26.

Baikonur, 23 November 2014

The countdown is over. Today I woke up on Earth and I’ll fall asleep in space.

My programme for the day requires a time-out: five hours of sleep until 5.00 p.m., before the meticulous pre-launch choreography begins. I’d have been very glad for some rest, since it’ll be more or less midday tomorrow before I can close my eyes again on the Space Station, yet despite the small dose of sleeping medicine Brigitte prescribed, I woke up well before time. Maybe it’s just my usual strict biological clock that rebels at having to take an afternoon nap, or maybe I’m more nervous than I care to admit. At any rate, I’m awake, under the covers, with my feet elevated thanks to a mattress raised a few centimetres at one end, a little trick that’s thought to help your system adapt to weightlessness. Another is to spend the odd half hour on a table tilted at a 45-degree angle, with your head down. I did that a few times during the quarantine and I took a photo showing the face I may have in space: swollen, with eyes narrowed due to the fluid that’s drained from my body into my head.

I adore a good lie-in. It’s one of my great weaknesses. Unless I have jet lag, I fall asleep instantly at night, but I always linger under the covers in the morning. I wonder if it’ll be the same in space, and if I’ll still sleep well without the sensation of my body sinking into a mattress. I’ve heard that many astronauts don’t enjoy sleep floating, so they use bungees to anchor themselves to a wall in order to feel some pressure.

My last nap on Earth was strange, as if part of me had remained awake to look on while the other part slept. These last weeks have been like that, to be honest: there I was, taking part in the events, lessons and rituals, but I was also elsewhere, looking in from the outside, as if scrolling through frames of a film. The closer it gets to the launch, the more detached I feel. Maybe a sort of unconscious wisdom is slowly shaping my spirit to prepare me for what lies ahead: letting myself be moved by a launch as I have in the past, as a spectator, is a luxury I can’t afford this time. For those actually in the rocket, a launch must be reduced to a matter of procedure and technology. You can harbour both dazzled amazement and clear detachment in your heart, but the most appropriate attitude must prevail when the time comes.

In my half-sleeping, half-waking state, I can’t decide whether to get up or try to sleep a bit longer. I look back on our experience in Baikonur as prime crew and imagine it depicted as a cycle of frescos, like those in a church that tell the lives of saints, always showing the same scenes, more or less: birth, meetings, miracles, martyrdom. We’re not saints, we don’t perform miracles and we’re certainly not aiming for martyrdom, but I can imagine a few fitting scenes. There we are, leaving Star City on the bus for Chkalovsky airport, our hands pressed against the window, overlapping those of our loved ones outside. In a corner – and this is the beauty of frescos – is a parallel scene: Oleg, Kimiya and Kjell turning back after having seen us off. One of the planes, in fact, has broken down, and they will only be able to get to Baikonur the following day. In the next scene, one of us is crawling through the hatch of the orbital module in a blue suit and a white chef’s hat, while technicians bustle about in surgical masks. In another frame we’re putting on our Sokol suits; still another shows us in the descent module with all our belts fastened, checking our work envelope and ability to reach and operate the systems. It’s our first fit check, the first time we see our spaceship again after having left it all those months ago in Moscow.

There’s a further fresco dedicated to the quarantine: here we are in class with Dima, going over procedures; there we’re training for manual docking with a portable simulator sitting on the table; in another frame we are sitting down next to each other as, assembly-line style, we each sign one of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of official crew photos piled on tables and chairs. In a scene that feels almost domestic, Dima and I are checking the weight of my personal objects, individually numbered and packed in small plastic bags.

It’s strange how wrapped up we get in details and concerns of surprising banality the closer we get to the launch. Where will I find my clothes on board? A short time ago, Bernadette sent me an Excel summary sheet, but where did I put it? What can I take for nausea, if I succumb to the infamous space sickness? Should I take a preventative medicine before we launch? What would Brigitte recommend? And what do Reid and Alex think about it? They’re in space, but after all only an email away … How should I take phone numbers and passwords with me? I’ve got them all on one page, which Lionel will send me by email as soon as our on-board account is active upon my arrival. But I have a paper copy too, and I’ve given it to Dima to put in one of our procedure checklists. It also has my credit card details, but that card was blocked a few days ago because of a suspicious attempt to use it on the other side of the world. So no purchases from the ISS … I’ll get over it.

