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Hanging Out In Orbit: Rise and Shine

One day in the life of Expedition Clueless, or, another day in the Gulag

Note: Unfinished – this story was intended to be in the style of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich but I ran out of steam at mid-morning.

Sucking in cold oxygen through his mask, Sergei taxied his MiG-29 out onto the runway, aligning it with the runway’s center line, braking, and extending the jet’s wing flaps to the maximum position. The runway stretched ahead to the enticing dawn sky beyond it.

“Berkut, you are cleared for take-off,” announced the Control Tower. Sergei acknowledged this, and shifted the throttle control levers to maximum. The twin turbofan RD-33 engines accelerated to full power, the jet shuddering as it strained against the brakes. Sergei released the brake lever and his MiG-29 leapt eagerly forward, racing down the runway. Sergei pulled back on the control stick and, as the aircraft’s speed reached 260 kilometers per hour, his MiG became airborne, swooping upwards into blue eternity, leaving the dreary world far behind …

“Oh, shut up!” Sergei muttered as the buzzing of the Station alarm jolted him abruptly into the real world. He stretched in his sleeping bag, yawned and reached out for the light switch on the control panel in front of him, squinting against the fluorescent glare as the exhilaration of the dream faded. I won’t go flying for a long time yet. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, watching as the small particles floated away, reminding him where he was.

He reached downwards for a lever at the edge of his porthole window, moving it around; it opened in a circular motion like a diaphragm, revealing a stunning vista of the dazzling blue Earth four hundred kilometers below. I’m in space! he thought as he gazed at the awesome view, trying to lift his spirits out of the vague depression that had been increasingly plaguing him on waking.

Sergei looked at his watch: just after 06:00 GMT, their normal wake time. He unzipped his sleeping bag, removed his protective earplugs (the alarm was loud enough to be heard over these), pushed open the door of his kayuta and winced as he always did at the barrage of noise from the Service Module that assaulted him. Joe’s was shut. Both doors, like the walls of the module, were covered with cream-colored Velcro.

Sergei undid the Morpheus restraint straps and floated languidly out. No struggling to clamber out of his bed up here! Microgravity made movement effortless, a bonus for the naturally lazy.

As he did every morning, he reached up and touched the small die-cast metal model of the Buran orbiter that floated in a corner of his kayuta; a talisman he had brought up with him. The real Buran space shuttle, which he had once hoped to fly, had been canceled in 1992 after one unmanned flight from Baikonur in 1988.

He shivered in the draft of air from the ventilation fan set in the roof of his kayuta, despite it being heated. It was necessary to prevent him from suffocating in his own exhaled carbon dioxide – in the absence of gravity, it would collect around his face – but sleeping with a draft blowing past his face was nonetheless uncomfortable. The fan’s constant humming was an added irritant; it had also lately developed a rattle. I’ll have to remove it later and see what it is – maybe a loose ball bearing. There were plenty of replacement fans and other spare parts on board, at least.

There was barely room to move in his closet-sized kayuta, one of two cabins in the Russian Zvezda Service Module. Joe, the U.S. International Space Station commander, got the port cabin; Yurii, the other Russian crewmember, bunked down in the U.S. Laboratory’s – Destiny’s – Temporary Sleep Station and complained about not having a window to look out of.

Sergei’s cabin (ostensibly the commander’s, but he had laid claim to it before Joe could get in there) was next to – forward of – the Waste Collection Compartment. Placing a cabin so close to the toilet wasn’t one of Zvezda’s better design features, but the module’s background noise muffled any embarrassing sounds emanating from there.

Before he could use the loo, though, the first tasks of the day was to open the windows and start up and check the Station’s various systems, so Sergei, stifling another yawn, drifted out and into the narrow, darkened passageway. He was clad only in his thin Russian-made cotton shorts that served as sleepwear, this pair a light blue shade. He went into Zvezda and restarted the four Wiener Power laptops in Zvezda’s command center, as well as the IBM ThinkPad World Map Display laptop and a couple of spare IBMs. The Wiener Powers controlled the Russian Segment’s systems and they, like the other 24-odd laptops scattered about the Station, needed to be restarted each day as they were not radiation-shielded and developed memory errors from cosmic particle hits. And all that radiation is also going through us. Restarting also updated their internal clock.

Sergei left his post and went around manually opening the inner shutters in the Work Compartment. I wish we had a window or two looking upwards. I would like to see the stars. Several Expedition Crew members had made similar complaints. All the modules had various windows positioned so one could look downwards at Earth or sideways. They could catch a glimpse of the night sky from the sideways-pointing windows, but could only view it in its full glory during an EVA. And we’re usually too busy to fully enjoy it. At least in the XPOP attitude they got to see the horizon more often, with the nadir X-axis tilted out of the plane of orbit.

In Zvezda’s spherical PkhO, Transfer Compartment, there were three 23-centimeter windows – #12, 13 and 14 – used for viewing docking activities; he did not bother to open these. Six 23 centimeter portholes – #3 to 8 – were set in the floor of the RO, Working Compartment. There was also a large 40-centimeter Earth observation window (#9) between the Work and Living Compartments. There were two other windows (#1 and 2) in the living quarters: one in each kayuta.

He cranked open the outer protective shutters of the six RO windows. Windows were generally kept closed for safety reasons when not being viewed through – a piece of space junk smashing through one of these would evacuate the Station’s atmosphere in minutes. But if we could not look outside, we would go mad.

He frowned at the scratches and dints marring several of the windows; a result of orbital debris impacts and thruster residue. Window #9 had a star-like crack from one such micrometeroite collision. NASA had raised safety concerns about the windows: they were based on the same design as those used on Mir, and were designed to last five years – the Station’s life was expected to be fifteen, at least. (Zvezda had originally been intended to be the core module of Mir-2.) Mir’s windows had survived until the Russian station’s deorbiting – But that was more luck than anything else, Sergei thought wryly. I guess we’ll just have to take our chances.

Sergei switched on some of the fluorescent lights, then went into Zarya and flicked on a couple of overhead lights from the controls at panels 430 and 414. The narrow, locker-lined module was a claustrophobe’s nightmare. Stored in the 88 numbered lockers were various experiments, food and equipment supplies, all barcoded and logged into the onboard computer Inventory Management System. More food supplies in red or blue boxes were secured to the floor, as well as silver water containers and spare 800A storage batteries for the Russian modules.

Yurii, in Russian-made shorts, socks and T-shirt, looking disheveled – his golden-blond hair was tousled and blue eyes red-rimmed – came gliding up through Pressurized Mating Adapter-1 from the American segment and gave Sergei a mock salute. “Dobrai utro, Seryozha! Comrade Prisoner Three reporting for duty!”

Sergei grinned at his crewmate. “Another day begins in the gulag.” This had become their ritual morning greeting; a pointed reference to their heavy workload and the confined conditions of the Station.

“I hate it down there,” Yurii grumbled. “Joe should move to the Izolyator, then we would all be happy.” “Izolyator” was the Russians’ nickname for the Temporary Sleep Station all the way down in the Destiny module.

“Not likely. Joe likes his window.” Sergei then returned to more important matters. “I was up first, so I use the toilet first.”

“I’m bursting!”

“Race you, then.” Sergei abruptly pushed off; with his long legs he had more propulsion than Yurii (on Earth, Sergei had been a champion swimmer). Yurii made a grab for Sergei’s ankles, but missed. Using handholds, he chased Sergei through Zarya, then Zvezda’s RO, Working Compartment and into the living quarters. Sergei, now traveling at a considerable velocity, flipped around with practiced ease and used his bare feet as shock absorbers to halt himself with a thump against the panel outside his kayuta. Yurii grabbed frantically at handholds, barely stopping himself from hurtling all the way into the docked, rubbish-filled Progress. Sergei pulled a face at him and disappeared into in what was variously called the “hygiene section,” “waste collection compartment,” or, in its Russian acronym, ASU, to answer nature’s call.

Returning to the Work Module, Yurii positioned himself in front of one of the four laptops arrayed across the workstation in a row and called up a schematic diagram of the Station for a systems check. The Russian laptops used a dual-boot operating system: Solaris, based on UNIX, which ran control applications, and Windows 95 for data entry and housekeeping. Yurii selected option 3, solaris. A message appeared on the screen: The system is ready. Console 1 login. Yurii did this, then typed in his password at the prompt (the crew just used their first names for passwords). The File Manager window appeared; he ran the start-script file by left double-clicking on the box it was in and waited for the automatic boot-up sequence to run through until the home page was displayed.

The home page diagram which appeared was a stylized representation of all the Station’s modules; he could click on these with the Track point cursor control to access element displays. A row of buttons on the right side of the screen enabled him to access systems information. Using a small icon on the status bar, he could toggle between the “En” and “Ru” languages; he chose Russian as usual, and double-clicked on an icon to bring up a pop-up Cyrillic keyboard display in one corner of the screen. The operating system on the Command Center laptops was specifically designed for Station operations; but each crewmember’s own Personal Data Assistant laptop used familiar commercially-available Windows programs.

