17.

Moscow, 1 October 2013

These scales have been in use since 1961, says the metal label. In their time, they’ve weighed Gagarin and Tereshkova. By now I’m used to it: last year, I was measured here, at the headquarters of the suit manufacturer Zvezda, with an equally glorious stadiometer bearing labels with the height of those two pioneers. It seems Gagarin was only a couple of centimetres taller than I am, and Tereshkova a tiny bit shorter. I’ll never know what they weighed, however; I’ve searched in vain for similar labels on the scales.

After the weigh-in, it’s time for a series of anthropometric measurements. An elderly man with a kindly expression holds the ruler, while another man, somewhat hunched, looks on, scowling, and an earnest lady carefully registers my measurements in a thick notebook. I wonder if Gagarin’s and Tereshkova’s measurements are also there, in the first pages. But no, they can’t be. The first notebook must have been filled up some time ago. Nevertheless … I’ll take a peep.

Today is a momentous day. At little more than a year from the launch, it’s now time to take the measurements for my Sokol spacesuit. Seventy of them, to be precise. And when they have them, people I will never meet will get to work somewhere in this building on the outskirts of Moscow, manufacturing the suit I’ll wear when I fly into space. We’re about to make a plaster cast of my body, too, and another group of people will use it to craft my seat liner. The scene looks resistant to any change whatsoever, as if it were suspended in time. In the middle of a room with custard-coloured tiles sits an object which at first sight looks to be a small but sturdy metal bath. Dressed in a one-piece cotton undergarment with long sleeves and a hood, I walk up to a knot of people in white aprons swarming around the tub and take my place in it, assuming the now familiar foetal position. Now preparations for pouring the plaster begin: they ask me to extend my arms upwards while the kindly looking man shields my face with his hands, and the earnest lady with a stocky build puts one hand on my abdomen and another on my chest, preparing to press down as much as necessary to stop me from floating. With this bizarre tangle of hands in place, a couple of assistants start pouring plaster from two buckets encrusted with the remains of who knows how many similar sessions. The mould is made in two sections: first the top part of my body down to my hips, and then my pelvis and bottom. When the casting is finished, the only person standing next to me is the lady, still resolutely pressing me towards the bottom of the tub. After the plaster has hardened, I’ll be able to stand up and have a snack of instant coffee and biscuits while two technicians finesse the mould with a putty knife, eliminating all the excess material. Once they’re happy with it, I’ll be asked to take up my post again so I can point out any place where the mould should be improved. It’s important to have uniform contact along the entire spine, especially at the neck, in order to distribute the load evenly. That will minimize the risk of trauma at the moment of impact with the ground at landing. I point out several pressure points and the technicians go back to work making the relevant adjustments. I wonder how they decide how much margin to leave for the suit and for the lengthening of your spine in space. Experience and intuition, I guess. A couple of centimetres for someone small like me, three or four for a larger astronaut? There don’t seem to be any precise rules, but I’m not sure I understand this process very well. They don’t speak much, those technicians – mostly amongst themselves.

I’m not worried. After all, the Soyuz has been flying for decades, and, as far as I know, not a single astronaut has suffered serious trauma. But at the same time, there’s no denying the importance of making a good mould. I’ve heard that the impact with the ground is fairly brutal, though I suspect that comparing it with a car accident reveals something of a taste for exaggeration. At least according to the documentation I’ve been supplied with, the speed at contact must be around 5 kilometres per hour, assuming that the retrorockets are functioning correctly. The Russians call them ‘soft-landing engines’ – ironically, I hope. They ignite in a momentary blaze immediately before landing, activated by a signal from the radar-altimeter at about 1 metre above ground. If they didn’t work, impact would come at 30 kilometres per hour, strong enough to crush the shock absorber in the seat, which would then function as secondary protection.

After various iterations, including a trial with me in a Sokol suit, they let me go and wash up. I remove the leftover plaster while they get the inevitable forms ready for my signature. My suit doesn’t exist yet and my seat liner isn’t ready either, but both are already expressed in numbers, pure and simple: suit no. 422, seat liner no. 650.

Just like so many of them, yet also completely different from all the others, these are the centres of nucleation around which my dream begins to crystallize.

—

During those weeks in Star City, I spent several more days in the hydrolaboratory training underwater, a very welcome opportunity, as always. This also gave me a chance to work closely with Sasha, commander of the Soyuz before mine. I already knew him fairly well, since over the summer we’d both taken the first part of the course on the ATV, ESA’s cargo vehicle. During the first simulations of the rendezvous, when we monitored ATV’s approach and docking at the Space Station, I’d had the chance to appreciate Sasha’s professionalism. As operator number 2, he’d helped me manage the anomalies our instructors presented to us. This excellent impression of him was confirmed in the hydrolaboratory, where we were preparing together for the potential EVA that would see us installing the ERA as the back-up pair, in case it was postponed from Alex’s expedition to ours. Delay was in the air, and a short time later it was actually announced, putting an end, unfortunately, to my training in the Orlan suit. As I’d feared, the launch of the MLM, and with it, the ERA, skipped right over Expedition 42/43, and was postponed to some unknown date in the future. Although not entirely unexpected, it was somewhat disappointing. The NASA suit was now my only hope of making an EVA in space.