The second and final fit check of our Soyuz took place a few days ago. The spaceship was already shrouded in the fairing, and our visit, complete with signatures on the forms, was now all that was missing before the Soyuz could be mounted on top of the rocket. We climbed up as usual to the third level of the yellow scaffolding that wrapped around the Soyuz and crawled in through the small opening in the fairing that corresponds to the Soyuz access hatch. Inside the orbital module, there was hardly any space to move because of all the cargo that was carefully arranged in the cabin, most of it packaged in clear anti-static bags. I recognized my gym shoes in one of them, and also my cycling shoes, the only footwear I’ll need in space. There was no point in looking for my EVA gloves, though. I knew very well that they wouldn’t be there, that they’d been scratched from the cargo list after the loss of the Cygnus to make room for more urgent supplies. No harm done as long as they were coming on Dragon in a few weeks as previously planned. But it won’t happen. They’ll be staying on Earth. I became aware of this during the peaceful routine of the first week of quarantine, and the news coated me with a sticky bitterness that I’m still trying to shake off completely. Due to an intercontinental misunderstanding over who would tell me about it, and when, I found out in a cold and brutal way: I opened an email attachment with a table showing the new cargo manifest for the next launches, and in the Dragon column my gloves and the sack containing my personal EVA equipment were crossed out and highlighted in red, with a brief note in the margin explaining that, due to lack of space, the ISS programme management had decided not to launch them, and to accept the risk of having only two crew members who could perform an EVA with the EMU suit. I read it several times, but there was not a shred of doubt, not the least uncertainty. The message was clear: my EVA equipment would not be on board. I felt dreadful, a mixture of indignation and self-pity. How could I have been so mistaken all this time, believing that redundancy of EVA capability was essential, to the point where it was unthinkable to consider being part of an ISS crew if you hadn’t demonstrated during training that you could perform a spacewalk? Had all the late evenings and entire weekends I’d spent preparing for NBL runs been misplaced effort, the absurd result of some misunderstanding? These were all pointless questions at that stage, but they went round and round in my head. I couldn’t stop them any more than I could have stopped the waves in the sea from crashing to the shore during a storm.

Obviously there’s nothing for me to get angry about. No one has done me any wrong, and neither the world nor the ISS revolves around my personal ambitions. My dream of making a spacewalk has come up against the reality of some unlucky circumstances – full stop. The disappointment burns and will continue to burn for a long time, but you can’t always have good luck, and I’ve had a great deal in my life. Ironically, for a couple of weeks it seemed like the loss of Cygnus might even have a silver lining. The accident, and the resulting no-show for many spare parts and experiment hardware, had eased the shortage of astronaut time that afflicted our mission, and it would have been easier, now, to put on the timeline the assembly of a medium-sized suit, news that had been more welcome than ever now that a third EVA for Expedition 42 seemed ever more likely. Yet just when it seemed that a window of opportunity had opened, all hope flew out of it.

Maybe I was wrong to want an EVA so badly, when so many people had warned me that I should not get too carried away about it, since even at the best of times it’s uncertain and liable to unforeseen changes of plan. In retrospect, it’s easy to regret not being more detached about it. The truth is that if things had gone differently, I would have been pleased with my own tenacity and praised for my grit. I don’t want to fall into the trap of judging the value of an endeavour according to whether it’s successful or not. I don’t want to accept that the success of a venture decides, after the event, whether pursuing an improbable goal was determination or naivety, tenacity or obsession. I reminded myself of the words I love to repeat to young boys and girls whenever I meet them: if you have an ambition, take motivation from that and apply yourself to the utmost. Choose the most difficult path, the one that allows you to grow. It’s important to have a dream for the journey, not for the finish line. As they say in Houston, EVA training builds character. It’s made me stronger and more aware of my limits, but also of my strengths. It’s taught me how to ration my energy, streamline my movements and actions, to perform every movement in a considered, conscious way. I’ve learned to manage my frustration, change orientation – literally – to identify a different approach to a difficult task, and to find the right balance between carrying on and looking for an alternative solution. What’s about to begin won’t, I hope, be my last mission, and maybe next time I’ll be able to make a spacewalk. For now, thanks to my EVA training, I’m a little better for it.