He studied the updated Station status data summary:

U.S. and Russian Segment Status (as of 1:45 p.m. EST).

Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLSS) and Thermal Control (TCS):

Electrical Power Systems (EPS):

Plasma Contactor Unit PCU-1 and PCU-2 both in Standby mode.

Command & Data Handling Systems:

Attitude Sources:

Flight Attitude:

Communications & Tracking Systems:

Robotics:

ISS Orbit (as of this morning, 7:47 a.m. EST [= epoch]):

The computer program would alert the crew to any anomalies, but most things appeared (to use NASA’s favorite word) nominal, aside from some minor equipment failures – the Vozdukh carbon dioxide scrubber’s vacuum pump had failed, so it was in manual mode. There were no Caution & Warning buttons highlighted along the top of the screen – indicating a major emergency – or error messages. Like all computers, the software seemed to have a mind of its own at times and could be temperamental, but it had behaved itself for the last few days.

One of the American Control Movement Gyroscopes, which helped the ISS maintain a steady attitude, had been failed for some months; it was due to be replaced on a future Shuttle flight. The ISS could operate on two CMGs if necessary.

The Station was currently flying in XPOP, one of two attitudes, where its X-axis, which extended along the forward and aft length of the ISS, pointed up to 90 degrees out of plane to the ISS’s orbit path around the Earth at orbital noon. This meant that the aft end of the Station – the Russian end – pointed towards the sun during the daylight portion of each orbit. Thus, at “orbit noon,” the forward end – Destiny – pointed towards Earth and the ISS orbited sideways, its Y-axis pointing out the starboard Truss segment in the forward direction of travel. Its nadir Z-axis also altered its angle. The angle of this X-axis yaw altered as the daylight orbit progressed, the U.S. Control Movement Gyroscopes working to keep the ISS’s solar arrays oriented towards the sun. This ensured that the American and Russian solar arrays could generate the necessary power without excessive rotational motion.

The other attitude, LVLH, saw the ISS traveling with its positive X-axis – extending forward through the American segment – pointing forward in the direction of travel, and its nadir Z-axis always pointing towards the center of Earth no matter where it was in its orbit. The sun’s angle – the “solar beta angle” – on the daylight side altered throughout the year, requiring such attitude changes. A high beta angle, highest in December during the solstice with near-continuous daylight every orbit, required XPOP. The two photovoltaic arrays (P6: 4B and 2B) currently residing on the Z-1 “mast” did not yet have the gimbals installed to enable them to track the sun when it was at a high angle, so the ISS had to maneuver to XPOP. This attitude had some disadvantages, namely that communication coverage was reduced, thermal heating was higher and thrusters were required more often to counter gravitational pull.

The Russian segment had its own co-ordinate system (OSK was the equivalent of LVLH and RSO was analogous to XPOP) and could be used independently to control the ISS’s attitude using its own gyrodynes and thrusters inset into the modules’ hulls. These thrusters, augmented by those in the Progress, were used to boost the Station’s altitude every so often.

The U.S. section – Unity and Destiny – lay along the forward X-axis; the Russian segment lay along the aft. “And that’s all too symbolic,” Sergei had noted morosely during their training. “We’re trailing behind the Amerikantsy now in every way.”

Yurii next checked the status of Zvezda’s atmospheric revitalization subsystem or SOGS, namely the Elektron oxygen-generation system and Vozdukh carbon dioxide removal system. The Elektron was the Russian segment’s prime source of oxygen; back-up sources being oxygen delivered from the docked Progress cargo spacecraft, and two solid-fuel oxygen generators (TGK). It utilized the electrochemical decomposition of water, where an electrolysis unit broke down water into its constituents of oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen was pumped into Zvezda’s atmosphere, while the hydrogen was vented to vacuum. Three kilograms of water needed to be decomposed per day to provide enough O2 for three crewmembers. The on-board computer system monitored and controlled the Elektron. If it malfunctioned and shut down, solid fuel oxygen generators – the same devices used on submarines – could be utilized. These generated oxygen via an exothermic chemical reaction: combustion of lithium perchlorate.

The Vozdukh removed the crew’s exhaled carbon dioxide by drawing air into the device via fans, dehumidifing it then filtering it through one to three molecular sieve beds composed of Zeolite, a solid porous absorbent substance. Once this material became saturated, it was regenerated by exposing it to the vacuum of space, then reused. If the Vozdukh shut down, back-up lithium oxide-based canisters were utilized to absorb the CO2.

The Vozdukh let out a short screech every so often, generated by its scrubbing system valve’s state changes – a source of irritation for the crew. It screeched every thirty, twenty or ten minutes according to the setting chosen. In Mir, it had been located in a different module, Kvant, but in Zvezda the life support equipment was placed in the forward right corner of the living quarters. Joe referred to the Vozdukh as the “Banshee”. It operated in one of six settings, depending upon the number of crew and level of activity – in crew sleep periods it produced only 40 per cent air flow, while exercise times required 100 per cent air flow.

Both devices had been used for years on Mir, and were fairly reliable, but could still malfunction on occasion. The Vozdukh had failed not long after their arrival from a burned-out fuse, quickly replaced; a couple of months later the vacuum pump had failed, also replaced by Yurii. The pump had failed again today, so another upcoming maintenance job. Its switches, valves and pump could also fail on occasion; the laptop-controlled computer commands could give false readings. The Russians were well-versed in troubleshooting them.

The U.S. segment had its own equally cantankerous Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly – switched on if the Vozdukh was down, or if there were visitors on board, but no oxygen-generating device. If need be, oxygen could be fed in from four tanks (two of nitrogen and two of oxygen) on the exterior of the Quest airlock, but this supply was limited.

Other parts of the SOGS included the BMP, which removed trace contaminants from the modules’ atmosphere and the GA, gas analysis system, which monitored atmospheric pressure

Yurii set the thermostat for 23 degrees Celsius (though this varied from module to module depending upon the equipment operating) and ten percent humidity.

Finally, he selected the messages button on laptop number 3 and brought up the day’s cyclogram or “Form 24” schedule of activities which he printed out on the Epson Stylus 800 – two copies, one in Russian, the other English for Joe. The cyclogram was drawn up the previous evening by the TsUP and radiogrammed to the Russian segment via the Regul-Paket communications system over the Ultra-High Frequency link. Computer data exchange and mail files were also sent this way.

A maintenance day, he noted, with some relief. No poking and prodding. Once a week, on Mondays, they had to perform Russian medical operations MO-7 (calf volume measurement) and MO-8 (body mass measurement). Once a month, blood tests (MO-10) and urine analysis (MO-9) were also undertaken – these informally referred to as “Ouch” and “Yuck”. At least they’re not taking fecal samples – that would incite mutiny. Yurii grimaced at the thought. I’ll just stick to fixing things! Yurii liked to lose himself in the minutiae of daily maintenance – it took his mind off his anger at NASA and general frustration with the manned space program.

He went into Zarya and opened a panel to activate the turbo-pump for an experiment he was to conduct today: the Plazmennyi Kristall-3, described on Energiya’s website as the “investigation of physical phenomena in plasma spraying-based crystals at different pressure levels of inert gas and high-frequency generator capacity in a microgravity environment” with the expected results “development of the technology generating ordered structures of charged solid macroparticles in plasma”. The hardware was contained in a metal cylinder, with results downloaded into a nearby laptop. Yurii, the ship’s bortinzhener, Flight Engineer, normally had little interest in the pet projects of the ochkariki, but up here he found many of the experiments to be more involving than he expected.

Sergei and Joe, both being pilots, held a natural disdain for the ochkariki. One American on the crews was always designated “Science Officer,” the primary point of contact with the Payload Team at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Joe was thus the Science Officer for this mission – something that incited howls of derisive laughter from those who knew him. The Payload Team had been dismayed by the non-existent scientific qualifications of this particular crew – what one snidely described as “two jet jockeys and a grease monkey” (Joe translated that slang for his Russian crewmates as “two fighter pilots and an engineer-mechanic”).

In all the Expedition Crews’ Press Kits, the U.S. science experiments had been given the most attention; a page or so was given to describing each experiment, while the Russian experiments were laid out in a table of two or three pages, providing only the barest outlines. The Russians, miffed that their experiment programs were overshadowed by those of NASA’s, refused to assist with some of the experiments. With just three crew and a half-completed Station after funding cuts, only limited science could be achieved anyhow; the Station’s complicated systems required continuing maintenance.

Many of the Russian experiments were automated, requiring little or no input from the crew, and were remotely monitored from TsUP.

Returning to the workstation, Yurii also printed out the “Form 23” Russian ground site comm pass times; these moved back a little every 15.6 orbits due to the Station’s orbital precession. Also printed was the “Form 14,” today’s Soyuz de-orbit opportunities, necessary in case they had to evacuate and need the co-ordinates for re-entry. The ugly posadky were times printed in six-figure groups of hours, minutes and seconds. During these times the Soyuz could safely re-enter the atmosphere at a predetermined angle; too steep an angle and the capsule would burn up; too shallow and it would bounce off the atmosphere and head off into the void. Yurii grabbed the latter sheet of paper and headed down to the Soyuz docked to Zarya’s Transfer Compartment to post it in there.

