We spent the next week touring space vehicle mock-ups, mostly in Building Nine. It was surprisingly emotional, getting so close to the (albeit scale model) shoulders of giants—the International Space Station, Orion, 2020, Foresight, Odysseus, and Deep Space Gateway, which I now observed was laid out like one of my student apartments at Cal-Tech—four-to-six (depending on the mission) autonomous crew modules surrounding a central control and meeting area that broke up the claustrophobia I saw Ali experiencing as we roamed through these confined spaces. DSG’s center also rotated and like the centrifuge, created a muted but comforting artificial gravitational field. Though my apartment didn’t rotate, its center kitchen and living area was a center of gravity for us, four unrelated students living in autonomous modules known as bedroom/bathroom “suites.”
“Deep Space Gateway is an updated version of NASA’s Nautilus-X Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle from 2011,” a recorded tour guide explained. “Designed and built by CloudSpark and TeloSky [Alexander Sparks’ and Leon Telos’ aeronautics manufacturing companies, respectively], DSG is the first rotating-gravity-wheel space station. It has admirably and economically proved a concept originally described by aeronautical engineers such as Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the Father of Space Exploration, and Wernher von Braun, the Father of Rocketry, yet better known to science fiction fans through the works of Arthur C. Clarke and others,” e.g. 2001: A Space Odyssey.
“Pretty roomy in here,” Ali said about DSG’s rotating hub. “I’m likin’ it.”
The laboratory crew module where Crimsy lived seemed bigger to me here than it appeared during our DSG conference calls. It did not rotate, however, so Crimsy was living gravity free.
“I’m cutting my hair,” Ali said, watching a Cloud video of an astronaut moving around a DSG crew module, hair in the air. The replay looped as she took off her baseball cap, smiled at the camera, hair flying up. It looked more funny than annoying.
The highlight of “Sim Week” which was actually ten days, started with bragging props for CanASCAN. “CanArm is amazing,” he said. Without it, he explained, Telos, Sparks, and NASA could never have built the artificial gravity wheel.
Designed by our neighbor to the north, CanArm was a dynamic trio of robotic arms and a hand, explained our robotics instructor, whose name tag read “Joshua Logan, Canadian Space Agency.” The first arm, CanArmPex, manipulated payloads and attached mission crew modules, things that require pushing and lifting strength ala your pectoral muscles. Sibling CanArmDex performed maintenance tasks requiring manual dexterity, such as cleaning and adjusting solar collectors and fixing stuff. It worked in tandem with a human-like titanium-alloy hand known as the Dexterous Manipulator, aka Dex. The arms and hand could travel to any location on the space station, where crew members on the ground or in a glass-enclosed DSG cupola controlled it.
“Do we have a couple volunteers to take the simulation controls?” Logan asked.
Ali raised her hand and mine. We ducked into the glass cupola dome, cramped with screens and controllers. The rest of our group watched on monitors outside, awaiting their turns. It seemed kinda unfair: the last people to do the simulations would have the benefit of watching everyone before them either get it right or screw it up. The pressure was on us guinea pigs.
“We have two sims,” Logan explained. “Use Dex to un-stick the gravity wheel. We don’t know how it got stuck. Maybe a bird hit it.”
LOL.
“And use Pex to attach a crew module that has just arrived from Earth.”
“Which one’s harder?” I asked.
“Pex,” our instructor replied. “At least, that’s what everyone says. I broke a hydraulic line on the Dex sim, so my experience was, shall we say, a bit different.”
“I’ll do Pex,” I said. I figured after all the fuss and haze, I needed to prove something to myself. “Unless Ali—”
“I’m already hooked on the gravity wheel,” she said.
“Okay, so,” Logan began, “here we have rotational controllers that rotate the arms.” He pointed at two joysticks, marked D and P. “These translational controllers move the arms up, down, and out. Pex has a new telescopic feature, like the old car or radio antennas, where three ten-meter segments can extend for thirty meters or one hundred feet total.” He pressed the top of a toggle switch to extend the arm, the bottom to retract it. “Finally, these gloves control Dex. Put your hands in, watch Dex on the screen, do what you need to do.”
Everything around and above us gradually went dark.
