Miscellaneous stories

Some unfinished short stories and scenes.

Boys’ Own Adventure
Freefall
Space Station 3D
Hamming It Up
Sneaking Outside

Preflight Training: Boys’ Own Adventure

“Menya budet mutit’ ….” Joe groaned, holding his head. This was one of the few Russian phrases he could remember, and he had found it very useful during his training in Zvyozdyi Gorodok, Star City. He hauled himself to his feet and staggered off into the surrounding fir and birch forest, from whence came the sound of retching.

“Caught up with him at last,” remarked Yuri, who looked a little pale himself. He peered into the bottle of Stolichnaya vodka – one of two he and Sergei had smuggled along to this training session. There was only a small amount remaining. He grabbed one of the three small shot glasses they had brought along and poured some in, downing it in a gulp.

“He’ll forget his woes for a while,” said Sergei, after belching. He shivered, huddling close to the campfire they had built during the afternoon, holding his hands out to warm them over the flames. His breath frosted in the minus-20 degree Celsius air that was normal for a Russian winter.

After a few minutes, Joe returned, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his jumper (after having scrubbed his face with snow). “Bitch,” he mumbled to no one in particular, as he slumped down next to his crewmates.

They had spent the day practicing their Soyuz winter survival training; the first of two days. This involved being trucked to a remote location in the forests surrounding Zvyozdyi Gorodok, along with the Soyuz training capsule, a mock-up of the Re-entry Module in which the crew sat when returning to Earth from orbit. In case the module landed off-course, extensive survival training was undertaken on land and water during the Russian segment of the 20-month International Space Station training curriculum. They also did similar winter training in Canada.

After clambering out of the cramped capsule, wriggling out of their Sokol pressure suits and into the survival kit’s woolen jumpers and padded overalls, they set about gathering wood and clearing the camping area. They chopped down a few young birch trees for firewood and to construct a rough frame for their survival shelter, which was rigged up from the capsule’s descent parachutes. Their Russian instructors showed them how construct various frames – a tent of parachute material, an A-frame hut and an igloo cut from snow blocks.

They let off flare markers: the PSND hand-held flare had orange smoke for daytime in one end, and a bright red flare for night at the other. They fired at targets using the Makarov pistol included with the survival kit, to be used against hostile bears, wolves, tigers … or humans.

The training was generally great fun; a chance to get outdoors and enjoy Nature – which they wouldn’t be able to do during their stay on the ISS in orbit. Sergei had done similar training some years earlier during his Air Force training.

Joe, however, was in the process of enduring a messy divorce from his embittered wife, Kelly, who had just departed Russia for their home in Houston. She was fed up with Joe being away so much, she didn’t like Russia and she had embarked on an affair with another astronaut during one of Joe’s long training absences. Their marriage had been in trouble for some years, but hostilities were now in the open. Kelly worked in NASA as a physical rehabilitation instructor, and the affair was with an astronaut whom she had been rehabilitating after a previous ISS expedition. The not-so-secret affair had made Joe a laughingstock around Houston, and he was consequently depressed and angry a lot of the time – not the least because of the interview his embittered wife had conducted with a reporter:

ISS commander abused me, claims ex-wife

by James Oberon
Copyright Houston Chronicle

Houston, Texas – Being an astronaut’s wife is never easy at the best of times, …

Sergei and Yurii had decided to try to cheer up Joe, at least temporarily, by getting him plastered during their impromptu party tonight after the instructors had left for Zvyozdyi Gorodok. The three would be collected tomorrow.

Joe had initially been horrified when they brought out the vodka bottles, but in his current mood it hadn’t taken him much persuasion to join in.

“More?” said Yurii in English, thrusting the bottle across Sergei at Joe, but the American shook his head, wrapped one of the blankets around him, lay down on his side and curled up facing the fire. He was on Sergei’s right; Yurii on the other side.

There was a rustling in the undergrowth somewhere behind them, and Joe jumped and sat up, peering into the darkness. “There’s no bears around here, is there?”

“Nyet, they are all in Siberia. You are safe here, Joe.” Sergei grinned at him and patted Joe on the shoulder. The forest, though, was rather spooky at night; it was the setting of all those old Russian fairy tales, after all.

Russian glossary

Menya budet mutit’: Меня будет мутить; I’m going to be sick …
Nyet: Нет; No
Zvyozdyi Gorodok: Звёздый Городок; Star(ry) Town

Preflight Training: Freefall

Sergei hung suspended in the deep, surrounded by darkness and the crushing weight of water.

He reached for the tag attached to the weighted rope beside him and tore it off. Fifty meters! My best score yet.

He had been down here about thirty seconds, diving on one breath. Far above him, Yurii and Joe – his Expedition crewmates – waited, along with two safety divers and sailors onboard a Russian Navy trawler. They had been practicing Soyuz capsule egress and water survival training out in the Black Sea, off the coast of the seaside town of Sochi. Having finished up for the afternoon, Sergei was now attempting his own personal freediving record.

The training was a fun break from their normal routine (not that the latter was particularly odious). It involved clambering into the top hatch of a Soyuz capsule on the deck of the trawler, which was then lowered by crane to the sea’s surface. In the next couple of hours, the three crew then had to locate and unpack their survival gear in the stuffy, cramped capsule. They wriggled, one at a time, out of their Sokol pressure suits and into the bright orange, rubberized, cold-water Forel’ hydrosuit – getting hot, sweaty and rather seasick in the process. They struggled out the top hatch, tossed out survival rafts, seated themselves on a perch at the hatch-opening ring and back-flopped into the chilly water. A frantic scramble into the life rafts ensued, where they set off orange smoke flares, tossed dye markers and shark repellent into the water. Joe and Yurii now reclined in a state of collapse on the trawler. “You have got to be joking,” was Joe’s exhausted response when Sergei informed him of his attempted feat.