Entering the ASU, Sergei pulled across the brown privacy screen and, after flipping up the white lid, secured himself to the wooden toilet seat in the 1m by 1m by 1.7 m compartment using the available restraints. The ASU was part of the SOZH or life support system that also included food supplies and water production. Depending upon what one wanted to do, either a funnel-shaped urine collector (colored bright yellow in case one couldn’t figure out what it was for) or the commode “poop chute” was used. Both relied upon vacuum suction to draw away waste products as there was no gravity for everything to, well, fall.

Using the toilet was something of a major tactical exercise, and the Russian Segment Life Support System guide gave detailed instructions:

Use of the waste management system. Before using the waste management system it is necessary to check if the “Пульт” (Panel) toggle switch on the ACУ control panel is ON.

For urination use the urine collector as follows:

For urination and defecation use the urine receptacle and the solid/liquid waste collector as follows:

Sergei finished his business with no malfunctions and discarded his used wipes in a trash bag. The silver cylindrical solid waste container was changed every twenty days or so when full; it would be detached and stored in the Progress, and a new one fitted. It’s Joe’s turn to do that next time. He then washed his hands by inserting them in the washing chamber.

To use the hand-wash, the crew member should position the “Ручню управ.” (Manual control) switch to the manual control position and depress the “Вентилятор вкл.” (Fan on) and “Разделтель вкл.” (Water separator on) buttons.

The water and air from this then followed the same path through the system as the urine.

The ASU was periodically serviced on Sundays; tasks included changing out the urine receptacle (MP) and filter insert (F-V), as well as collecting SP toilet flush and SVO water supply counter data for calldown to TsUP. The crew were diligent about this maintenance as the ASU was the Station’s only toilet.

The ASU, designed by NPO Zvezda, was similar to the one that had been installed on Mir. Astronauts visiting during Shuttle-Mir missions preferred the Russian-designed loo to the Shuttle commode, and used Mir’s ASU for Nature’s calls. “Which is one of the few things we can be proud of,” Sergei once remarked wryly to Yurii. “Our toilets are superior to theirs.”

After exiting the ASU, Sergei returned to his kayuta, extracting the liner of his sleeping bag and turned it inside out to air it, as was done every day. From under a bungee on the inside of the door he grabbed a blue bag marked “Komfort-1M”. From the Komfort he took out safety razor, shaving cream and aftershave cream. In each crew member’s Personal Hygiene Set was also (depending upon personal preferences) toothpaste, a tooth brush, dental floss, scissors, cuticle tongs, a nail file, talcum powder, lip balm, moisturizer, deodorant and nail clippers – the last a small but indispensable item.

A small mirror was hung on the wall of his kayuta in front of his sleeping bag. After securing his shaving equipment under bungees on the mess table, he smeared the shaving cream on his face. Positioning himself half-inside his kayuta, he spent several minutes clearing his stubble (the Gillette Sensor Excel was the Russian-approved ISS razor), wiped the residue off with a wet-wipe and towel, then applied aftershave. His increasingly shaggy black hair needed a cut but that was a chore that could be put off for a bit longer. In the absence of a professional hairdresser, the trio had to rely on each other’s dubious hair-trimming skills.

I look like a ghost, thought Sergei, grimacing at his hollow-cheeked, dark-eyed reflection in the mirror under the harsh fluorescent light. He, like the others, had lost some weight and all color after several months in orbit; they had the pallor of corpses that had spent a week underwater. They appeared gaunt and haggard, both from lack of sunlight and fresh Earth air, and the crew’s demanding schedule.

Bathing – or what passed for it – came next. From his Personal Hygiene Articles Kit, Sergei retrieved a tin-foil packet that he used the water dispenser above the mess table to fill. The packet contained a specialized low-suds soap. He inserted a straw with a built-in spigot into the bag through a leak-proof diaphragm. He floated with the kit past Yurii, absorbed in the laptop displays, down to Zarya’s spherical Transfer Compartment, the usual place for the crew’s morning wash, and took out a ten-by-ten centimeter gauze-like cloth. He squirted a few droplets of soapy water onto his face (he bathed in a head-to-toe direction); if he didn’t move too much the droplets clung to his skin in small beads. He used the cloth to spread the water around. No showers until we are back on Earth! At least we can’t smell each other. The absence of gravity caused body fluids to accumulate in one’s head, resulting in a slightly stuffy nose like a permanent head cold.

The bathing process took around ten minutes. Then, as he also did every day, he “washed” his thick hair using a no-rinse shampoo; he scrubbed it through over his scalp and dampened hair then wiped it off with the by-now rather dingy cloth. He then brushed with a hairbrush from the Komfort, enjoying this quiet time of day before the daily slog began.

On his way back, Sergei pulled open Joe’s forward-opening kayuta door to reveal the commander tucked up snugly in his creamy-colored sleeping bag like a swaddled baby – no signs of life there, yet.

Sergei wasn’t due for an underwear change today; this they changed every four to seven days. Leaving the door open, he went back to his kayuta to retrieve his clothes. They had a selection of Russian- and American-made clothes in storage, but both Russians refused to wear the American-made clothes on patriotic principles.

Some of Sergei’s clothes were held behind bungee cords on the inside of his kayuta door. These included shorts, T-shirts and a one-piece flight suit. The thin cotton T-shirts came in a variety of lurid colors; today’s was blue with aqua trim (Yurii’s was white with blue sleeves). He decided to wear it under the flight suit, which looked quite smart, being cobalt-blue with grey shoulder panels. He would change later into last week’s used shorts and T-shirt for his two daily exercise sessions. He began the awkward task of pulling the clothes over his tall skinny frame. Clothes tended to float away, requiring extensive gymnastic maneuvers to wriggle into the uncooperative garments.

Earlier crews had discovered a method of washing favorite items of clothing: the clothes were first put into a plastic bag, into which was squirted water and soap. After several minutes of squeezing and prodding, the clothes were taken out and rinsed with more water in a separate bag. Russian wet/dry towels were used to squeeze as much water out as possible, then the clothes were secured behind bungee cords in Zarya to dry, which they did after around three hours. All evaporated water was reclaimed by the SRV-K2M condensate water processor that separated it into gas and liquid, then purified and recycled the evaporate as potable water.

He retrieved his earphones – these the three crew either wore slung around their necks, within easy reach, or over their ears to speak over the Audio Terminal Units located in each module. They also served as hearing protection in the noisy modules, a practice recommended if they wished to not return to Earth with hearing loss. Alternatively, they wore earplugs. The noise levels from various fans, compressors, pumps, motors, transformers and so forth produced around 61 to 72 decibels depending upon where the crew were in the modules. A hundred billion dollars and they can’t even soundproof it properly!

Looking at last semi-presentable, Sergei glanced up as Yurii, who was heading for his own rendezvous with the ASU, entered the living quarters. “Is Tovarisch Komandir awake yet?” Yurii asked of Sergei, using the nickname that riled Joe. Sergei rolled his eyes at his friend, indicating their slumbering commander and said, “No. Sleeping in as usual.”

“It’s your turn to get breakfast, Seryozha.”

Yurii disappeared into the ASU. Sergei grabbed the small silver Sony PD-100 DVCAM from where it was secured above the Galley table and turned it on. He and Yurii were filming little five-minute vignettes of daily life aboard the ISS, which they figured would be of much more interest to the public than the obscure “science stuff,” given the questions they were most often asked. The videos were downloaded via U.S. comm assets to their NASA Expedition Gallery video webpage. (Joe had not been so far inclined to contribute.) Various scenes so far included preparing a meal, tours through each of the Russian modules (the Russians deliberately ignored the American segment), a show-and-tell description of the Orlan-M spacesuit and “ones for the ladies”: Sergei exercising on the treadmill (shirtless) and Yurii demonstrating how they bathed (also shirtless). These last two were apparently very popular downloads.

Sergei went over to Joe’s kayuta and pulled open the door. He stuck the camera in the commander’s face and began tickling him under the chin. “Joe! Vstavai! Wake up” Joe stirred, grunted and batted his hand at the irritation, but still didn’t awaken. Sergei then pulled off Joe’s orange earplugs and, reaching across, flipped open the diaphragm cover of the kayuta’s window by moving a lever around its outer edge. “Rise and shine, Joe!”

“Bugger off!” snarled Joe, feeling like anything but rising and shining as he finally opened his eyes to see his grinning crewmate and the camera lens.

“And dobrai utro to you, Joe!” said Sergei cheerfully. Joe was notoriously grouchy in the mornings and the two Russians, both in their early thirties (and not yet grown up), enjoyed baiting the older man whenever possible.