I’ll never get back to sleep; I have to accept that. I get up and reach for my computer, struck by how nearly empty the place is now, like an unoccupied hotel room. My luggage is waiting by the door. I’ve packed a couple of suitcases and various bags, meticulously organized according to destination: some things can just go back home, but I’ll need others in Houston on my return, since after landing, Terry and I will be taken there directly. I’ve labelled clearly, or at least I hope I have, the things that will remain in Star City and be transferred to the two bags which will be taken to the nominal landing site and the ballistic one, respectively, on the day of our re-entry. According to instructions, in each bag I’ve placed sunglasses, gym shoes, a change of underwear, a blue flight suit for official welcoming ceremonies, sportswear for the long flight to Houston, toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant, and a bottle of shampoo for my first real shower after six months. There are also some snacks: a few weeks ago, I found myself in a Moscow supermarket, thinking about what I’d want to eat when I got back from space. I placed my bets on Mediterranean flavours: crackers with rosemary and taralli with olive oil.

I go back to bed, arranging the cushions so I can lean on them comfortably, and open up my laptop. The good wishes keep coming by email, many of them from people I haven’t been in contact with for years. They make me happy, but I’m not responding to them any more. Yesterday evening, I set up an auto-response: ‘I’ll be off the planet for a while, back in May 2015. Unfortunately I won’t read your message.’ While I’m on the ISS I’ll have an ad hoc email account, but I’ll only receive messages from authorized senders. One of the many things keeping me busy over the past few weeks was putting that list together and including key people from the team I work with, along with family and friends.

Some of them are here in Baikonur now – fifteen in all, including Lionel, my parents and my brother: that’s how many Roscosmos allows each astronaut to invite, though the cost of getting here is prohibitive for most. My guests arrived in Kazakhstan the other day after a few days in Moscow and Star City, where they were entrusted to the care of my EAC colleagues Romain and Manuela, and Lionel, who never tires of organizing visits or booking restaurants for the little group. I couldn’t have direct contact with them because of quarantine restrictions, but we had a couple of half-hour sessions to talk through a glass partition. I sat on one side and they on the other, in conference-room chairs, passing a microphone around in order to talk to me. There’s no use pretending that the situation wasn’t a little awkward, but on the other hand it was light-hearted, and there was a nice bond between them, despite the fact that many of them had never met one another before arriving in Moscow. Lionel busied himself preparing a little gift box for everyone including a towel since, as The Hitchhiker’s Guide points out, ‘A towel … is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.’ If this launch goes belly-up, it won’t be for want of towels.

My brother, my parents and of course Lionel were allowed to meet with me without the glass wall in the way, though they had to submit to a daily visit with Doctor Savin. We were repeatedly reminded that we should avoid all physical contact, and we all heeded the recommendations, within reasonable limits. We went for a walk along Cosmonauts Alley and I took them to see the little tree I planted a few days ago. We then went to the recreation room for a chat, before my brother and my parents left me alone with Lionel for a few moments. Lionel came back for a final time last night to watch the traditional screening of White Sun of the Desert, a classic film from the Soviet era which is shown to crews on the eve of every launch. We watched part of it, and then we took some time to say goodbye in private, giving in to a rather emotional parting.

Still on the bed, I write a few spontaneous words of thanks on the last Earth-based page of my logbook, a near-daily blog I started more than a year ago, 500 days before the launch. It’s been a long journey to get where I am today, and it’s impossible to remember everyone who has helped me, encouraged me, looked on with kindness or shown patience with my mistakes and excesses, which are exacerbated by my somewhat tough character. And when that character earned me someone’s hostility, it’s likely that even that was for the good. Life is made up of complex and unpredictable relationships, and my being here today is the result of all that’s come before, no matter whether something seemed to me like a good or a bad thing at the time. Even those who’ve tried to obstruct my progress have become stepping stones on my path. I’ll take them with me into space, along with every other person I’ve met, everything I’ve learned and every experience I’ve lived through.