“This cupola rotates,” he said. “The floor can do a three sixty. We can also tilt sixty degrees forward and back.”
I heard servomotors spin, felt tilting and rotating, and broke out in goosebumps as simulated Mama Earth, in all her baby blue, milky-white glory, gradually and magnificently filled the glass dome around us.
“Gravity Wheel repair simulation,” Josh Logan said. “First, we need to find out what’s wrong so we run a computer diagnosis.” The verdict: broken hydraulic line, Servo Bay Four, “code name Logan’s Done.”
“Broken hydraulic line, huh? Very funny,” he said. “Wait til I find the wiseguy who programmed the sim.”
“It wasn’t a guy,” a woman’s voice said on a speaker. I heard laughter from our group outside.
“Watch and learn, Bren,” Logan replied. “First step: let’s swing Dex into view.” He put Ali’s hand on the joystick. She toggled it around and the giant arm (an elaborate 3D image) emblazoned with Canada’s maple leaf flag appeared through the cupola. “Next step: Attach Dex.” A couple touch screen commands attached the companion hand to the mighty arm. “Let’s have a look at the servo bay. It’ll be on your left. Just follow the camera.” We saw a lid marked with the number four. “Open sesame. You right or left handed?” Logan asked.
“Left,” Ali said. A woman after my own rebel heart.
“Left hand glove. Put your hand in and open the bay.”
So this glove control was cool. It took charge of both arm and hand, and with her fingers, Ali opened the small bay door.
“What do we see?” Logan asked.
Ali shrugged.
“Let’s take a closer look.” He moved a camera with a light into the bay, a cubby filled with tubing and hardware. “Put your hand in there and gently pull the tubing forward.”
She did. It didn’t look broken.
“So why don’t we have hydraulic fluid spewing all over?” he asked.
“Automatic shut down with any pressure drop,” Ali said.
“One hundred percent...correct,” he said. Our group outside cheered.
“My god, I have an audience,” Ali said.
“And a straightforward fix,” Josh said. “Line isn’t broken. Just unplugged. Take it, follow your flashlight into the bay, and plug it back in.”
“Wow,” she said. “My hand’s getting tired.”
“Why we have this.” He swung an arm rest over. “One for each arm. It helps holding your hands steady. Dex can’t do super complicated maneuvers because of controller fatigue, but it has eliminated the need for maybe, what, forty percent of space walks?”
Arm and wrist on the mobile rest, Ali took the tubing and plugged it into the socket, well inside the dark cubby.
“Now slowly twist to the left until you feel it lock.”
She did.
“Okay—now the real test,” Josh said. “Flight engineer: re-pressurize.”
Some digital readings appeared but skittered around and fell back.
“Sim complication one: pressure not holding; hydraulics disengaged,” said Bren, the woman’s voice from our great beyond. “You sure the line locked?”
“I’ll check,” Ali said. She took the hand back into the bay, grabbed the line. “Feels loose,” she said. “I can actually feel it in the glove. This is so wild.”
“Turn it again, gently. Gently. Dex can break stuff as well as fix it, as I found out the hard way.”
She turned her wrist and we saw the line turn in the plug.
“It locked? Feel it. Any slack?”
“No.”
“Engineering: re-pressurize servo bay four hydraulic line.” The readings came back up and stayed. We heard clapping and woots outside. “Nobody cheer yet,” Josh said. “Okay—let’s get Dex outta there. Take the joystick and fully retract.”
We watched all the screens, every angle of the giant flywheel as its robotic helpmate moved along the hull and away.
“Engineering: start the Ferris Wheel.”
“I’m sorry Josh,” Bren said. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“Don’t argue with me, HAL,” Josh shot back. “Now start that wheel.” And the artificial gravity wheel started turning in space. Our team applauded. With her hand in the glove, Ali—and Dex, on one of the monitors—gave us an interstellar thumbs up.
