This is my attempt at giving you a glimpse into the peculiar life in Star City. The idea has come from a request of the friends at the Karemaski Multi Art Lab in Arezzo, Italy. They have sponsored a science fiction writing contest to honor Valentina Tereshkova’s spaceflight 50 years ago. The best short stories will be published in a collection that will also include an Italian translation of this text. This is the first of three parts. There’s something magical about Star City. I remember crisply when I drove past the entrance gate for the first time. I had been an astronaut with the European Space Agency (ESA) for a year...
Luca writes: I am in Moscow, Russia, five weeks till launch. These are the last weeks I will spend with my feet firmly on the ground (my head is still in the clouds, as always). I feel...
I have been a bit absent from this blog in the last couple of months: my apologies for that. Believe it or not, I was given a pretty long break from formal ISS training – although I have kept my head in the books! It’s been a busy time nevertheless: I’ve taken care of some personal matters, like a move, and I have worked my way through piles of documents, unanswered correspondence and all kinds of little and big open actions that had accumulated in over a year and a half of almost constant travel around the world for training. So I’m ready to start off with a clear mind, a clean...
The International Space Station is a very safe working environment, as I explained elsewhere. However, the fact of being in space does make some situations quite critical and potentially life-threatening, therefore crewmembers practice extensively the proper response...
The ESA-developed Automated Transfer Vehicle, or ATV, is the flagship of the ISS cargo spacecraft program. No doubt about that: even though I’m just a rookie, I’ve heard it so many times from experienced astronauts and cosmonauts to quickly become convinced. About as big as a London two-decker, the ATV has more than sheer size to amaze us. It’s the only cargo vehicle that stays docked to the Station for 6 months, thus greatly increasing its inhabitable volume: for the long duration astros and cosmos, a welcome luxury. It transports all kinds of dry and wet cargo, air, other gases, fuel (and a guitar that was specially modified so I could take...
Whistling, of all things. Like my fellow “Shenanigan” Alex right next to me, I’m puckering my lips and trying diligently, but the results are modest. Whistling may be a trivial enough task, but not when the atmosphere in our Orlan suits is now down to less than half of the normal sea-level pressure, way too rarefied for any proper sounds to be produced. Even the pitch of our voices is changed as the thinner atmosphere blows on our vocal chords. And the hoarseness in my throat is accompanied by an overall unusual feeling in my airways: not at all unpleasant or disturbing, just very new to me. In truth, most of today’s...
Well, no, not really. I have only just started to tackle the great deal of skills and knowledge I will need to acquire on my journey to the launchpad. Still, the seven days I spent kayaking and camping in Alaska this last September under the expert guidance of two wonderful NOLS instructors, Josh and Ashley, taught me a lot of lessons that will hopefully make me a better crewmember on the International Space Station. NOLS expeditions are one of several space-analogue training environments that are meant to foster team-building and to practice “human behaviour and performance” skills – intangible, yet invaluable personal assets ranging from leadership/followership and decision making to self-awareness and...
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...
Editors note: this is Timothy Peake’s blog entry reprinted from the NASA Neemo Blog After months of training and preparation the day finally arrived… Splashdown for NASA’s NEEMO 16 mission. The crew woke early, eager to pack the few last remaining items into the ‘pots’ that our superb support crew, amongst their many other tasks, would be taking down to the Aquarius habitat ahead of our arrival. The atmosphere on the Key Largo dockside this morning was buzzing with activity, conversation and good humour. The NEEMO mission team had gathered to say farewell to the saturation crew – and despite our intense excitement at what lay ahead we were genuinely sorry to say...
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...
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...
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...
Welcome aboard the NEEMO 16 mission! Destination: Asteroid, deep space Date: 11-22 June 2012 Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to be assigned to NASA’s Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) 16th mission to an underwater habitat called ‘Aquarius’, which lies about 20m under the ocean and nearly 8 miles off Florida’s Key Largo coast. Over the years, NEEMO missions have been used by NASA to provide vital research and development data to support future exploration missions. Living underwater is an excellent space analog – the crew can practice EVA (‘spacewalk’) techniques using neutral buoyancy in water, whilst Aquarius offers an environment similar to a spacecraft: confined living space, total reliance on...
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...