Sergei felt the familiar dreamy euphoria as oxygen deprivation began to make itself apparent. He had been freediving for several years, though he only did it once every month or so as he had plenty of other activities to fit into his schedule. At Zvyozdyi Gorodok, Star City, he usually practiced out-of-hours in the twelve-meter-deep Gidrolaboratoriya, usually reserved for spacewalk training. Only a few friends knew of his unorthodox utilization of the facility.

Sergei felt comfortably warm despite the chilly, murky depths around him. His black wetsuit trapped a layer of water next to his skin, which his body heat then warmed. His only other equipment was a pair of long fins and a scuba mask; he had borrowed a weighted belt from the Russian trawler’s scuba equipment cabin. Given his limited income, freediving was much cheaper than scuba diving.

I feel like I’m doing a spacewalk, he thought, staring dreamily into the darkness around him; only a dim hint of light filtered down from the surface. He had read and heard of other cosmonauts’ accounts of going outside but had yet to experience it for himself, this upcoming mission being his first. He could imagine it, though, floating with the Earth below him and Universe around him, and looked forward to doing his first spacewalk. I am floating above Earth’s night side, looking at the stars …

Realizing he was drifting off, he moved his increasingly sluggish limbs and kicked upwards, legs moving with languid strokes, using the rope for guidance. This was attached to one of the trawler’s inflatable rafts. He had now been underwater nearly a minute he realized, as he glanced at the luminous second hand of his wristwatch. He could stay underwater for up to two minutes.

The most important technique of freediving was to keep calm and move slowly, and thus slow down one’s heartbeat, lessening the demand for oxygen. A strong will was also required: if you realized, in the depths, that you had not taken a breath for a long time and that the surface was far above … panic and death. People had died during freediving and Sergei was aware of the risk – but he enjoyed the challenge. It’s one activity none of the other cosmonauts do, so I can gloat!

At this depth, the pressure on every square centimeter of his body was 6.18 kilograms, or six atmospheres. He could feel the immense weight of water around him, pressing on his eardrums (he had to clear his ears every few seconds to equalize the pressure), pushing his scuba mask into his face, compressing the air in his lungs. Don’t dwell upon it, he told himself firmly.

Sharks were another concern, but no cosmonaut had yet been taken by one, so Sergei didn’t worry too much about them. They would find his bony form rather unappetizing. Shark repellent was put into the water around the life rafts, though no one really knew if it worked.

He also had to be wary of fishing nets; a cosmonaut had died during Black Sea training in 1993 after being caught in such a net.

The water around him lightened through successive shades of blue as he ascended, until he could see wave patterns on the surface, the glint of sunlight and – most importantly – the underside of the orange rubber life raft from which the rope dangled. Some distance away floated the huge bulk of the trawler.

A real danger now was shallow water blackout. When he descended his lungs compressed, but they expanded as he reached the surface again, demanding more oxygen. By this time, though, he had used up most of the oxygen stored in his lungs, so unconsciousness could creep up on him unawares.

One of the snorkeled safety divers, however, swam down to aid him. Sergei gave Pavel an “okay” hand sign and showed him the tag. Pavel grinned around his snorkel mouthpiece and gave him a “thumbs-up”. The others had thought Sergei’s attempt quite mad and a few of the more morbid types laid bets that he wouldn’t make it back to the surface. He had been promised a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka if he survived. I’ll take them up on that! Sergei smiled to himself as he broke the surface and fumbled for the life raft’s side, arms feeling as heavy as lead. The two sailors on board, wearing camouflage pants and blue-and-white horizontally-striped T-shirts, reached down to pull him up.

Russian glossary

Forel’: «форель»; Trout
Gidrolaboratoriya: Гидролаборатория; Hydrolaboratory
Sokol: «Сокол»; Falcon (Russian pressure suit)
Soyuz: «Союз»; Union (Russian spaceship)
Zvyozdyi Gorodok: Звёздый Городок; Star(ry) Town

Preflight Training: Space Station 3D

“They should have called it ‘NASA Space Station 3D’,” grumbled Yurii to Sergei, “as we” – meaning Russia – “hardly get a mention.”

“Guess it was intended for American audiences,” Sergei surmised dourly, as the two Russian cosmonauts walked out of the Space Center Houston Theater on 1601 NASA Road, heading for the car park. “So NASA has to dominate.”

Yurii squinted in the bright late morning Texas sunlight as he put on a pair of wraparound sunglasses. They were both dressed in their usual casual attire of jeans, sneakers and T-shirts. They, like the other cosmonauts and astronauts before them, had been to see the Space Station 3D movie at the IMAX theater during a visit to Houston as part of their ISS training. There was no IMAX in Moscow.

Several other members of the audience, also heading for the car park, gave the pair – tall, lean, black-haired Sergei and his shorter, blond-haired friend Yurii – irritated glances. The two had made wisecracks and sarcastic comments in Russian all through the 50-minute feature, as well as salacious remarks about the female astronauts in the film, to the annoyance of those around them. Yurii had snapped at one irate man that “We are kosmonavty and it is our Station, too!” No one could see each other because of the cumbersome 3D goggles the audience had to wear.

The pair had not yet visited the ISS; they were assigned for Expedition Crew training with their American commander, Joe McLean. “Looked a lot smaller inside than in those NASA photos,” Yurii observed, referring to the digital in-flight photos posted on NASA’s Gallery web page.

“Six months in that …! Well, I’ll guess we will get used to it.” Sergei got out his keys, fumbling for the lock/ignition key as they approached their rental car (which they shared to save money).

“And they keep going on about how much bigger the MKS is than Mir.” Yurii, leaning against the side of the car, used the Russian acronym for the ISS. “Looked good in the outside shots, though.”

