The Mission Control Center team is made up of talented and dedicated individuals. Led by the flight director—an individual of uncanny intelligence who is much smarter than the average astronaut from Nebraska—the team consistently functions at a high level. In fact, many flight directors have submitted applications to become astronauts. Perhaps it is to NASA’s advantage that those who achieved the level of flight director did not get selected to fly in space. If they had, it would have been a tremendous loss to the Mission Control teams.
Known within the hallowed halls of Mission Control simply as Flight, they know more details about every ISS system than perhaps the system experts know themselves. They are in charge, and in total control, of the team on the ground.
On all issues that arise, Flight makes the final decision, which is based on inputs from their local team of experts, and in this modern era of spaceflight, from teams around the world. After they analyze all available data, more often than not their decisions are spot-on. Yet every once in a while, as governed by the laws of statistics, they will not choose wisely.
I believe that is when they reveal their character. Are they willing to listen further, gather more data, and perhaps alter their decision, or do they remain steadfast, confident they are ready to move forward regardless of the situation? Responsible for the safety of both the crew and vehicle, true leaders know when to take risks.
Pressure, stress, and uncertainty come with the territory.
I experienced them, too.
Being willing to listen and then readjust is a key characteristic of a successful long-duration space flier. It is a lesson I sometimes struggled to grasp. I was often impatient, expecting things to change right away. But the space program is an aircraft carrier. To turn her requires more than the push from a mere tugboat like me.
But I had help on the ground. Some of the most important members of my Expedition 15 support team were doctors. The medical team, comprised of both flight surgeons and psychiatrists, worked diligently to keep me healthy on board—physically and mentally.
My flight surgeons were Dr. Cedric “Ric” Senter and his backup, Dr. Joe Dervay. The psychology team was led by Dr. Gary Beven and his able-bodied substitutes, Drs. Frank Carpenter and Walt Sipes. Further support came from child psychiatrist Dr. John Marcellus, who had spent time working with Cole after the Columbia disaster.
Medically I was solid. A certified gym rat, I spent ample time in the astronaut workout facility. I lifted weights, performed aerobic exercise, anything to give me an edge heading into my long-duration flight.
Preflight medical preparations called for a multitude of specialized tests designed to find anything that might prevent me from honoring my flying commitment. Single percentage points in the wrong direction from the norm could keep me from living my dream.
With an unenviable family health history, my flight docs focused on two specific areas of concern: my heart and my rear end. With heart attacks, strokes, and cancerous polyps in my family’s past, key tests were needed. Full-body MRIs determined the level of potential blockage around my heart and arteries. Stress tests calculated my heart’s ability to drive highly oxygenated blood throughout my body. And then, as the childhood space joke goes, the flight docs said, “We also need to check Uranus.”
Before being considered for official assignment to a space station flight, you must be certified for flight by the Aerospace Medicine Board. A U.S. entity much like the selection committee that picked you in the first place, this board requires appropriate data be gathered and evaluated in order to understand your capabilities and, more important, your limitations. To that end, NASA puts you through a battery of tests, most of them physical in nature but some of them mental.
Eventually, your data is presented to the Multilateral Space Medicine Board. An international alliance, this board carries the power to deny you a trip to space if your medical situation is at all questionable. Typically, any issues you do have are dealt with and have a plan for resolution, leading (you hope) to nonconfrontational acceptance from the international community.
Space fliers with health problems can be limited in performance capability and thus be costly to the U.S. government. Consider for example a potential astronaut with a history of kidney stones. This is not a malady an astronaut wants to suffer during a six-month stay aboard the International Space Station. While the excruciating pain of a kidney stone incapacitates the sufferer, the fact that it will likely cause some crewmembers’ abrupt and immediate departure from the orbiting platform is by far the larger consequence from NASA’s point of view.
Additional screenings are necessary for potentially cancerous polyps in the colon and intestines—another situation NASA tries to avoid. Hence you are obligated to participate in the procto-sigmoidoscopy, or “procto,” exam. I like to call it the original Silver Snoopy. (The real Silver Snoopy, awarded to NASA and contract employees for outstanding achievements, depicts the famous cartoon character Snoopy created by Charles M. Schulz. Because it represents the astronauts’ own recognition of excellence, the Silver Snoopy is awarded by the astronauts themselves.)
Far from any type of award, my version of the Silver Snoopy is more of a curse—a curse for those wishing to orbit the Earth.
I remember fondly that eventful day in the spring of 1996 when the schedule for my initial interview week (year thirteen of my infamous fifteen annual attempts) called for me to drop by Building 8 and the JSC Space Flight Medicine Clinic.
As always, I was appropriately greeted by their highly professional staff, then led to a small preparation room. I was handed two green-and-white cartons, each containing a bottle with a smooth insertion nozzle, a kit for the self-infliction of an enema. Apparently a little preflushing was required before a steely-cold video camera would be sent to a place where no camera had been before.