It wasn’t smooth going just then for the EMU either. For several months, it hadn’t been cleared for use in orbit except in cases of absolute necessity. Meanwhile, the specialists in Houston were trying to determine the cause of a serious incident, when Luca found himself in a very dangerous situation. Of all the possible ways to die in space – and especially during a spacewalk – drowning has never featured high on the list, until the day when a large amount of water accumulated inside Luca’s helmet, to the extent that eventually it stopped him from seeing or communicating via radio. Thanks to his professionalism and sang-froid, the experience of his EVA lead Chris and prompt support from Karen and his Russian colleagues in the ISS and Mission Control in Houston, he was able to get back to the safety of the Space Station, ready to underplay the situation with characteristic irony: ‘Now I know how a goldfish feels!’ I was in class in Star City while all this was going on. I read during a break that they’d called a Terminate EVA, and with the instructor’s permission I followed the updates from Houston while my class continued. Actually, I didn’t realize the gravity of the situation in real time: terminate doesn’t mean abort; it does not indicate a serious emergency that requires an immediate re-entry. However, the incident was indeed quite risky, and they definitely needed to identify the root cause of the malfunction. If Luca’s suit had experienced this unexplained failure, they couldn’t rule out the possibility that another suit might manifest the same problem. And what if Luca had been working at the far end of the truss, a long way from the Airlock instead of close to it?

While a team in Houston was analysing the anomaly, methods had already been identified for mitigating the risk if the situation should repeat itself. It was clear that the water had got into Luca’s helmet through the air vent level with the nape of his neck. From there, it had soaked through his Snoopy Cap and started to migrate towards his face, with the gelatinous behaviour of liquids in weightlessness, where surface tension takes over. So from then on, the back part of the helmet would be covered with an adhesive strip made of the same material as the nappy. Astronauts would in fact wear a type of large absorbent pad behind their heads. A snorkel would be provided in case so much water leaked in that the absorbent pad became saturated and water accumulated in the helmet. The snorkel would allow one to breathe air from the chest region, and it quickly became standard NBL kit, so that you could get used to it. As for the absorbent pad, I got acquainted with it during a dedicated session: while I was wearing the suit torso and helmet, the instructors poured greater and greater quantities of water on the pad to familiarize me with the increase in thickness I could anticipate depending on the magnitude of the leak.

In the meantime, investigation of the problem had located the proximate cause in an obstruction in one of the components, owing to contaminated coolant water. Further investigation over the coming months would trace the problem to an issue in the ground facility where the coolant water had been packaged. Various recommendations were put forward, and these were implemented before the EMU could be authorized for non-contingency spacewalks, more than a year after Luca’s incident. The inquiry also highlighted the fact that the ground control team did not immediately recognize the nature of the problem or its seriousness, since that failure mode can occur only in weightlessness and was not well known. For me, it was a moment to reflect: after decades of honourable service and hundreds of spacewalks, the EMU could still offer up some surprises. It may have moved beyond its pioneering phase, but spaceflight is still far from being routine.

Training at the NBL continued as normal, and I had regular opportunities to practise with Terry in the EMU suit. But it wasn’t only training that kept me busy in Houston during that sweltering August. When I managed to get away from JSC or the NBL on time, I fretted over much more trivial things, such as underwear and skin lotion. There were fifteen months to go before the launch, but my first baggage deadline for space was hanging over me: it was time to choose work clothes, toiletries and workout gear. For Terry and me, the process had begun months earlier with a trial session in Houston. We were shown various NASA products we could choose from. Trousers or shorts? Long sleeves or short? Socks or knee-highs? This barrage of questions was accompanied by an avalanche of information about how long we’d be using various items and feedback from past crews. There were also alternative Russian products, but we’d only see those some months later, which meant that comparisons had to be postponed. Bernadette was responsible for dressing the astronaut crews on the ISS, and in her methodical way she sent all the information ahead of time, complete with photos and suggestions. But who had time to read it all? So we found ourselves in front of a large table covered with clothes and gear, assailed by questions and confronted with a perplexing realization: it was more distressing to choose underwear than it ever was to spin in the centrifuge or deal with emergency simulations.