“Wish we could make our own IMAX movie,” said Sergei. “We could do it so much better! Focus on the Russian segment and program; film us doing a spacewalk.”

“The only spacewalks we saw in the movie were Amerikanskii ones,” observed Yurii in disgust. “Even that promotional poster only showed an astronaut.”

“That ham radio scene was so contrived! Why don’t the children ask more interesting questions?” Sergei remarked scornfully, referring to a mawkish scene involving the first ISS commander talking to some American schoolchildren via amateur radio.

“I’d tell the kids to make a shitload of money in business, then come up as a space tourists,” Yurii suggested. “Then you don’t have to answer to anyone.”

“Unlike us poor starving cosmonauts.” Their salary was the equivalent of $250 U.S. dollars per month.

“And all that blathering on about the science stuff! Most people on Earth don’t give a shit about it. It’s irrelevant to them.”

“Heretic! Don’t say that around the ochkariki!” exclaimed Sergei with mock horror, using a non-too-complimentary term for scientists.

“All we see is the Amerikanskii segment construction, like it’s only NASA doing everything,” Yurii griped.

“I am sure they would like it to be that way. Once they get all the knowledge they need from us, they will discard us.” Sergei repeated what many in the Russian space program believed.

“Sergei Konstantinovich was making his fifth flight,” Yurii noted with some envy, referring by first name and patronymic to one of the Expedition One cosmonauts. “We will only be making our first!” The more months a cosmonaut had in orbit, the greater his prestige. Yurii and Sergei were both jealous of the more experienced cosmonauts who had up to two years’ total orbit time.

“We should have been born ten years earlier,” Sergei lamented. “Might have got one Mir flight, at least. A long flight.”

“Those days are gone … we are lucky to get this MKS flight. Might not be anything else for years after that, for us.” There were far more cosmonauts and astronauts than there were available seats on the Space Shuttle and Soyuz flights. Only cosmonauts assigned to ISS crews would get rides (as mission specialists) on the Shuttle. With the de-orbiting of Mir in 2001, Soyuz flights were reduced to six-monthly “taxi” rides to the ISS and back, to replace the previous Soyuz docked there with a new ship.

“We don’t have our own space program anymore – now we just serve NASA,” said Sergei bitterly.

“Nichego,” Yurii shrugged resignedly. “But we can still find ways to rebel ….”

“Partisian warfare.” Sergei smiled again, referring to their protracted campaign against NASA, involving playing pranks on targeted personnel in Zvyozdyi Gorodok and JSC Houston.

“You going to open that door or not?” asked Yurii. Sergei yanked open the left-hand driver’s side door, then reached over and pulled up Yurii’s door lock. “Drop me off at the gimnasticheskii on the way back.” Yurii, a world-class gymnast, still trained and competed. He had found a gym to work out in during their stay here, and a sports bag of his gym gear was in the back seat. “You going for a swim?”

“Yes,” said Sergei, as he put the key in the ignition.

“We will meet some girls at the Lone Star tonight, get plastered and forget our worries,” added Yurii as he hopped in. Sergei started the engine and they went screeching out of the car park.

NASA glossary

EVA: Extra-Vehicular Activity
JSC: Johnson Space Center
NASA: National Aeronautics & Space Administration

Russian glossary

Amerikanskii: Американский; American
Da: Да; yes
Gimnasticheskii: Гимнастический; Gymnasium
Kosmonavty: Космонавты; Cosmonauts
Mir: «Мир»; World, peace – Russian space station (1986-2001)
MKS: Mezhdunahodnaya Kosmicheskaya Stantsiya: МКС: Международная космическая станция; International Space Station (Cyrillic acronym)
Nichego: Ничего; Never mind; there’s nothing to be done
Ochkariki: Очкарики; Bespectacled eggheads (derisive slang, plural)
Soyuz: «Союз»; Union (Russian spaceship)
VKD: Vnekabinnaya ili Vnekorabel’naya Deyatel’nost’: ВКД: Внекабинная или внекорабельная деятельность; Going outside, exit (Russian EVA)
Zvyozdyi Gorodok: Звёздый Городок; Star(ry) Town

Hanging Out In Orbit: Hamming It Up

Joe had a ham radio session scheduled for approximately fifteen minutes at 10:42 GMT. These sessions were brief as the ISS moved rapidly at 27 621 kilometers an hour from horizon to horizon.

“So, what is this school you are talking to?” asked Sergei.

“It’s called ‘Kilvington’,” Joe replied, looking at an updated information sheet he had printed from an e-mail that had been sent up that day. “A girls’ school in Victoria, Australia.”

Sergei and Yurii exchanged glances. “Girls? What year?”

“Some girls from Year 10 – they’ll be fifteen to sixteen years.”

“ ‘Sweet sixteen’, da?” Yurii grinned. “Can we listen in?”

Joe perused the information sheet, frowning. “The girls have requested that they be able to speak to you two, as well. Apparently, you have a ‘fan club’.” Joe snorted in disbelief as he quoted from the print out.

“They cannot wait to meet us,” Yurii said. “Talk to some real men.”

“You can answer a couple of questions, but you’re to be on your best behavior,” Joe said sternly. A page of questions had been e-mailed to them a week ago, along with the original information sheet, and Joe had earlier printed this out. The questions were much the usual topics, though there were – as Yurii remarked to Sergei after reading it – “A few interesting ones, for once.”

Sergei reached up and grabbed an inflatable globe of Earth that floated in a corner of Zvezda. He rotated it in his hands until he located Australia. “Where is Victoria?”

Joe glanced at a small location map on the information sheet. “Near the bottom – just above the little island. The state’s capital is Melbourne. They will be contacting us at eight forty-two in the evening, their time.”