“What do I do with this?” was my first question to the nurse. “I am still a virgin when it comes to enemas.” She chuckled only briefly, letting me know I had given her a line she had heard a million times.
Her clever reply included instructions to strip down, lie on the bed on my side, and insert the nozzle of the bottle inside that area typically occupied (according to some, anyway) by my thumb. I sensed her empathy for amateur comedians like me when she said, “The pointy end goes in first.”
“Squeeze vigorously,” she said, “and squirt away until the bottle is completely emptied.” “After that,” she continued, it would be up to me to “squeeze those cheeks together and fight like crazy to not give in to the urge to ‘fire away.’ Hold it in for at least fifteen minutes” was her final piece of unsolicited advice.
Piece of cake, I thought. My naiveté was soon replaced with actual experience. I felt I was holding back the Niagara River just above the falls.
After what seemed like an eternity but was probably only five to ten minutes in “mission elapsed time,” I could stand it no more. I leaped from the fetal position I had so confidently assumed on my cardboard bed, threw down my boxer shorts, and deposited my hiney on the smooth black toilet seat with speed that rivaled electrons flowing through copper wire.
Out it came, as if the Hoover Dam itself had opened every single one of its flow-release gates, gushing with the full force of Obi Wan’s light saber, in a laminar flow only an aerospace engineer could love.
The force of entry from my intestinal deposits into the commode’s pool of now-polluted water was vigorous to say the least. Droplets of water splashed upward, adhering to the pink flesh of my backside as if I were enjoying a French bidet. A sense of calm began to envelope the lower half of my body. Feeling much better if not a bit overconfident, I was thinking, one down and one to go!
Round two proved to be even more difficult. Knowing the expected outcome, it was a near life-and-death struggle to pinch my cheeks together tightly enough to hold back the raging torrent. Redirecting my focus, I bit (ever so lightly) my right forearm, hoping to stave off the inevitable for a few more precious seconds to allow the chemicals to do their job. As sure as the humidity rises in Houston, and in a manner nearly identical to my first release, I lost the battle against a chemically enhanced Mother Nature.
Hoping against hope that I had done enough, I threw on my hospital gown, then trudged into the exam room. There I was greeted by Nurse Mona and Dr. Walt Hein (no kidding).
Dr. Hein must have been pushing seventy, tall and lean with slightly hunched shoulders and a set of gray whiskers that followed his jawline in a clean half-inch strip. Nurse Mona could have been one of those classic character actresses from a World War II movie—full bosomed and clad in white with the demeanor of a drill sergeant. They were quite the team for heading up an expedition through my colon.
Dr. Hein began to speak first, Nurse Mona by his side. I really don’t remember much of what he said or did until he calmly reached above my head, just past the video monitor, and removed an eight-by-ten framed picture from the wall.
The color picture, faded from years of fluorescent light exposure, was a graphic representation of the human intestines both large and small. With his long, thin index finger, Dr. Hein proceeded to show me that “we” would be going from “here” (a point near the exit of my derriere) to “here” (a point that appeared to be somewhere in the neighborhood of my left shoulder).
I performed a mental analysis of his statement. Using Dr. Hein’s graphic as a guide, my mind computed a distance corresponding to that between Cairo, Egypt, and the headwaters of the Nile. It was not a pleasant proposition.
I was going to be there awhile. Dr. Hein slowly donned his pale yellow plastic coveralls, ready to ward off anything not eliminated during my virginal enemas. As he paused to don his rubber gloves, making sure to snap each of them at the wrist, I imagined I was feeling the way someone facing a firing squad must feel.
I tried to relax, per the advice of ever-vigilant Nurse Mona, by gazing at the video monitor and telling myself how cool this is and that I really did want to be an astronaut. The monitor’s views did nothing but make me feel like I was performing the lead role in a remake of the Dennis Quaid movie Inner Space.
Dr. Hein in a monotonous voice continued to remind me that it was okay to “pass gas.” (As if I needed any encouragement. Gas was expelling from my backside at a rate akin to that of a pot of boiling oatmeal.) My comfort factor continued to decrease at an astronomical rate as the “Silver Snoopy” plowed its headlight and video camera deeper into the flexible tubing of my bowels.
Even concentrating on the video didn’t help. Seeing a squeaky clean tunnel of pink corrugated tubing eventually got boring. My insides became so uncomfortable that my mind couldn’t focus on anything other than the metal intruder invading my innards.
When Dr. Hein finally said we had “gone far enough,” I wanted to kiss him. While I’m not sure if the probe reached its physical limit, I had most certainly reached mine.
The exit of the video probe was quicker than its entrance, but its outbound path of travel still felt as if someone was pulling out my insides. I was certain I heard a loud “pop” when the business end of the probe saw daylight for the first time in over twenty minutes.
The cruelest part of the entire exercise was that it was only the preliminary event. Once I had become a full-fledged astronaut, the tests became even more detailed. Given my family history on my father’s side, the flight docs were hell-bent on sending me off for graduate training in the intestinal field. You guessed it: the dreaded colonoscopy.