Having had his morning’s entertainment, Sergei switched off the camera and headed back into Zvezda’s Work Compartment to print out the day’s meal roster from the Epson Stylus 800.

Looking a bit disgruntled, Yurii emerged from the ASU with a full 20-liter urine tank, having won the “red light lottery”. After turning the dial for the air/water separator which activated toilet suction, a red light had come on, indicating the urine collector tank was filled: “Емк урины заролн”. He lifted the appropriate panel from the floor and, disconnecting the hose, removed the tank. Grabbing a black marker from the galley table, he wrote ПОЛНЫЙ on the tank. In a notebook he recorded the date of removal. He floated the tank into the Progress and stowed it with some other full tanks, then retrieved a new tank, wrote its serial number and the date in the notebook, reattached the hose and removed the warning indicator. Only after completing this could Yurii finally make use of the toilet.

Emerging once more after a few minutes, he darted past Sergei for his own morning ablutions in Zarya. On finishing, he checked to see if any of the items of clothing secured behind bungee cords were dry, then headed back to the TSS in Destiny.

Using handholds, Yurii crossed Pressurized Mating Adapter-1 (its walls lined with white-bagged supplies) to the American section, then propelled himself through Unity to Destiny. A favorite game that everyone discovered sooner or later up here was to launch off from one end of the Station and go flying the whole fifty-two meters to the other end. You had to get your trajectory just right, though, or you would crash into one of the bulkheads. There were hundreds of kilometers’ worth of cables and wires to get tangled up in, and innumerable equipment boxes and other edges to bruise one’s limbs on. “This is the garage from Hell,” Joe had remarked once. Yurii sported a gauze bandage on his left forearm from an unfriendly encounter with an equipment rack in Destiny a couple of days ago which drew blood. Cuts and bruises were still frequent even after several months up here.

The Russian modules had floors carpeted with olive-green Velcro-like felt and cream-felted walls, a color scheme intended to be soothing. The large amounts of Velcro on Zarya’s panels had initially outgassed fumes, making an early visiting Shuttle crew, STS-96, headachy and nauseous, but this had soon settled down. The different colors gave crews a much-needed indication of which way was up.

Destiny and Unity were painted a sterile white; Destiny’s bulkheads were blue, while Unity’s were salmon-pink. Destiny had three windows: two smaller portholes on each side, and the large 50.8-centimeter Earth observation window, which would be hand-cranked open a little while later for today’s U.S. Earth Obs.

The American segment used Imperial measurements, while the other partners’ segments used metric – an inconvenient absurdity. All NASA’s contractors used Imperial measurements, and converting to metric would have required extensive and expensive re-tooling of all their equipment and designs. So an expensive, complex computer program was developed instead that cross-checked metric and Imperial designs to make sure they fit and worked together properly. And many curmudgeonly NASA veterans stubbornly stuck to Imperial because it was the “American Way”. Yet most NASA scientists had long since converted to metric.

Destiny was somewhat less noisy than the rest of the Station – 55 to 62 dB – but there was still a continuous background hum of ventilation fans and other life-support equipment.

Yurii restarted the six IBM ThinkPad 760XD laptops scattered about the module. On one he called up the latest e-mails. There were several from American and Russian scientists requesting data updates on their pet projects. These could mostly be monitored from the ground via telemetry, but they liked visual confirmation from the ISS crews, too. Not that the science is ground-breaking, Yurii thought wryly. Most of it had been done before on Mir. The Kosmicheskaya Mafiya just want to prove they can do everything bigger and better than us.

He also brought up the U.S. Onboard Short-Term Plan, the American equivalent of the Russian “Form 24” daily plan; the OSTP listed U.S. activities not mentioned on the Form 24. Laid out in a horizontal format, it also gave daily orbit details, day and night portions of each orbit, ISS attitude and power used in watts, and S-, Ku-band and Russian ground site VHF availability times. He printed out the three-page plan on the Lab printer.

The ISS was far more computerized than any Station before it, particularly in the American segment. Yurii wasn’t certain that was a good thing. Space was a harsh environment for electronic equipment, and Yurii was of the philosophy that essential equipment should be as simple and rugged as possible – and fixable if it broke down. “NASA likes to complicate things too much,” he complained to Sergei after one of the IBM laptops had failed to boot up yesterday. Yurii, the resident computer whizz, was kept busy nursemaiding the temperamental machines.

Yurii went back to the Izolyator. Unlike Sergei, he had no window to look out of, and the Temporary Sleep Station could feel decidedly claustrophobic. It consisted of thin walls of padded cloth Velcroed together and, like the kayuti, was the size of a broom closet. It was surrounded by radiation-shielding bricks. Assembled during Expedition Three’s tenure, the TSS looked as if it might become a permanent fixture due to the current cancellation of the U.S. Habitation Module.

He unfolded his IBM ThinkPad laptop from the wall mount in front of his sleeping bag and booted it up. His keyboard had Cyrillic keys, as did Sergei’s; Joe’s ThinkPad in his kayuta were in English letters.

After an impatient wait for the sluggish Windows 95 OS to get into gear, Yurii checked the In-Box in Outlook Express for e-mail. There was the usual assortment from friends and girlfriends – Yurii had no family – which he would read through in the evening. E-mails were stored in offline folders and up- or downlinked several times a day via a folder in Outlook. Thus, much to Yurii and Sergei’s disgruntlement, there was no direct, live Internet connection. Both had become Internet addicts in the last few years.

Yurii and Sergei had created their own small Russian-language website which a sympathetic webmaster at Energiya hosted for them. On it they posted their mission photos, various personal photos, training and on-orbit diaries and opinion pieces, as well as the aforementioned prank photos. They had to be careful how they expressed their displeasure, though, because of the adverse effect it might have on their careers. Cosmonauts and astronauts, being government employees, were effectively censored from voicing strong opinions on the space program for fear of displeasing those above.

Some of the astronauts, starting with the Expedition One commander, Bill Shepherd, had kept on-line journals and letters (no cosmonauts had yet been inclined to, though “Double Trouble” made entries on their site). Bill Shepherd had expressed some vociferous opinions about some of the more troublesome procedures and equipment in a few entries, and NASA had “redacted” – effectively censored – these paragraphs as it wanted to give the public the illusion that all was going well. Subsequent diaries from astronauts on following missions were notably cheery and perky.

Sergei had got into trouble for venting his frustrations about the program before their mission to a (somewhat besotted) female reporter from The Moscow Times. … But they won’t silence us forever!

ISS partnership: “Deal with the Devil”

By Nadia Milaya for The Moscow Times

Star Town, Moscow – “We should never have let the Americans take over our space program.” Strong words from Sergei A. Konstantinov, soon to go up into space for his first flight as part of an Expedition crew. “We are subservient to them now, and they are getting all our knowledge and experience virtually for free.”

I talked with the dashing young black-haired cosmonaut one lunch time in the Star Town cafeteria, during a break in his training. He and crewmate Yurii Zolotyov are spending 18 months training for their mission. He believes Mir could have been kept going for a few more years. “It needed some maintenance, but was still basically in good shape. But NASA did not want Mir to compete with their ISS, so they conspired to get Mir deorbited,” he said, his bitterness evident. He cites the plans the private space company MirCorp had for the old station. “They wanted to experiment with a tether which boosted Mir’s orbit, but the American government delayed the export license until after the decision to de-orbit Mir. The Americans also bad-mouthed Mir every chance they could get, like they did in that movie, Armageddon. I guess they’re happy, now.”

He remarks that the controversy over space tourist Dennis Tito’s flight was another attempt by NASA at exerting dominance. “It was a fuss over nothing. Mr. Tito was well-trained and did not get in the way. I am glad we stood up to them, there.”

He describes the co-operation agreement signed in 1994 by the Russian and American space agencies as a “deal with the Devil. It saved our space program, but we lost our independence. We became dependent upon them for funding.” He does not oppose “limited” co-operation, but feels the integration of both countries’ space programs has gone too far. “Once NASA has got all they want from us, they will discard us.”

He notes that China’s developing space program – they have plans to put their first man in space soon – echoes that of the Soviet Union’s several decades ago. “They have now what we seem to have lost. Space is irrelevant to many people in Russia, now,” he says sadly. As a teenager he hoped to fly the Buran space shuttle, which made its first and only unmanned flight in November of 1988, soon after he turned 18. Despite the many years and twenty billion roubles spent on its development, the program was canceled in 1993 due to lack of funds, and is unlikely to be revived. Sergei must instead be resigned to flying the Soyuz spacecraft, and rides on the American shuttle. “I am looking forward to my Shuttle flight, but I will only be a passenger.” He and his crewmates will be launched on Atlantis for their flight to the ISS where they will stay for up to six months.

He says he and Yurii are lucky to be going into space at all. “There are a lot of cosmonauts and only limited seats available. Some younger ones like us could wait years until they make their first space flight.” He smiles charmingly when I mention the stories I’ve heard around Star Town about the pair’s notoriety. “We like to have a little fun. We could be dead tomorrow, so we enjoy life while we can.” He is coy about his personal life. “I have had girlfriends, but there is no one presently. I am very busy training.”