It’s time now. Someone’s knocking at the door. It’s Antonio, EAC’s rep for crew support; he’s gone through quarantine with me. Prompt as always, he’s here to take instructions about my baggage, and then he’ll leave me alone with Brigitte for a last medical check-up. Olga, the Russian doctor, joins us after a few minutes for what is euphemistically termed ‘special medical procedure’ on our schedule for the day: an enema. It’s not obligatory, but it’s heartily recommended, and I don’t know of any astronaut who failed to accept this offer willingly, in hopes that they wouldn’t have to do a Number Two in the Soyuz toilet. Olga is an expert and carries out the unpleasant procedure quickly and efficiently. Then I withdraw to the bathroom, where Doctor Savin has left a bowl of alcohol and a few large towelettes for me to use to disinfect the skin on my entire body. But first I linger in the shower, surrendering to the pleasant sensation of hot water running through my hair. It won’t happen again for a long time.

When I’ve finished my cleansing procedures, I put on the Sokol undergarments, white cotton leggings and a long-sleeved vest. I pull a t-shirt and sports trousers over those and then join Terry and Anton in the small dining room for our final meal. It’s been dark outside for several hours, but our day is only just beginning. There are eight hours to go before the launch. We were asked in advance what we wanted to eat for every meal while we were in quarantine, but not this time: the kitchen has clear instructions, and I don’t know if it’s down to tradition or prudent choice. We are served two similar dishes, a stuffed focaccia and some sort of thick, dense quiche, which I remember eating before Reid, Alex and Maksim’s launch. It’s not a memorable meal, but that’s OK. I’m fine with eating whatever Russian wisdom considers least likely to show up again in a few hours, should I discover that I am one of those astronauts who suffer space sickness. We eat quickly, saying little, and return to our rooms for a short while. At 19.40 local time, we leave our quarters, never to return.

The air is crisp, but it’s not an unpleasant cold, just nippy enough to bring my thoughts back to the present – they’re prone to racing ahead. In a couple of minutes we arrive at the main building and go up to the second floor, to the wing the crew used to stay in until a few years ago. We raise a toast in what was then the commander’s room. Luckily, it’s the last toast. I’ve run out of ideas, and maybe patience, too. Terry and Anton’s wives are here, and Lionel too, along with reps from NASA, ESA and Roscosmos. We toast with fruit juice, but the back-up crew drinks sparkling wine as if symbolically to underline the fact that they are definitely not the ones going into space today. Waiting for us in the corridor is a small crowd composed of our families, reps from various agencies and a few photographers, ready to immortalize the umpteenth ritual gesture: signing our names on the door. A little way away, an orthodox priest wearing yellow vestments is waiting for us in a small antechamber, ready to give us his blessing. As we pause before him, he dips a large sprinkler in a golden cup, enthusiastically waving it towards me, the first one in the queue.

And so it’s with my face and hair dripping with holy water and bolstered by divine protection that I prepare to leave quarantine definitively and proceed to the most important night of my life. The loudspeakers are blasting out a remix of the famous Russian rock song ‘Trava u doma’, ‘Grass by the Home’, considered the official cosmonauts’ hymn. Anton, Terry and I stride purposefully down the stairs to this soundtrack, lined up beside each other, and we walk out of the main entrance. Shouts of encouragement are coming from the courtyard: we can’t see them since only the walkway is illuminated, but behind the barriers, our families and friends are rooting for us. We wave to them, smiling blindly into the dark as we walk through cold air thrumming with music and frenzied yelling. We climb into the bus and put our hands to the windows, meeting those of our loved ones through the glass. Minutes later, we’re on the road that crosses the steppe to the cosmodrome. It’s a deserted road, apart from a few police cars here and there, the policemen standing beside their vehicles to offer us a military salute as we go by.

About forty minutes later we arrive at the now familiar Building 254.

As always, at the entrance we place our feet in a machine that wraps them in plastic shoe covers. From there, we go into the small crew room where we’ve waited during the breaks on the long fit check days. There are a couple of faux-leather sofas and a small television on a stand, tuned as always to a music-video channel. In the room next door, there are tea and biscuits. I eat one or two while we wait. It seems like any other day.