Sergei raised his black eyebrows. “They must be keen.” They propelled themselves over to the ARISS amateur radio panel which had been set up in Zarya.

Joe had ten minutes allotted to set up the radio, unstowing the Ericcson VHF transceiver, various cables, packet module and noise-reducing headset. The packet module was plugged into a Station Support Computer laptop, and was used to automatically receive and send e-mail messages via ham radio (to enable this, the SSC was booted up and, from the Start Menu, was selected Programs: Station Apps/ISS HAM.ht., and the downlink frequency of 145.80 keyed in). TsUP sent radiograms to the crew via this method. They were doing voice operations first, though, so Joe placed the headset over his ears, plugged into the VHF transceiver, and selected the desired frequency using the rotary switch. The questions he fastened to a clipboard in front of him.

The Amateur Radio ISS program had resulted from the integrated efforts of operators in various nations. Most Expedition Crews enjoyed making random contacts with hams around the world, and organized sessions with schools. “Expedition Clueless” were no different: it was a welcome change to chat with (relatively) normal people. Some were well-known; they had been chatting to cosmonauts on Mir for years during that station’s lifetime and continued this with the ISS.

Many of the random contacts, though, tended to be nerdy, obsessive males of various ages who had spent a small fortune on setting up an elaborate radio network in a backyard shed. Their presence in a neighborhood could easily be spotted by an enormous aerial array which towered over the surrounding houses.

Yurii and Sergei were all-too-familiar with their type: the glazed-eyed ones who would come up to astronauts and cosmonauts at conventions to obtain yet more signatures for their obsessive collections, and get unflattering flash photos of their grinning selves standing next to the long-suffering spacemen. (Of course, the pair didn’t mind speaking to any females who approached them – and, even better, put an arm around ladies who wanted their photos taken with the Russians.)

“We’re coming in range,” Joe announced, holding the question list secured to a clipboard. Yurii and Sergei hovered close by him. They could just hear the respondent’s voice through the earphones.

Static hissed in Joe’s headset, then a female voice became audible. “NA1SS, NA1SS, this is VK3KIL, Kilvington Girls’ Grammar School, Ormond, Victoria, do you receive? Over.” Her broad Australian accent was a striking contrast to those of the American, European and Russian schools they normally contacted.

“VK3KIL, this is NA1SS, I hear you loud and clear, over,” Joe responded into the headset’s attached microphone.

“NA1SS, this is VK3KIL, we also hear you loud and clear, may we start our questions? Over.” There was little time for preliminaries as the session was so brief.

“VK3KIL, you can start the questions, over.” The microphone was then passed to the waiting girls. The questions would be asked in the order they had been e-mailed up to the crew.

“This is Nicole Bradd. How long do you stay on the ISS before returning home? Over.”

“We are up here for six months, but our mission could be extended if needed,” said Joe.

“We hope,” added Sergei. Both he and Yurii wanted as much time in space as possible – in the cosmonaut corps, the more months you had, the more respect you garnered. (They also earned more money – a cosmonaut received the equivalent of $U.S.100 for each day in orbit, on top of their rather low monthly salaries of $250.)

“This is Cara Boardman. How often do you get to talk to your family? Over.”

“Once a week, on Sundays – we have what are called Private Family Conferences over the radio. We miss our families very much.”

“Though you don’t miss Kelly,” Yurii muttered, referring to Joe’s vindictive ex-wife. Joe glanced at him irritably.

“This is Helen Tzimoulis. What, for you, is the most anxious part of space travel: lift-off or re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere? Over.”

“Uh … probably both. But the chances of anything going wrong are very small.” Famous last words, Joe thought. We have the choice of being blown up or burned up.

“This is Carolyn Hansen. What is the hardest thing about working in zero gravity? Over.”

“I answer that.” Yurii quickly grabbed the headset off Joe. “Using the toilet!” Yurii said before Joe could respond. “If you miss funnel, you have much cleaning up to do.” Joe glared at him and muttered, “Keep it polite.” He took back the headset and repositioned it.

“Uh,” – some stifled giggles – “this is Andrea Stanway. How do you sleep in zero gravity? Over.”

“Very well – it is more relaxing than sleeping on Earth,” said Joe.

Yurii rolled his eyes at the commander’s tame answer and grabbed the headset again. “And sex is better, too,” he added. He thought he could hear more giggling in the background over the radio.

“As you would know,” added Sergei slyly. Yurii had joined the “Hundred-Mile-High Club” with a female astronaut during the Shuttle flight taking them to the ISS.

Joe glared even more fiercely. “What did I just say?” He reached for the headset but Yurii moved out of range.

“This is Angela Geary. How do astronauts wash in space?”

Yurii grinned – he had an answer ready for this. “We take off clothes,” he began, “use sponge to wash. We wash everywhere –”

Mrs. Kerslake, realizing where this was going, quickly broke in. “Uh, thanks Yurii, we’ll move onto the next question.”

“This is Michele Tombs for Sergei. What is it like to walk in space? Over.” Yurii quickly gave the headset to Sergei.

“Is best thing about being up here,” said Sergei, after glancing at the question list. “On Earth’s night side, you can see whole of Milky Way.”

“This is Kathy Chernov for Yurii. What do you do in your spare time – are you able to watch TV or listen to the radio? Over.” Headset back to Yurii.

“Zdravstvuite! A Russian lady! We have no TV, but we can access Internet, torment Joe and talk to lovely ladies like yourself!” Joe looked ready to strangle him and held out his hand for the headset. Yurii instead gave it back to Sergei.

“This is Miranda Danne. What would happen if you ran into a black hole? Over.”

Sergei was temporarily stumped for an answer. “Uh,” Sergei began, “We try to evacuate, and if not we are swallowed up.”