As well as space travel, Sergei enjoys parachuting and flying. He is a first-class military fighter and aerobatic pilot, and parachute training instructor, with over 200 jumps to his credit. “I am working up to 300. Maybe 1000!” He enjoys sports such as athletics, swimming and diving – the latter freediving, going to great depths on a single breath. “I really miss doing all that when I am in space,” he says. “We are confined in the small modules for many months, and it can get very frustrating.” Spacewalks are, for him, a highlight. “I love going outside, and seeing all the Universe around me.” He and Yurii have been assigned three EVAs (VKD is the Russian acronym) for their stay, using Orlan-M spacesuits. They completed three previous spacewalks during their Mir stay. “We can never get too many EVAs!”

The lunch hour is almost over. I ask Sergei for some final thoughts on the Russian space program’s future. His shoulders slump and he looks pensive. “I don’t know how things will turn out. People have lost interest in space. Politicians have sold us out. I think our space program will continue in some form, but it won’t be like in earlier times.” He adds, wistfully, “I would like to go to Mars. To be first ….”

The crew regularly e-mailed Kodak 460 DCS digital photos via NASA comm assets down to the Gallery linked to the NASA ISS site. Most were the usual rather tedious shots of crew members floating around holding unidentifiable bits of equipment, with bland captions written by some unimaginative NASA employee. None of our other photos ever get through, though, Yurii noted with exasperation. Typical.

Sergei and Yurii could not resist sending down a few prank photos from time to time to liven things up, such as the pair giving the camera “the finger” instead of the standard “thumbs-up” and was pointedly named “A message to our critics”. Of course, these photos hadn’t made it onto the website; NASA officials weren’t renowned for their sense of humor. He and Yurii also received a reprimand from the grumpy old fuddy-duddies in the Russian Space Agency (not for the first or last time …).

One of Yurii and Sergei’s gripes was that Energiya did not have its own ISS in-flight photo gallery. Its only ISS-related photo segments were of training and launches of the various Soyuz taxi crews and Progress supply launches.

The public could not e-mail the crew directly; unrestricted direct access would be far too risky for security reasons. This would be a hacker’s paradise, Yurii knew; he could imagine the havoc a nefarious-minded hacker or terrorist would wreak in the ISS’s Ethernet-linked computer systems. Aside from the ISS controllers, only a few relatives and friends knew their Station e-mail addresses, and these were screened first by ground specialists for any viruses. A firewall protected the computer systems at JSC from the general Internet. Norton Anti-Virus definition file updates were uplinked once a week to the crew’s Operations Local Area Network.

The only e-mails they could receive from the public were filtered through the NASA “Ask the Expert” website; any weird and wacky queries – Anything interesting, thought Yurii – would thus not stand a chance of reaching them. There were ways to get around that, though, such as having like-minded friends send him disguised e-mail attachments – he had pre-arranged this before he left Earth. I won’t let the Syuzereny tell me what I can do!

Another besotted female fan had created a site dedicated to Yurii and Sergei – “dedicated to the two most gorgeous spacemen in the Universe!” It featured various photos and biographies taken from the NASA and Energiya sites. Of more interest was a fantasy forum section where various women wrote what they would like to do to/with either of the pair. Sergei and Yurii could not visit this site directly, but had friends send them up the most interesting pages via e-mail attachments. It was a great source of entertainment. They had even managed to send some encouraging e-mails and photos to the site (which the website author, “Kosmogrrl,” delightedly announced and posted on a separate page) via the same method. She had also posted an article about them on another site:

ISS: The ultimate bachelor pad

By Kosmogrrl at Cluebot.com

The current crew aboard the International Space Station have been voted “Sexiest Spacemen” in this week’s “Sexiest Man Alive” edition of People magazine, in a specially-created category.

Somewhat unusually in their profession, all three men are unattached. Russian cosmonauts Sergei Konstantinov and Yurii Zolotyov, both in their early 30s, are bachelors (and we have it on assurance that they’re not gay!), while American commander Joe McLean, a decade older, is divorced from his first wife.

The Russians are younger than those on previous ISS crews – which have, to date, mostly consisted of rather bland middle-aged married men. The pair are notably good-looking, and their commander is no slouch in the looks department, either. A NASA insider, who wished to remain anonymous, told us that a “flood of marriage proposals” arrived via e-mail to NASA’s “Ask the Expert” section of its website when the crew were launched into orbit. Mission controllers refer to these female fans as “astronaut groupies”. The NASA spokesperson also noted that none of the e-mails – some, apparently, quite libidinous – have been sent to the crew. “The crew are busy with important science experiments and maintenance activities, and unfortunately have little time to answer e-mails from the public. If we did not filter them, they would be deluged with thousands of e-mails.”

A contact at Star City, Russia’s cosmonaut training center, somewhat acerbically commented that “Those two – Yurii especially – are notorious womanizers. I don’t think they’re interested in getting married, so any hopeful ladies will have a long wait.” He added that the pair aren’t too popular with other cosmonauts for this and other (unspecified) reasons. “I think there’s a bit of jealousy, there.” He declined to comment further, but did say that the pair were very pleased with being the “Sexiest Spacemen”.

Pop star Britney Spears was recently quoted as saying that she wouldn’t mind a trip into space with the two cosmonauts, “if I could be there and back in a week. They seem really sweet.” As Spears’ earnings currently total $U.S.39.2 million, the trip would not be out of reach, though her busy schedule would present a challenge to the intensive six months’ training required.

Yurii Zolotyov remarked in a media interview during the second week of their stay that “We would be very happy to see Miss Spears if she wish to come as tourist. Ladies are always welcome here.”

Yurii reluctantly put his laptop into stand-by mode and, still brooding, emerged from the TSS into Destiny thinking, as he usually did, I hate it down here. It’s creepy. He felt isolated down this end of the Station and sometimes bedded down in the Service Module crew quarters to be near his friend. Every so often he hinted to Joe about swapping cabins, but the American commander liked his kayuta with its porthole view of Earth, and he told Yurii firmly, “Forget it.” Rank has its privileges. Yurii hadn’t given up yet.

Sergei floated back into Zvezda’s living quarters with the menu printout, and gathered the necessary utensils – forks, spoons, scissors and “hand bell” (tube opener). For ease of food preparation, they all followed a nearly-identical food roster, with some leeway for individual preferences:

Expedition Clueless meals
Meal McLean Konstantinov Zolotyov
Meal 1
  • Cottage Cheese w/Nuts (R)
  • Chicken w/Prunes (T)
  • Moscow Rye Bread (IM)
  • Apple-Peach Juice w/Pulp (R)
  • Tea w/Sugar (R)
  • Vitamins
  • Cottage Cheese w/Nuts (R)
  • Chicken w/Eggs (T)
  • Table Bread (IM)
  • Milk (R)
  • Tea w/Sugar (R)
  • Vitamins
  • Cottage Cheese w/Nuts (R)
  • Chicken w/Prunes (T)
  • Table Bread (NF)
  • Apple-Peach Jce w/Pulp (R)
  • Tea w/Sugar (R)
  • Vitamins
Meal 2
  • Jellied Pike Perch (T)
  • Peasant Soup (R)
  • Pork w/Lecho Sauce (R)
  • Borodinskiy Bread (IM)
  • Kuraga (IM)
  • Apple-Blackcurrant Juice w/Pulp (R)
  • Tea w/Sugar (R)
  • Vitamins
  • Jellied Meat (T)
  • Kharcho Mutton Soup (R)
  • Borodinskiy Bread (IM)
  • Kuraga (IM)
  • Apple-Black Curr Jce/Pulp (R)
  • Tea w/Sugar (R)
  • Vitamins
  • Jellied Pike Perch (T)
  • Kharcho Mutton Soup (R)
  • Pork w/Lecho Sauce (R)
  • Moscow Rye Bread (IM)
  • Kuraga (IM)
  • Apple-Black Curr Jce/Pulp (R)
  • Tea w/Sugar (R)
  • Vitamins
Meal 3
  • Shrimp Cocktail (R)
  • Beef Steak (I)
  • Macaroni & Cheese (R)
  • Fruit Cocktail (T)
  • Strawberry Drink (B)
  • Tea w/Lemon (B)
  • Shrimp Cocktail (R)
  • Beef Steak (I)
  • Macaroni & Cheese (R)
  • Fruit Cocktail (T)
  • Strawberry Drink (B)
  • Tea w/Sugar (B)
  • Shrimp Cocktail (R)
  • Beef Steak (I)
  • Macaroni & Cheese (R)
  • Peaches (T)
  • Strawberry Drink (B)
  • Tea w/Sugar (R)
Meal 4
  • Granola Bar (NF)
  • Almonds (NF)
  • Peach-Apricot Drink (B)
  • Almonds (NF)
  • Granola Bar (NF)
  • Peach-Apricot Drink (B)
  • Granola Bar (NF)
  • Almonds (NF)
  • Peach-Apricot Drink (B)
(B) – Beverage; (IM) – Intermediate Moisture; (I) – Irradiated; (R) – Rehydratable; (T) – Thermostabilized; (NF) – Natural Form

They were allotted four meals per day: breakfast, lunch, dinner and an evening snack. Aerovit multivitamin tablets were taken at the first two meals. Today, Russian rations were eaten for breakfast and lunch; American for dinner and a snack. Tomorrow it would be reversed. At least I don’t have to do any cooking! thought Sergei with relief, cooking being a chore he detested and avoided as much as possible on Earth – not that he or Yurii could cook, anyway. Sergei relied on the Zvyozdyi Gorodok cafeteria; Yurii, in his apartment in Korolyov, got whatever girlfriend he had in residence to cook. Prepackaged food was one of the bonuses of life in orbit, though it still required some organization and preparation time.