I asked lots of female veteran astronauts for their views, mostly when it came to choosing between different items of underwear, which for women are simply bought from shops. There was one question in particular which I’d never considered, yet it suddenly became relevant: did I need to wear a bra in orbit? If so, what sort? After listening to the advice of various expert colleagues, I opted for a bra camisole, which I felt would be enough for daily activities, and a sports bra for running. I also spent an unusual amount of time in shopping centres looking for face cleansers, moisturizing creams and foundations that didn’t contain any of the prohibited ingredients, among them many commonly used alcohols. At the end of August, I could proclaim victory before going back to Europe: my list was ready for Bernadette. The first one, anyway. In the coming months, there would be many more lists and deadlines punctuating my way to space. I began to think that the training, which after all didn’t require me to organize anything or make decisions, was the easy part of what lay ahead. What really began to intimidate me were the thousands of micro-preparations which neither Luca A. nor Alicia, his super-efficient counterpart in Houston, would put on my schedule.

As always, the training journey at JSC had been intense and taxing, made up of long days when lunch meant hurriedly buying a sandwich to eat in the next class. Back in Europe, I took a short break in Sicily and then joined Butch in Cologne for the course as ‘specialist’ on the Columbus lab. I once heard a colleague use the washing machine to explain the various levels of qualification on the Space Station systems: a user knows how to do the laundry; an operator understands all the functions and can interpret possible signs of malfunction; a specialist can take the machine apart and repair it. In some situations the analogy could be particularly fitting: one of my lessons as a specialist, in fact, was about looking for a water leak in Columbus.

Just like all non-Russian modules on the Space Station, the European laboratory is criss-crossed by a complex network of pipes. The coolant water running through that network draws heat from the equipment and then transfers it to the ammonia, the notoriously toxic substance in the external cooling loops. From there, the heat is transported to the Space Station’s large radiators, to be dispersed into space. If there’s a leak, the crew must work quickly to find and isolate the fault, before the risk of overheating the machinery requires switching it off. It’s one of the procedures that definitely can’t be performed by the controllers on the ground: the various racks have to be physically disconnected from the cooling loop until the leak is stopped, a sign that the faulty rack has been identified.

During the short time I was in Cologne, I was able to carve out a bit of time from my schedule for a few visits to the dentist. It’s a myth that astronauts have perfect teeth; mine certainly aren’t. However, I had never before experienced what happened to me next. A week after a minor procedure, I was still in pain. I stockpiled the pain relievers, and with the blessing of my flight surgeon Brigitte and my dentist’s less than reassuring view that it was probably only a matter of another day or so, I set out for Star City. The next day I was scheduled to scuba-dive in the hydrolaboratory, and the day after that I’d have my first training session in the Orlan with Sasha. Toothache or not, I had to do it. Rescheduling something as complicated as a run in the hydrolaboratory is just as difficult as it is to delay the beginning of a training trip. The repercussions would have impacted my entire trip template, not to mention Sasha’s and probably those of some of the other astronauts. Our lives were interwoven, and the closer we got to the launch, the farther the ripples from any change would spread.

The young Russian border police officer certainly caused some ripples the evening I arrived at the Domodedovo airport. He examined my passport long and intently and then, looking me straight in the eyes, he asked, ‘How do you intend to enter Russia today?’ With the valid visa in my passport, I thought. But something about the young officer’s seriousness soon clued me in to the fact that he wasn’t the one in the wrong. That evening, with thirty-six years to my name and more time spent in airports than at home in the past few years, I learned that granting a new visa cancels out the previous one. My new visa wasn’t valid yet, and the old one was cancelled.

By chance Yuri Petrovich was travelling with me, and I called him for help. But his plea for them to allow me to enter Russia, by virtue of the fact that I was an astronaut, that I would soon be flying on the Soyuz and that anyway I was a good fellow, was unsuccessful. I’d felt momentarily hopeful, accustomed as I was to the idea that Yuri Petrovich could solve any problem. But I was taken into custody by an official and told that I would be put on a flight back to Frankfurt. I had my doubts about whether there was another flight that day, since it was already almost midnight. So there was a little time to find another solution. When it came down to it, this was Russia, one of those places where nothing can be done, but then, anything is possible. While the various officials discussed amongst themselves, I managed to get my boss, Frank, on the phone, and I told him what had happened – not without profound embarrassment. Frank alerted the ESA representative in Moscow, René, and he hurried to Domodedovo, contacting the airport consul on his way – a person with consular roles, or so I thought. The consul came to speak to me, and though he was very kind, he could only inform me – however contritely – that he could not allow me to leave the airport, alas, since without a visa I definitely couldn’t enter Russia and at that hour he was unable to issue one. He did however wish me a good night in the transit area of the airport.

I resigned myself to spending the night half-awake on a seat with fixed armrests. I had a packet of biscuits and a stash of small bottles of water which Yuri Petrovich had somehow managed to get for me before he left. Thanks to the fax René sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at four in the morning, and who-knows-how-many phone calls, I wasn’t put on the first flight to Frankfurt the next day. At around eleven, I was able to leave the transit zone with a new visa in my passport. Nikolai and Yuri Petrovich were waiting to give me a hug. Of all the people involved in my mishap, I was undoubtedly the one who’d got the most sleep.