“We are all doomed! The Earth is doomed!” added Yurii in a sonorous tone when Sergei repeated the question to him at his quizzical look. Sergei pulled a face at him as Joe firmly took the headset off him.

“This is Anthea Robinson. What would you do if an asteroid hit the Earth, made humanity extinct and left you stranded? Over.”

“We are all doom –” Yurii began again, and Sergei punched him on the shoulder to shut him up. Joe sighed in exasperation. “I guess we would perish, too. But it’s not likely to happen, so we don’t worry about it.”

“This is Joanna Arnold. What would you do if someone died on board?”

“Died?” Joe nearly choked. Sergei, on hearing the word, quickly grabbed the headset. “Uh, give him space burial,” said Sergei. Judging by Joe’s thunderous expression, the first death was likely to be either one of “Double Trouble”.

“This is Sue McKelvie. Sergei, do you have a girlfriend? Over.”

Before Sergei could react, Yurii snatched the headphones. “Da, he has several, but he is always happy to add one more!”

Sergei went bright red and an irritated Joe snapped, “Yurii, any more answers like that and I will take you off air!”

“Lighten up, Joe.”

The same cheeky girl broke in again. “… Do you have condoms on board? Ov –” She was cut off; the teacher had obviously relieved her of the microphone.

Joe was now apopleptic, and the two Russians spluttered with barely-suppressed laughter.

“I am sorry about that,” Mrs. Kerslake interjected, sounding mortified.

“Is no problem,” Yurii piped up. “We do not have much use for condoms at the mo –” Joe, on hearing that word, now cut him off by yanking the headset off and placing it on his own head.

“NA1SS, this is Jane Kerslake … On behalf of my Year 10 class, I wish to say thank-you for this, uh, exciting opportunity to speak to you. We wish you well, and a safe return to Earth. This is VK3KIL – out ….” Her voice faded into static as the ISS moved out of range.

A fuming Joe rounded on Yurii. “Don’t you ever embarrass me like that again!”

Yurii floated away a little, out of Joe’s reach. “Lighten up, Joe. They enjoy it much as us.”

Joe muttered, “Now I know why we don’t normally talk to teenagers – especially girls.” The younger school children who were their usual audiences had not yet been besieged by raging hormones.

Russian glossary

TsUP: Tsentr Upravleniya Polyotom v Moskve: ЦУП: Центр управления полëтом (в Москве); Flight Control Center (in the suburb of Korolyov, Moscow) – pronounced tsoop
Zarya: «Заря» (фунционально-грузовой блок); Sunrise (Russian Functional Cargo Block module)
Zdravstvuite!: Здравствуйте!; Hello, greetings
Zvezda: «Звезда» (служебный модуль); Star (Russian Service Module)

© Suzanne B. McHale, 2002-July 2003

Hanging Out In Orbit: Sneaking Outside

Note: this story assumed that the Russian USK propulsion pack – analogous to the SAFER used on the NASA EMU spacesuits – was on the ISS. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem likely to be taken up there.

Floating in the void

“This is crazy,” Yurii complained, as Sergei braced himself awkwardly against Zvezda’s side, grasping a handrail.

“Just stop fussing, and don’t forget to film me!” Sergei retorted. “I’m bored with crawling all over the Station. Time for some fun.” With that, he pushed off gently with hands and feet, and began drifting slowly away from the Service Module into empty space – a maneuver which would have given mission controllers in Moscow and Houston near-heart failure had they known the pair were out here.

“Watch out for the solar panels and the radiators,” Yurii warned him. Sergei, wearing the Orlan-M spacesuit, could not turn his head in his helmet to look behind him.

“Da, babushka,” Sergei teased him. He had positioned himself so that he would drift a little above the International Space Station’s orbital plane relative to the Earth below it. “For a space orphan, you’re a real wimp.”

“I’ll be likely to live longer, then!” Yurii couldn’t take that insult to his masculine courage, though, so he added, “I will come out and join you in a few minutes.”

Underneath my feet, thought Sergei now as he floated in the void, there’s an abyss of fifteen billion light years.

He and Yurii sometimes got weary of pretending that they were 1) serious professionals and 2) grown-up, so the pair had concocted this plan for an unauthorized VKD, spacewalk, during their stay up here on the International Space Station. They were scheduled for three, but they wanted to add to this tally (the standing record was fourteen). They also wanted to go outside for once without their every maneuver being monitored by TsUP, Moscow Mission Control. Some years ago a cosmonaut had had a “transcendent experience” and done an unauthorized spacewalk – or so it was rumored – so Yurii and Sergei had determined to follow this precedent.

They had spent the past few days preparing their spacesuits and the Pirs airlock for the VKD, all without ISS commander Joe’s knowledge. Such activities were thus conducted (with much whispering and giggling) during their eight hours’ allotted sleep time, with Joe safely tucked away in his kayuta. Joe couldn’t work out why his two Russian crewmates had seemed so sleepy during the last few days – they were constantly yawning and could barely keep their eyes open.

Mucking about

“Yura, just stay there,” Sergei instructed his crewmate. “I’ll get some photos of you.” Yurii, who had been filming him with a Glisser-M video camera, waved at him in acknowledgement, looking like an oversized cuddly stuffed toy in his creamy-colored, wrinkled Orlan spacesuit. Yurii wore the #12 red-striped suit, Sergei the #14 blue. There were no outside photos of Russian cosmonauts on VKDs in Orlan suits on the NASA ISS website gallery, and Yurii and Sergei were working to remedy this oversight.

Sergei aimed the 35-mm camera, wrapped in white thermal insulation, at his friend and snapped off a few shots, the Station appearing incredibly sharp and clear in the brilliant sunlight. No stars were visible in the velvety blackness beyond.