Hot (ГОР.) and warm (ТЕПЛ.) potable water – that drunk by the crew – was produced from the atmospheric condensate water regeneration system via separate dispensers in the galley. Sergei had switched on the hot water heater soon after arising as it took nearly an hour for the water to heat the first 650 mL in the tank to 83 degrees Celsius. This, was used for personal hygiene, reconstituting freeze-dried foods, coffee, tea, juices and for drinking water. Before filling a pouch with drinking or rehydrating water, Sergei had to cut the top along the colored dotted line to expose a one-way valve where the water was added; a built-in straw was inserted on the other side of the pouch.

Sergei opened the warm water dispenser briefly by quickly depressing the lever to “ОТКР.” (OPEN), releasing a shimmering globule of liquid which began drifting away. He then followed it, stuck his mouth on its surface and – slurp! – sucked it up. I won’t be able to do that on Earth! There was no cold water dispenser – if an Expeditioner wanted this, he had to leave the pouched water in a colder location in the modules.

He then went to Panels 238 and 239 in the galley to retrieve the listed rations.

Two electric food warmers were set into the galley table (there was a separate warmer for American rations). Bread, thermostabilized and canned foods were heated here by inserting them into cells set into the table.

Procedure for heating foods in the ЭПП:

Thirty minutes later the “Готов 65” (Ready 65) LED lights up, indicating that the heating cycle is finished. Turn off the heater with the “ОТКЛ” (OFF) button and verify that the “Сеть” (Power), “Готов 65” (Ready 65), and “Контрол нагрева” (Heating Control) LEDs turn off. Open the door and carefully remove the foods with the utensil.

As Sergei busied himself in the galley, there was a resounding thud as the still half-asleep Joe made to emerge from his cabin, misjudged his zero-g trajectory and impacted his forehead on the kayuta door rim. “Don’t say it,” the commander, rubbing his forehead, growled at a grinning Yurii who had returned to the living compartment. Yurii pulled a face behind Joe’s back as the American pushed off, rather more carefully this time, into the toilet and pulled shut the concertina privacy screen.

“Joe’s in a bad mood today,” remarked Yurii, as he took a drink in the same manner as Sergei had from the cold water dispenser. “You been ‘Joe-baiting’ again?”

“Yes,” said Sergei. “Oh, he’ll lighten up later on.” Both spoke in Russian. Joe still struggled with the Russian language and the pair could cheerfully conduct a conversation without Joe understanding a word. The cosmonauts had learned some English earlier in their respective careers, but they continued to be baffled by the slang the Americans loved to bandy about. When conversing with the ground, all crew were normally supposed to speak in English but the two cosmonauts usually ignored that rule – it was absurd not to speak to their own countrymen in their native language – as they did any rules which didn’t suit them.

“He’s still pissed-off about me changing the screensavers.” Yurii, the resident computer whizz, referred to another “Joe-baiting” prank of a few days ago where, after thumbing through an English-Russian dictionary, he had altered the screensavers of the IBM ThinkPad laptops in Destiny to read Deorbit sequence activated, using the “Scrolling Marquee” option. Joe, floating into Destiny for a U.S. daily payload check, had seen the screen displays and nearly had temporary heart failure before he realized that the displays were only screensavers. He was not amused. Sergei and Yurii were still laughing about it.

Yurii floated over to Sergei’s kayuta porthole and looked out for a few minutes. “Is the Earth still there?” asked Sergei sarcastically.

Joe, meanwhile, had emerged from the toilet and glanced in his own mirror with tired hazel eyes as he completed his morning ablutions, shaving with an electric razor. He had – to his dismay – discovered a few more grey strands in his brown hair over the months he’d been up here. I’ll be entirely grey after a few more months cooped up with those two, he thought disgruntledly. Joe had come to realize he was no match for “Double Trouble,” as he’d nicknamed his crewmates; the pair would simply ignore him if he tried to dominate them. They weren’t malicious – but I’m just a soft target.

Joe, with a tendency to take things literally, had been the butt of jokes during his astronaut candidate training. He remembered reading somewhere how, in a group of animals or birds, one low-ranked individual would serve as the target of others’ derision; a means of diffusing tension in the group. Which was all very well, but it made life unpleasant when you were at the bottom of the pecking order. He remembered overhearing a girlfriend in high school describing him as “nice, in a dopey sort of way”; he was still puzzled as to whether that was a compliment. But none of them got to go into space!

At 06:40 they all were “seated” around the wardroom table, their feet slid under bars on the floor to restrain them. The Russians positioned themselves on one side of the table; Joe was on the end. Joe retrieved his rehydrated tvorog, Cottage Cheese with Nuts, and Yurii devoured the canned Chicken w/Prunes after opening it with a can opener, leaving the lid partly attached. Most of the Russian foods came in cans. Sergei couldn’t resist squirting a couple of drops from his tea sachet at Yurii, who caught the oscillating brown globules in his mouth. Sergei had done this with a sachet of juice one time; Yurii accidentally bumped him with his arm and Sergei inadvertently squeezed the bag too hard. A tennis ball-sized globule of blackcurrent juice had splattered all over Joe’s face and hair.

Joe, dressed in blue Shuttle trousers and an orange polo-neck T-shirt, a developing bruise on his forehead, ignored their antics as he looked at the (mostly) English-language version of the cyclogram or “Form 24”. This had been radiogrammed up to the Station and earlier printed out by Yurii on the Epson Stylus 800 in Zvezda’s command bay. All three of them – Joe, the commander (К, K); Sergei, the Soyuz pilot (П, P) and Yurii, the flight engineer (Б, B) – had their daily routines meticulously planned out, mostly consisting of monitoring or participating in various science and medical experiments, and the unending Station maintenance which took up much of their time, along with meal breaks and two-and-a-half hours of exercise each per day.

GMT Crew Activity
06:00-06:10 ALL Morning inspection
06:10-06:15 Б PLASMA CRYSTAL-3: Turbo-pump activation
06:10-06:40 К, П Personal hygiene (post-sleep)
06:15-06:40 Б
06:40-07:30 ALL BREAKFAST
07:30-08:00 Б, П Work prep
07:30-07:35 Б PLANTS-2. Equipment monitoring
07:35-07:55 Work prep
07:55-08:00 DCP bypass cable reconfig
08:00-08:15 Daily planning conference (S-band)
08:15-08:35 К SUBSA: test activation
08:15-08:45 П On MCC-M GO: ISS repress with O2 from Progress СРПК system
08:15-08:45 Б Urine transfer to Progress RODNIK tank (config.)
08:45-09:45 Urine transfer to Progress RODNIK tank
08:35-08:40 П Inspection of БРПК-2 separator
09:00-10:30 Physical exercise (VELO + Load Trainer)
09:20-10:50 К Physical exercise (RED)
09:45-10:00 Б Tagup with MCC-M ground specialists (onboard computers and SIGMA trajectory forecast software) (VHF)
10:30-12:00 Physical exercise (VELO + Load Trainer)
10:30-11:10 П Maintenance of СОЖ
10:50-11:50 К Physical exercise (TVIS)
11:10-11:50 П IMS file prep
11:50-12:10 К SUBSA: specimen placement
12:00-12:40 Б PLASMA CRYSTAL-3: experiment prep. Tagup w/ MCC-M ground specialist (VHF)
12:00-12:20 П Setup for PHS
12:10-12:30 К SUBSA: payload ops (Steps 1-6) 2nd run
12:20-13:20 П LUNCH
12:30-13:20 К
12:40-13:15 Б PLASMA CRYSTAL-3: experiment ops. TELESCIENCE video link. Tagup w/ ground specialist (VHF)
13:15-14:15 ALL LUNCH
13:30-17:30 К, П SSRMS ops
14:15-14:35 Б PLASMA CRYSTAL-3: experiment ops (end)
14:35-14:55 Urine transfer to Progress RODNIK tank
14:55-15:25 PLASMA CRYSTAL-3: experiment ops (data copying and payload deactivation). Tagup w/ ground specialist (VHF)
15:25-15:45 Urine transfer to Progress RODNIK tank
16:05-16:25
16:25-17:25 Physical exercise (VELO-1)
17:25-17:45 Urine transfer to Progress RODNIK tank
17:30-17:40 К SUBSA: payload ops (step 7) 2nd run
17:30-18:30 П Physical exercise (VELO-1)
17:40-17:50 К Payload status check
17:45-18:00 Б UROLUX equipment setup
18:00-18:25 Daily plan review
18:15-18:45 К Daily plan review
18:25-18:45 Б Urine transfer to Progress RODNIK tank
18:30-18:45 П Daily plan review
18:45-19:00 ALL Daily planning conference (S-band)
19:00-19:10 Б Work prep
19:00-19:30 К П
19:10-19:50 Б Urine transfer to Progress RODNIK tank
19:50-20:20 Urine transfer to Progress RODNIK tank (teardown)
19:30-20:00 К, П DINNER
20:00-20:30 Daily food prep
20:20-20:50 Б DINNER
20:30-21:30 К, П Pre-sleep
20:50-21:25 Б
21:25-21:30 PLASMA CRYSTAL-3: turbo-pump deactivation
21:30-06:00 ALL SLEEP

“No changes since the DPC yesterday,” noted Joe. “Sergei and I have four hours on the Big Arm after lunch; you’ve got a busy day with PLASMA and the RODNIK transfer, Yurii. We’ve also got a Progress reboost at seventeen-twenty-four.”