My simulation was comparatively simple. I used CanArmPex’s telescoping arm to corral and attach an Orion crew module that arrived by rocket to one of two vacant module bays. Parts of the module unfolded and unfurled, like a fancy tent. The arm placed it to form a vacuum seal, then our hypothetical crew members did the rest, attaching oxygen, waste, hydraulic, power, and communication lines, all from inside. The most I got to do with the Dex gloves was put my hands into them, wiggle my fingers, and make Ali laugh when I flipped her off against the backdrop of CloudSpark’s “lightning in a thunder cloud” corporate logo on the side of DSG.
I left the door of my hotel room ajar to let some air in, hopefully sans bugs.
“Hey ya chickee.” Ali peaked around it. “Let’s—” She hopped on the bed. “...go out.”
“Where?”
She put up both feet and her skirt fell back.
“Cute dress,” I said.
“It’s not the dress I am displaying.” She clicked her heels together. “Have you no sense of smell? No twinge of envy?”
I sniffed the aroma of new and expensive on her cowboy boots.
“Are these a hint?” I asked.
“Line dancing,” she said. “Most of our group’s going.”
“I’ve never line danced in my life.”
“Me, neither. But when in Texas.” She got up, slipped out the door, and back in with two large square boxes. I picked up a different aroma before she took the first lid off and put the brimmed hat on her head.
“Gorgeous,” I said. She took out another hat and put it on my head. “Ali—”
“Hush.” She directed me to the mirror. “Hottie, absolutely,” she said.
“This looks like it cost a fortune.”
“Looks can be deceiving. But don’t think for a minute that not spending a fortune means I value you one bit less.” She took her hat by its brim, swept it off her head, and bowed like a knight-errant. The cowboy hat, the boots, the skirt, the flight jacket all made a kind of weird-western-wonderful sense.
She unzipped the jacket to a shirt with fringes, turquoise, and rhinestones.
“I can’t compete,” I said.
“I’ve looked in your closet,” she said. “You can try.”
We had the best darn time boot scootin’, toe tapping, heel clacking, and do-si-doing through what felt like every one, two, three, and four-wall line dancing classic—Brooks and Dunn, Alan Jackson, Shania Twain, and a few that caught my rhythm off guard. I’d never heard Britney Spears before, so when this song called “Toxic” came on, Ali had to step in.
“One two, one two, one two,” she said, watching my not-exactly-cowboy-boots, then leading with hers. “Forget the lyrics. Go with the bass.”
I finally got it. One two, one two, one two. Clack clack clack! Every heel in the room hit the floor at once. Clack clack clack! The club’s two fiddlers jumped in—the song had some rousing string riffs they attacked with C&W gusto. It was loud, boisterous, exhilarating. I’m not big into touchy-feely, so in pretty much every way, this was my kind of dance. Alice Merton was next and since I knew her song (it was one of my teen anthems) I got the rhythm and the twist right off. Every time she said “no roots,” we said “no boots,” our boots hitting the floor in synchronized defiance.
I took Ali’s “go with it advice” when I saw strangers recognizing me.
“You’re my hero,” this guy said.
“Oh my god!” a woman who looked to be about twenty said, smiling and staring. “Are you, like, flying out of here?”
“Florida,” Ali, on my other side, interrupted.
“Unbelievable. I can’t believe I’m standing next to you!”
“So cool.”
“Crimsy!”
I felt showered with admiration, though a guy who was pretty drunk did get a little pushy at the bar. He seemed pissed I wouldn’t let him buy me a Coke and...rum, vodka, tequila, Jack—he recited a list. He finally asked to arm wrestle for “the honor.” I pursed my lips and tried to convey I wasn’t interested. But he kept at it and I relented. I heard him call me a “bitch” when his hand was in mine, elbows on the bar, wrestling but not moving.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“I don’t know why you’re acting like this,” he said. “I just wanted to buy a pretty lady a drink.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, holding his arm. “But I also politely said no.”
“This ain’t polite,” he said.
“What?” Ali appeared behind him, nursing a beer.
“Problem?” The bartender swooped in with a rag and cleared our section of the bar.
I didn’t want to answer or end our bout publicly, so I squeezed the guy’s hand, felt something give, then let him have it back. He slipped off the stool nursing wrist and palm, scowled at me, and vanished into the low-lit crowd.
“What the fuck?” Ali said. She grinned.
I sipped my virgin Coke and gazed at her, innocently, over the straw.