“It’s creepy, isn’t it?” remarked Yurii, echoing Sergei’s thoughts. “There’s nothing out there.”

Sergei shivered, the immense void awakening some primal fear. It was one thing to see that intense blackness in photos, another to experience it for real.

Sergei looked down at the bright Earth. “I wish we could stay out here,” he said to Yurii, in Russian.

“Yes, it’s nice to be away from Grumpy Joe.” Yurii referred to the Expedition commander, who was tetchy and moody a lot of the time due to his messy personal life (he was divorced). “I think he is depressed.”

“He’ll never admit it.”

Yurii squinted against the blinding sun filtering through his gold-tinted outer visor, then looked at the watch on his left wrist. “We’ve been out here nearly three hours, so we’ve got one left.” They had allowed themselves four hours for the VKD – it took forty minutes to depressurize Pirs and the PkhO, and an hour and forty minutes to repressurize the two chambers, so they needed to allow for this in the eight hours’ sleep period before the wake-up alarm went off. “We’ve got three hours and twenty minutes of oxygen left, plus thirty minutes’ reserves. Everything looks nominal.”

“You sound just like NASA,” Sergei teased him.

“Yes, they give the orders, now,” said Yurii, with an edge to his voice.

Sergei, Yurii and the ISS soared in tandem at 51.6 degrees to the Equator over the huge landmass of Russia and Central Asia, 400 kilometres below. The sensation of movement was akin to a ship sailing over a glassy ocean; both cosmonauts found it exhilarating.

The solar panels of Zvezda and Zarya glittered an iridescent blue in the sunlight. Like a dragonfly’s wings, Sergei thought. To him they were one of the most beautiful aspects of the Station. Further forward, to Sergei’s left (he was on Zvezda’s port side)attached to the American segment, were more solar panels, the huge photovoltaic arrays, each spanning 36 meters. These were lined on the sunward side with black panels.

As the sun sank towards the western horizon, the computer-controlled panels all rotated slightly to keep catching its rays, rather like flowers tracking the sun. Light shone golden through the translucent cells and fiberglass backing of Zarya’s starboard panel, and glowed around the photovoltaic arrays like embers – a phenomenon the cosmonauts referred to as “Angel’s Wings”. Zvezda’s two panels were “feathered” – turned edge-on – so air vented from the Pirs airlock when it was depressurized for the cosmonauts’ exit would not send debris particles impacting onto the fragile solar cells.

When the crew was in a position to see the panels from the front, these were magnificent to watch, the sunlight rippling along the hundreds of solar cells – it’s almost as though the Station is alive.

Yurii kept an anxious eye on Sergei as his friend floated serenely several meters away from the ISS, his creamy suit a sharp contrast to the absolute black of space behind him. They were both vulnerable to collisions with space debris and meteorites while out here – but if we could not go outside, we would go mad, though Yurii.

“I might go further away,” said Sergei, reaching for the hand controller mounted to the front of his suit’s control panel.

“You’re far away enough, already,” retorted Yurii, watching carefully in case Sergei began drifting too near the solar arrays. His normally reticent crewmate mutated into a reckless daredevil whenever he was in the cockpit of a fighter jet or in a spacesuit. “Don’t go any further than forty-five meters.” If Sergei drifted further out, he would enter a different orbit to the ISS’s, requiring much complex, fuel-consuming maneuvering to re-rendezvous with the Station.

“Did you bring out a laser range-finder?”

“No, you idiot. Just don’t go any further than the length of the Truss.” Only three segments of the Truss had been brought up by Shuttle flights to date: the middle segment and one on either side.

The hand controller module was linked by a cable to the USK mounted over Sergei’s Orlan backpack. The USK was the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue device. Manufactured by NPO Zvezda, the forty-kilogram USK was equipped with two sets of eight compressed air thrusters, each with 500 grams of thrust (the SAFER used gaseous nitrogen). Automatic attitude control was provided by a computer system. A liquid-crystal display on the controller informed him of the USK’s fuel levels and status. There was a вкл./выкл. (on/off) switch, and a мода. (mode) switch that configured the controller for rotational (roll, pitch, yaw) commands (moving in a circular direction around the X, Z and Y axes) or translational commands (moving in a straight line along any of the axes).

Sergei hooked his left thumb through the thumb loop on one side of the controller, and used his right hand to operate its controls (it was Velcro-mounted onto his control panel for extra stability). He used the hand controller grip on the right of the controller box to enable roll (rotate sideways), pitch (rotate up or down) and yaw (turn side-to-side) maneuvers, and depressed a button on top of the controller to hold a particular attitude.

Co-ordinates used the X-, Z- and Y-axes system, similar to the ISS co-ordinates. When a cosmonaut was positioned so that he faced forward in the easterly direction of orbit, and his feet pointed towards Earth, the positive X-axis extended from his feet, and the negative up from his head. The positive Z-axis extended from his front, and the negative Z from his back. From his right side extended the positive Y-axis, and from his left the negative Y. Finally, positive pitch meant he rolled around his Y-axis face-up; negative pitch saw him roll face-down.

It took some practice to master the co-ordination required, but Sergei had picked it up quickly during a brief familiarization session in Zvezda’s Transfer Chamber before the VKD. To move back, he rotated the controller aftwards after selecting the translational mode, firing the forward-pointing thrusters.

Sergei, now drifting backwards, wanted to halt his momentum, so he rotated the grip forwards gently. The thrusters fired briefly, and his backward motion slowed. “Look, Yuroshka, no tether!” he said exuberantly, then added, “Joe’s still got his window closed, so he must still be asleep.” An idea for a little prank formed in Sergei’s mind, but first he wanted to enjoy the view for a while.