“I also replenish atmosphere from Progress,” Yurii reminded him.

“Fan in my kayuta rattles,” said Sergei. “I will have to change it.”

“Okay, I’ll bring that up at the DPC.”

“I need to speak to Sasha.” Sergei referred to the Russian Interface Officer at Houston MCC.

Joe grimaced. “You two are on Houston’s blacklist … just try to speak in English and don’t swear this time, okay?” The two Russians, furious that Houston had primary decision-making control over the ISS, rebelled against the Americans any way they could. The Flight Rules (Section B1.2 1-14) stated that:

Normally, all space-to-ground communications will be in English.

Naturally, Yurii and Sergei, when using the American S-band, spoke rapid obscenity-filled Russian, for which they had been reprimanded many times from both NASA and RSA. Houston had now banned them from using American comm without Joe present. Looking at their expressions, though, Joe knew he might as well be talking to a brick wall.

The rest of their day would be taken up with their regular 2.5 hours of exercise and other daily routine tasks. Sergei was to do today’s SOZh maintenance and Joe the payload status check in the U.S. segment. They had an unspoken agreement that the Russians would maintain the Russian segment and Joe’s domain was the U.S. segment. They sometimes swapped tasks if assigned to each other’s segments – without telling the Ground, who didn’t need to know as long as the jobs got done.

There were four pieces of exercise equipment: two stationary bicycles (a NASA-designed one in Destiny, a Russian one in Zvezda), as well as the NASA Resistance Exercise Device (on the roof of Unity) and Treadmill with Vibration Isolation System in Zvezda. This last, a 400-kilo monster, was somewhat inconveniently placed next to the Galley table. It was suspended by cables inside a pit in the floor, and stabilized by a gyroscope when a user ran on it, strapped down by a shoulder harness. The suspension system had been developed so as to avoid transferring the vibration throughout the module (when Mir’s crews ran on its fixed treadmill, the whole station had oscillated). The TVIS and RED, however, were troublesome devices; components kept breaking as they got such heavy use.

Sergei and Yurii’s exercise today was on the VELO; Joe had 30 minutes on the RED followed by an hour on the TVIS. They usually had two exercise sessions per day. Joe’s was in one block today as he and Sergei would spend the afternoon working the Big Arm. Sergei’s second VELO session was scheduled after this.

Yurii glanced around Zvezda’s chaotic interior as he devoured his Moscow Rye Bread. The Service Module was originally been intended as the core of Mir-2, but as there was no funding for another Russian station then, it had been integrated into the International Space Station. For Yurii and Sergei, Zvezda’s layout was comfortably familiar, similar to photos they had seen of Mir’s Core Module. With use, Zvezda had become somewhat cluttered with assorted odds and ends, but it seemed homely compared with Destiny’s more sterile layout. Various framed miniature pictures of landscapes and scenes of Moscow decorated Zvezda’s creamy walls. An ISS model resided in one corner, an inflatable Earth globe hovered in another and various soft toys had found their way onto the Station.

One cosmonaut from an early Expedition Crew had even stuck up a religious ikon on a panel above the hatchway leading aft to the docked Progress. Both Yurii and Sergei were atheist and gave the ikon the occasional disapproving glance – “Russia is reverting to the Middle Ages,” Yurii grumbled when they discussed the topic. “They are like some cancer which keeps coming back.” The Russian Orthodox Church had been quick to take advantage of the collapse of Communism, reasserting its hold over the Russian people’s psyche. Much money had been spent on rebuilding once-demolished churches.

“They’ve kept Russia backwards for two millennia,” Sergei added. “It’s like the Revolution never happened at all.”

To counter the ikon, portraits of the Holy Trinity of the Russian space program – Konstantin Tsiolokovsky, Sergei Korolyov and Yurii Gagarin – were pasted up on the same panel.

I wonder how different our space program would be if they had lived longer, Yurii thought, looking at Korolyov’s stern features and Gagarin’s cheerful grin. Both had died prematurely: Korolyov at age 59 during a botched medical operation, and Gagarin at age 34 in a fighter jet crash.

Innumerable wires and cables were strung along the walls, linking laptops and other electrical equipment.

Joe espied something on one of the walls. “Where’d that picture come from?” Yurii had created a Mir memorial poster, using Word 97 on his laptop computer (PDA, Personal Data Assistant in NASA-speak), and printed it out. The A-4-sized poster featured an attractive photo of the de-orbited Russian station and the words “в память «Мир», 1986-2001” with a black border around them. Yurii stuck it up on a bare patch of Zvezda’s wall.

“Is memorial,” said Yurii rather sharply. It was, in fact, a muted protest over the way NASA had virtually forced the Russians to de-orbit Mir because its presence competed with the American-dominated ISS. Joe tactfully decided not to pursue the matter further.

They continued breakfast in a desultory fashion; the noise in the module tended to limit conversation. Zvezda and Zarya had not been properly soundproofed during their construction to save costs and weight. Some baffling had been subsequently retrofitted but they would never be silent, with the constant whirring of fans and humming of electrical equipment; the worst offenders were the thermal system pumps, air conditioner compressor and Vozdukh valves. If they were a distance apart – in different modules – they had to use either the Russian segment’s PA panels or the American Audio Terminal Unit intercoms as even shouting was inaudible. The American modules had also skimped on soundproofing. At night they usually wore earphones or plugs. All of this contributed to continuing stress.

“Well, off to work,” sighed Joe wearily as they finished and began cleaning up. They did this assiduously; food particles would be a hazard to delicate equipment if any crumbs escaped. They now had to collect the appropriate tools and conduct a conference with the Syuzereny before commencing their assigned tasks.

Yurii went off to retrieve tool belts from a storage locker, which he then handed to his crewmates. They each had their own personalized belt, filled with various tools and odds and ends. He also completed his daily 5-minute check and watering of the BIO-5 Rasteniya-2/Lada-2 experiment in Zvezda’s Work Compartment. This ongoing experiment, following on from ones done on Mir, observed plant growth and development in microgravity; the eventual aim was to farm successive crops of edible plants for consumption on long-term missions to Mars. For this session, sweet peas were being grown; though not edible, the pastel lavender and pink flowers were nice to look at. The plants, contained in a small greenhouse, were the only greenery on board the ISS, and all three crew liked to look at them now and again – a small reminder of Earth and nature. Yurii would later copy the photo and data files to a floppy disk and transfer them to Russian Laptop 3 for subsequent downlink to TsUP.

First came the Daily Planning Conference – one of two on weekdays (the next would be in the evening) – so they headed down to Destiny so Joe could set up the S-band link.

The U.S. high-rate (1700 to 2300 MHz) S-band, its interface equipment located in Destiny, was the primary voice communications link to the ground. Signals were relayed through two Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS-West, TDRS-East and a backup third, TDRS-Spare) to the White Sands Ground Terminal Complex, and thence to MCC-H. It was available up to seventy-five percent of the time per orbit; this varied depending upon the position of the TDRSs (there was a small Zone of Exclusion where neither satellite was in view of the ISS from seven to fourteen minutes). The ISS itself blocked some of the signal.

The Ku-band system (15,250-17,250 MHz) provided voice and video links, and enabled high-rate transfers of data files between the ISS and the ground. The crew’s Sunday Private Family Conferences (well, Sergei’s and Joe’s, as Yurii had no family) were held over this video link via the Internet Protocol phone, if the link was available. Its coverage also varied each orbit – if there was a risk of lightning strike in Houston, the router there would be shut down.

The Russian segment had its own equivalent communication systems: the VHF-1-Regul system provided direct contact with Russian ground stations when in range (up to twenty minutes of an orbital cycle over ten consecutive passes per 15 to 16 orbits), and the Lira system transmitted voice, video and data.

