control, because one of the infrared systems...
Posted on January 24, 2012 by Thomas Pesquet
A long awaited reunion
The first entry of a blog, although not impressive or exceptional in itself, is still a first. It somehow sets the tone, and even if we’ve all always been told not to judge on a first impression, I know I can’t shake off a bad initial feeling, and respectively, that a good first impression has always something beneficial. Then, after a variable adjustment period, this first impression will slowly be replaced by who you really are. So here I am, jabbering on about first impressions, whereas I (we) have so much to say. But one thing at a time: first of all let me thank you, whoever you might be, for coming...