They call for me about twenty minutes later. As the flight engineer, I must put on the Sokol suit first. I go to the loo – one more ‘last time’ – pausing to appreciate the simplicity of an Earth toilet. Who knows how it’ll go in space. It’s things like this that worry me. If the rocket should explode, well, there’s not a lot I can do, but I want to make sure I can take a pee in space without surrendering my dignity. The first time will almost certainly be in my nappy. It seems that Russian cosmonauts don’t wear them, perhaps finding them embarrassing, but it’s popular with the rest of the community. We all remember the flight of the first American astronaut, Alan Shepard, who was forced to empty his bladder in his suit as he waited for the launch, short-circuiting the medical sensors.

I remove my shoes and my clothes, apart from my underwear, and put everything in a bag, which I give to Brigitte along with my documents, telephone and wallet, to be kept in a safe in Star City until I get back. I’ve now left everything behind, apart from the few things I’ve got on. Technicians are waiting in the room next door to help me put on the suit. The Sokol is a single piece with two large zippers that run from stomach to shoulder. You put your legs in first, and then your torso, through the front opening; you have to duck your head to get it through the neck ring. You feel trapped the first few times you do it, but you get used to it. Once your head, arms and hands are inside the suit, you are left with an untidy bundle of excess material from the lining around your stomach; it’s this internal membrane that keeps the Sokol pressurized. With gestures that have an almost domestic character and seem in harmony with the warm light, laminate flooring and large flowered carpet in this room, I start folding the lining neatly, tying it with thick elastic laces as I’ve been taught to do. I could keep going with my eyes closed, closing straps, hooks and zippers, a sequence I know by heart and one that keeps my hands busy and my mind focused on the present, on a simple and well-defined task. Putting on my suit is the first thing I do tonight as the Soyuz flight engineer. It’s starting. I feel calm and ready.

When all three of us are dressed, we proceed to the leak check, which for some ludicrous reason takes place by tradition in the presence of journalists and our families, all of them lined up behind a glass partition. As we complete the check, one by one, we’re invited to take a seat at the table with the glass partition, and we take turns using the microphone to speak to our loved ones on the other side. The crews don’t like this practice very much, and I feel awkward about it too. I’ve already had a chance to say goodbye to Lionel, my parents and my brother. What else can we say to each other in front of these journalists and all the television cameras? We put a brave face on it, chatting about this and that, and after what seems an endless amount of time, we hear the liberating announcement that it’s time to go and meet our rocket.

There’s almost an hour’s journey ahead of us because we leave from Ramp 31, about 40 kilometres away, since the nearby Ramp 1, which has been used since Yuri Gagarin’s launch, is closed for maintenance. We keep the lights off in the bus and make a few quips, but it’s mostly silent. For part of the journey I decide to sit in front beside the driver, looking out at the road and quietly taking leave of this planet. A police helicopter leads the way, sweeping the area in front of us with its searchlight. The rhythmic effect is hypnotic and I feel like I could sleep. There are only three hours to go before the launch; shouldn’t I be throbbing with adrenaline and tension? I’ve never thought much about the risks, but I did expect to feel a little apprehensive when we got this close. Of course, the Soyuz is well known to be a rocket of proven reliability. Maybe I would have been more nervous on the Space Shuttle, which has been involved in two catastrophic accidents. I wonder, too, if it’s more difficult for Anton and Terry, both of them fathers with young children. If that’s the case, they’re not showing it, but we have never really talked about it. I don’t think anyone ever talks about it. I sit down on my large, comfortable seat and go to sleep.

Olga, the Russian doctor, wakes me up a few minutes before we get to the ramp and hands me a bottle of water and two tablets from Brigitte.

One of them is a preventative to block the symptoms of space sickness, and the other is an ordinary painkiller; we’ll be stuck in the foetal position for hours. A little later, the bus stops to allow us to complete the final ritual gesture: urinating on the wheel, as Yuri Gagarin did in 1961 and, it seems, every male cosmonaut or astronaut who has since left for space from Baikonur. In view of the difficulty of getting out of the suit, I don’t believe any woman has ever done it. I know that some of my colleagues brought pee in a small bottle so they could throw it over the wheel, but I’ve never felt tempted to curry favour from the fates this way. I suspect that the survival of the tradition has more to do with practical reasons than superstition. As we admire the waiting rocket, shining gloriously in the night, I can’t help but envy Terry and Anton their relief.