The Audio Terminal Unit used for this communication was positioned on the port side of Destiny’s aft-facing hatchway. It had a speaker, microphone outlet, headphone jack and a variety of function buttons that could link to speakers in other modules, to the docked Shuttle or astronauts doing EVAs, as well as to the ground.

After consulting the OSTP for this orbit’s S-band time checking the position of the ISS’s ground track on the laptop dedicated to the world map display, Joe went over to the IBM ThinkPad 760XD laptop used to set up the S-band. He navigated to the appropriate display and set the TDRS tracking mode on auto and one of two handover modes (early/late). There were two S-band “strings” or channels; he selected the usual one, #2. The S-band antenna on the Truss gimbaled as commanded and locked onto the chosen TDRS, establishing contact through Ground Channel 2. Joe then pressed the push-to-talk button on the ATU, bringing it to full power and activating it. As usual, Joe used the microphone to talk into.

“We’re coming within range,” Joe remarked. “Houston, this is Alpha calling, Space-to-Ground two, please respond.” Joe repeated this a couple of times, using the American call sign for the ISS. The Russians refused to use this, arguing that Mir had been the first – “alpha” – international station. None of the international partners had yet decided on a proper name for the ISS, and by now probably never would.

There was a crackling then came the welcome familiar Texan drawl of Jerry, the Capcom – another astronaut.

“This is Houston responding to Alpha, Ground-to-Space two.” Both crew and ground announced which one of two channel loops they were using. “Hi, Joe, how y’all going?”

“Hanging in there, Jerry,” said Joe. A relief to hear another American voice! he wanted to add.

Yurii and Sergei – and others down in TsUP – sardonically referred to Mission Control Houston as the Syuzereny, Overlords. NASA’s Mission Control Flight Rules (Rule B1.2.1-8) emphatically stated that:

MCC-H has primary responsibility for ISS operations and safety, including responsibility to the ISS program for all aspects of mission operations.

Russia still had prime responsibility for the Russian segment of the Station, but it had to defer to NASA’s “oversight” of all ISS operations. “They are insulting us deliberately,” said a fuming Yurii, on first reading the Flight Rules. “They know we have more long-term space flight experience.”

“They are getting revenge for Mir,” Sergei surmised. “They are jealous that we had a space station in orbit for so long. They keep emphasizing how much bigger and better the MKS is, compared to Mir.”

He added, “We should never have signed that co-operation agreement.” Sergei referred to the 2 September, 1994, signing of the document which effectively saw the American and U.S. manned space programs merge and begin the Shuttle-Mir and ISS partnerships. “It was a deal with the Devil. Their funding saved our space program, but we are now forever in debt to them.” The Clinton administration, through NASA, had funneled some $400 million to keep the struggling Russian space program afloat. The Americans now provided the majority of ISS funding in comparison to the other partners, which effectively gave it authority over them.

It was a discussion they – and many others – had had often. The Americans had received Russian space technology (such as advanced liquid-fueled rocket engines) and know-how virtually for free – uncaring Russian politicians had been all-too-eager to flog this off. “When they learn everything they can from us, they will discard us,” Sergei remarked darkly.

“We will get back at them,” Yurii said grimly. “I don’t know how, but we will.” He said this to assuage some of the frustrated despair they felt, but they were relatively powerless – and they had careers to consider. Still, they could rebel in small ways – such as ignoring the Flight Rules as much as possible, and riling MCC-Houston ground controllers.

To add insult to injury, NASA mission operations in Moscow were set up in the hall previously used to control the 1988 Buran space shuttle flight. Sergei tried not to dwell too much upon that.

Both he and Yurii tuned out as Joe continued discussing various U.S. segment maintenance issues with Houston, and the progress of U.S. science experiments.

Appendix

Russian glossary

Russian transliterations used in the stories, listed in English alphabetical order.

Amerikantsy
Американцы
Americans
ASU
Ассенизация система управления
Sewage disposal system management
Berkut
Беркут
Golden Eagle
BMP
Блок очистки от микропримесей
Micropurification unit
Bortinzhener
Бортинженер
Flight engineer
Buran
«Буран»
Snowstorm (canceled Russian space shuttle)
Da
Да
Yes
Dobrai utro
Доброе утро!
Good morning!
Elektron
«Электрон»
Electron
F-V
Ф-В
GA
ГА: Газоанализатор
Gas analysis system
Gulag
ГУЛАГ (Главное Управление Лагерей)
Abbreviation for Main Administration of Prisons
Izolyator
Изолятор
Isolation/punishment cell; solitary confinement cell
Kayuta/kayuty
Каюта/каюты
cabin/cabins
Komfort
«Комфорт»
Comfort
Kosmicheskaya Mafiya
Космическая Мафия
Space Mafia (a.k.a. NASA)
MKS: Mezhdunarodnaya Kosmicheskaya Stantsiya
МКС: Международная космическая станция
International Space Station (Cyrillic acronym)
MR: Mocheprie Mnik
Мочеприемник
Urine receptacle
Nyet
Нет
No
Ochkariki
Очкарики
Bespectacled eggheads (derisive slang, plural)
OSK: Orbital’naya Sistema Koordinat
ОСК: Орбитальная система координат
Orbital Co-ordinate System (LVLH)
PA: Pul’t Abonenta
ПА: Пульт абонента
Public Address system/comm panel
PkhO/perekhodnoi otsek
ПХО: Переходной отсек
Transfer Compartment
Plazmennyi Kristall-3
«Плазменный Кристалл2
Plasma Crystal-3
Progress
«Прогресс»
Russian cargo/supply spaceship
Rasteniya-2/Lada-2
«Растения-2/Лада-2»
Plants-2
Regul-Paket
«Регул-Пакет»
regulated-package
RO: Rabochii otcek
РО: Рабочий отсек
Working Compartment
RSO: Ravnovesnaya Solnechnaya Orientatsiya
РСО: Равновесная солнечная ориентация
Solar Equilibrium Orientation (XPOP)
SOGS: Sredstva Obespecheniya Gazovogo Sostava
СОГС: Средства обеспечения газового состава
Atmosphere Revitalization Subsystem
Soyuz
«Союз»
Union (Russian spaceship)
SOZH: Sistemy Obespecheniya Zhiznedeyatel’nosti
СОЖ: Системы обеспечения жизнедеятельности
Life Support System
SP
СП
SRV-K2M: Sistkma Pegeneratsii Vody iz Kondensata
СРВ-К2М: Систкма регенерации воды из конденсата
Condensate Water Processor
SVO: Sredstva Vodoobespecheniya
СВО: Средства водообеспечения
water supply system
Syuzereny
Сюзерены (singular: Сюзерен)
Overlords; feudal lords; supreme ruler/s
TGK: Tveodotoplevnyi Generator Kisloroda
ТГК: Твеодотоплевный генератор кислорода
Solid-fuel oxygen generators
Tovarisch Komandir
Товарищ Командир
Comrade Commander
TsUP: Tsentr Upravleniya Poletom v Moskve
ЦУП: Центр управления полëтом (в Москве)
Mission Control Centre (in Moscow) – pronounced “t’soup”
Ugly posadky
Углы посадкы
Landing angles
Vozdukh
«Воздух»
Air
Vstavai!
Вставаи!
Get up!
Zarya
«Заря» фунционально-грузовой блок
Sunrise (Russian Functional Cargo Block module)
Zvezda
«Звезда» СМ, служебный модуль
Star (Russian Service Module)
Zvyozdyi Gorodok
Звёздый Городок
Star City (Starry Town) (the Yurii Gagarin Cosmonauts’ Training Center)

Cyrillic words:

В память «Мир»
V pamyat’ Mir
In memory of Mir
ПОЛНЫЙ
POLNYI
FULL
Сергей Александрович Константинов, Сергей/Серëжа
Sergei Aleksandrovich Konstantinov, Sergei/Seryozha (official/intimate names)
Юрий Леонидович Золотёв, Юра
Yurii Leonidovich Zolotyov, Yura

NASA acronyms

NASA (and other) acronyms used in this story, listed in alphabetical order.

ATU
Audio Terminal Unit
CDRA
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly
CMG
Control Movement Gyroscope
DPC
Daily Planning Conference
EVA
Extravehicular Activity
IBM
International Business Machines
ISS
International Space Station
LVLH
Local Vertical/Local Horizontal
MCC-H
Mission Control Center Houston
MHz
MegaHertz
MO
Medical Operations
NASA
National Aeronautics & Space Administration
OpsLan
Operations Local Area Network
OSTP
Onboard Short-Term Plan
PFC
Private Family Conference
PMA
Pressurized Mating Adapter
SM
Service Module (Zvezda)
TDRS
Tracking & Data Relay Satellite
TSS
Temporary Sleep Station
UHF
Ultra-High Frequency
VHF
Very High Frequency
XPOP
X-axis Perpendicular to Orbit Plane

© Suzanne B. McHale, 2002; revised June 2007