Yawning, he closed his eyes briefly – in free fall there was no sensation of movement. I could go to sleep …

“Sunrise, Seryozha,” Yurii alerted him. Sergei opened his eyes and readied the Nikon F5 camera, one of two they had brought out (Yurii had the Kodak 760 Digital Camera System), protected with thermal insulation covers. They wouldn’t be able to download these photos openly through the American segment’s Ku-band without arousing suspicions, but Sergei was sure they’d find a way around this. He and Yurii planned to post the photos on their website.

They were now passing over south-eastern Siberia and the cloud masses below had taken on an orange tinge that contrasted with their purplish shadows as the terminator approached. Sergei had positioned himself so he faced the Station; he could point the camera to east or west. Sunlight fell on the starboard side at this particular angle the ISS was currently in.

Darkness fell over the world beneath, though sunlight still illuminated the ISS; anyone looking upwards would espy it as a brilliant silver-gold point of light, the gold reflected from the undersides of the massive 34-meter-long solar arrays. “Angel’s wings,” Sergei remarked, as he took several shots. The light shone golden through the Russian panels’ translucent fiberglass surfaces and around the edges of the photovoltaic arrays like glowing embers, the beautiful effect giving rise to the nickname.

Seven minutes later, the sun vanished below the horizon with a last golden flare of light. The atmosphere around the huge curve of the Earth darkened to orange-gold, then deep blue which finally merged with the absolute blackness of the void beyond. Both cosmonauts pushed up their gold-coated outer visors, which protected their eyes from the sun’s unshielded ultraviolet rays, and blinked as their eyes adjusted to the intense blackness around them. A faint layer of atmospheric airglow became visible, this being luminous gas excited by radiation from the sun.

“Yura, you get the photos of me?” Sergei asked.

“Da, you were all lit up golden,” Yurii said. He had wanted Yurii to take a shot of him similar to the famous Bruce McCandless 2 photo – a striking image of a solitary figure floating above the Earth, taken when testing the Manned Maneuvering Unit in February of 1984 on the STS-41B mission. Russia – then still the Soviet Union – had tested its own SPK during two tethered spacewalks by the Soyuz TM-8 crew in February of 1990. The unit had remained unused after that, however, as most cosmonauts found the Strela cranes more convenient.

“Now we can see the whole Universe,” said Sergei as he looked at the incredible vista around him. With the sun gone, the stars came out in their millions.

Only now, during a VKD, on Earth’s night side, could the Milky Way be viewed in its full glory: a starry river of light, of a hundred billion stars. It was a sight that the millions of people in light-polluted cities far below were robbed of. Out there, beyond the Sagittarius constellation, lay the galactic nucleus 25 000 light years distant and at its core lurked a huge black hole with the mass of a million suns. Dust clouds obscured the nucleus, however; smoky black smudges against the brilliant clusters of stars, as though the galaxy hid itself shyly behind a veil.

And beyond our galaxy, the rest of the Universe beckoned …

“We are cosmonauts,” said Yurii. “We should be out there, not stuck in low Earth orbit.”

“Not in our lifetimes,” Sergei murmured despondently.

Out there was infinity, boundless freedom. The stars called to an ancient part of their psyches which felt the urge to wander, to go somewhere, which had impelled humans to explore since the dawn of our evolution. If only, thought Sergei, we could travel in a starship out to the Orion Nebula, or the Black Hole Core, or another galaxy … then come home to Russia in between missions. Neither of them had any desire to live on other worlds. But not in our lifetimes, not for decades or centuries yet … Not unless there were some revolutionary breakthrough in propulsion technology, or if scientists discovered how to create wormholes. We are trapped here, and can only look and dream in frustration.

Sergei and Yurii – one tethered to the Station, the other floating nearby – gazed longingly out at infinity as they were bathed in ancient starlight, their creamy spacesuits faintly illuminated by the ambient glow. Through them, unfelt and unseen, filtered Galactic Cosmic Radiation, high-energy particles streaming in all directions from the distant stars and remote galaxies. This collided with the atoms in their bodies, knocking these apart and eventually, if it continued for long enough, their DNA would accumulate irreparable damage. The radiation dosimeters they wore on every VKD recorded this bombardment, as well as solar cosmic rays from the sun. Up here, cosmonauts received as much ambient radiation in a day as those on Earth – shielded by the magnetosphere and atmosphere – received in a year. It was something they just had to accept, and a reminder that the beauty of the stars and Universe out there was utterly deadly to the frail humans who dared to venture into that hostile environment.

There was about 35 minutes of darkness on Earth’s night side during the Station’s 92-minute orbit; the lengths of days and nights varied throughout the year depending upon the sun’s solar beta angle. Yurii tentatively pushed off from Zvezda to join Sergei; Sergei grabbed his arm as Yurii drifted near. “You’re not such a coward after all,” Sergei grinned at him. Yurii twisted around and tried to aim a punch at his bulky spacesuit, and they spent the next few minutes grappling and generally acting like 12-year-olds. “I win,” exclaimed Yurii, gasping for breath as he managed to get a headlock on Sergei.

Sergei, espying Joe’s still-closed window, remembered his idea for a prank. “Time for Joe-baiting,” he decided. One of their favorite activities up here was playing pranks on their American commander. He nudged his USK’s hand controller forward gently and a small puff of compressed air shot out behind him, enough to send him forward to Zvezda. Yurii followed behind him. As he was going in one direction and the ISS in another, he had to add some right thrust so as to land near Joe’s window with a gentle thump. There were no handrails next to the window, so the two Russians attached the long tether on their spacesuits to railings a couple of meters below then gripped the module’s thermal covering as best they could. Sergei dug in the left leg pocket of his spacesuit and brought out a hatch tool used to open Pirs’s outer hatch. He reached up and gently tapped several times on the metal rim of the kayuta window (not on the window itself as he didn’t want to damage the glass).

He waited a few moments, but there was no response, so he reached up and tapped again. The window had no outer cover, and he and Yurii saw the inner diaphragm shutter snap open as the kayuta’s occupant moved a lever around the rim. The Russians, spluttering with laughter, hurriedly ducked out of sight, pulling themselves down to the base of the module as a bleary-eyed face gazed out the window in puzzlement.

A rude awakening

Tap-tap-tap

Someone’s at the door, thought Joe sleepily, thinking he was back in his bedroom at home. Or maybe it was a woodpecker in the forest where he had gone camping. He then came fully awake as the tap-tap-tap sounded again. What the –?

The tapping sounded as if it were coming from outside. Orbital debris colliding with the hull? No – it sounded too regular. And was that something slithering along the hull? Sounds could not, of course, be heard in a vacuum, but vibrations could be carried and felt through the Station modules’ hulls.

Joe reached for the lever that opened the iris-like inner shutter of his kayuta window and quickly flicked it open. He stared out – the sun was just coming up and illuminating the port side of the ISS. A movement below him caught his attention, and he strained to look downwards. A spark of light glinted off what looked like a helmet visor disappearing below the curved base of Zvezda.

Helmet? Orlan spacesuit …? Yurii and Sergei … Joe, muttering venomous curses, struggled out of his sleeping bag, pushed open the door of his kayuta and floated out into the cramped living quarters. He moved across to Sergei’s closed door and pulled it open. The small cabin was empty. Joe darted forwards through Zvezda’s Work Compartment – he noticed an Orlan spacesuit floating near the forward end – and came to an abrupt halt: the hatch of the spherical Transfer Compartment (or PkhO to use its Russian designation) was sealed closed and a note was taped to it. Joe squinted at the badly-spelled English/Russian scrawl, which he recognized as Yurii’s: ПХО IN VACUM, DONT’ OPEN, DOING ВКД. The Docking Compartment, Pirs, was attached to the nadir node of the PkhO; both were sealed off and used during Russian spacewalks. Joe was effectively blocked off from the rest of the ISS in front of him, including the American segment and the Soyuz evacuation spaceship – his crewmates had evidently left the red-striped Orlan spacesuit (#23, adjusted to fit Joe) in here in case he had to evacuate.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Joe exploded, slamming a fist against the hatch. “I’ve had it with those two!” He pulled himself back into the Work Compartment and went over to the InPU, Integrated Control Panel where he could talk to the Orlan spacesuit radios via the VHF-2 channel. Yurii had set this up before they went out, though not communications with the Ground. He donned a pair of headphones and keyed the mike. “Yurii, Sergei – do you read me?” he said sharply.

There was a crackle of static, then a hesitant “Da” from Sergei.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Um … doing VKD. Wanted some photos.”

Joe closed his eyes and counted to ten. “Get – inside – now.”

“Um, okay.”

Joe went aftwards to the large observation window, #9, which lay at the angled join between Zvezda’s Work and Living segments. He cranked open the outside cover and peered forwards along the base of the module to the downward-facing Pirs. Two spacesuited figures came into view, pulling themselves forwards to the Docking Compartment. Sergei was wearing the taller spacesuit with blue stripes; Yurii’s had red stripes. “I don’t believe this.”

A severe scolding

“We’re in real trouble now,” said Sergei over comm, as they laboriously pulled themselves back towards Pirs. “Joe’s really pissed-off.”

“So what else is new?” Yurii retorted. “He’ll get over it.”

“You think he’ll tell TsUP?”

“No, it will make him look bad. He is supposed to be responsible for us. He is our commander.”

“I keep forgetting.”

Russian glossary

English word order

Amerikantsy: Американцы; Americans
Da: Да; Yes
Da, babushka: Да, бабушка; Yes, grandmother
Glisser: Глиссер; Speedboat
InPU: Integrirovannyi Pul’t Upravleniya: ИнПУ: Интерированный пульт управления; Integrated Control Panel
Mir: «Мир»; World, peace – Russian space station (1986-2001)
Nyet: Нет; No
Orlan: «Орлан-М»; Sea eagle (Russian spacesuit)
Pirs: «Пирс»; Pier (Russian Docking Compartment-1)
PkhO: Perekhodnoi otsek: ПХО: Переходной отсек; Transfer Compartment (Zvezda)
SPK: Sredstvo Peredvizhenii Kosmonavtov: СПК: Средство Передвижений Космонавтов; Cosmonaut Maneuvering Equipment
Strela: «Стрела»; Arrow (Russian cargo-moving arm)
Tovarishch: Товарищ; Comrade
TsUP: Tsentr Upravleniya Poletom: ЦУП: Центр Управления Полëтом (в Москве); Flight Control Center (in Moscow) – pronounced “t’soup”
USK: Ustanovki Samospaseniya Kosmonavtov: УСК: Установки Самоспасения Космонавтов; Cosmonaut Self-Rescue Unit
VKD: Vnekabinnaya ili Vnekorabel’naya Deyatel’nost’: ВКД: внекабинная или внекорабельная деятельность; Out-of-cabin or out-of-ship activities/work (i.e. EVA)
Zarya: «Заря»; Sunrise (Russian Functional Cargo Block module)
Zvezda: «Звезда» (Служебный Модуль); Star (Russian Service Module)

Russian word order

Вкл./выкл. (включать/выключать): Vklyuchat’/vyklyuchat’; On/off
ВЛ-1, Выход Люк-1: Vykhod Lyk-1, VL-1; Exit hatch one (of two)
ГСтМ-1: GStM-1; Crane designation (one of two)
Модальность: Modal’nost’; Mode