I was cursed. And I was damned glad.
They tried to prepare me on the ground. They gave me briefings about long-duration spaceflight, including a two-inch-thick notebook entitled Practical Planning for Long-Duration Missions. For my personal readiness, they gave me checklists on finances, insurance, and legal matters. They provided suggestions for disaster readiness. They offered helpful tips on separation, reunion, and stress management. “They” were my Behavioral Health and Performance Group and the Astronaut’s Family Support Office.
For a first-time flier, my fears and concerns were very real. Words like depression, loneliness, isolation, separation, and death—words that rarely entered my consciousness before I became an astronaut—appeared there now. The unknown loomed large in front of me, and my ability to deal with it by myself was iffy. It was possible (yet highly unlikely) I wouldn’t survive. And I could only imagine the fears of my family.
I received individual coaching from my psych team. I recall a specific preflight briefing provided by Dr. Sipes that hinted what was to come. I’m paraphrasing but he basically told me, “You’re on your own. Don’t expect much help from anyone.”
Comforting words to be sure. He would later tell Susan in her advance private briefing that she needed “to grow thicker skin.” We were in for some fun.
Before our mission, the Russians gave us their version of psychological training.
As part of our winter survival syllabus, the Russian psychologists provided me with a set of ten colored cards. The only instructions were that we were to “put the cards in order.” What kind of order was not specified. Upon completion, the instructor evaluated the order we chose as he made a series of thoughtful sounds. Apparently it had something to do with reflecting our mood and attitude. Beware those who had black or brown on the top of their deck. They would be watched carefully. Weird.
They also asked us to perform a reaction drill using a stopwatch. Without looking at the face of the stopwatch, we were to estimate various time intervals (five seconds, thirty seconds, one minute) by starting the watch, counting internally (or however we chose to do it), then stopping the watch at the prescribed interval. Before I started my training, I was able to do the task accurately, estimating the time increments nearly perfectly.
However, after spending two and a half days in the Russian wilderness without sleep, I was asked to perform the same test. I found this comical. The longer the interval they asked me to time, the faster I fell asleep holding the stopwatch. That had a lot to say about my mental state, like, maybe I was tired.
Teamwork exercises were also important to our Russian colleagues. In one instance I was asked to stand on the top of a rickety table facing away from my crewmates. With eyes closed and my hands folded across my chest, I was instructed to fall off the table backward. Trusting that my crewmates would be there for me, I took the leap of faith. Weighing two hundred pounds, I was a hefty load to catch. My trust in my crewmates was rewarded with the absence of the sound of my skull hitting the floor.
We also did a classic team-building exercise using two long pieces of wood. With each of us standing on the planks in single-file “parade” formation, our feet loosely affixed to each board, we were required to move a given distance together under various restrictions such as no talking. A bit old-fashioned and not difficult to complete, this exercise must have proven us to be a good team, because we were only asked to do it once.
Dr. Beven and his associates also administered several tests for challenging and assessing the mental well-being of astronauts.
An expensive endeavor like the space station aims to provide a big bang for the buck. The human performance of astronauts is key. We are expected to work hard during our time in space, maximizing the return on the taxpayer’s dollar. In order to do that, folks on the ground monitor our sleep, psychological adaptation, how we interface with the station’s systems, and our behavioral and cognitive health.
Both preflight and on board we participated in an experiment called WinSCAT (Spaceflight Cognitive Assessment Tool for Windows). I took the test six times before I flew and then every thirty days in orbit, with one final test after thirty days back on the ground.
The tests originated in 1996 after the disastrous fire on Russia’s Mir space station. The psychologists and medical folks realized that in situations like that fire, they had no way to judge how memory, concentration, focus, and other cognitive abilities were affected during long-duration missions. They needed to have a way to quantify a crew’s workload (too much or too little), their response to emergencies (fire, depressurization, and toxic spills), and their levels of depression.
Experts on the ground, using existing assessment tools, compiled a suite of cognitive tests. Designed to look at how we think, reason, and remember during our time in space, these simple tools were computer-based, took less than fifteen minutes to perform, and provided us with immediate feedback on our mental state.
The tests could also be used to assess a crewmember’s medical condition. For example, in the event of a head injury or after exposure to a toxic gas or an adverse reaction to medication, test results could tell doctors on the ground if further treatment was required.
They were also touted as effective measures of a crew’s readiness. Whether in preparation for performing a high-risk activity (such as spacewalking or docking) or during periods of heavy workload or less-than-optimal sleep, the tool could help show if we were at less than peak performance.
Many astronauts considered the tests frivolous. I was a fence-sitter. I considered the tests credible, but having never lived off the planet, I wasn’t sure how well they could measure my mental state.
After six reps on the ground to baseline my performance envelope (and to make sure I wasn’t cheating), I took my first test in flight. The tests were varied and short, and actually kind of fun.
For me, the hardest was called code substitution.
Nine unique symbols were individually matched with the numbers one through nine. In the first test you had a short time to memorize the pairs. All nine number-symbol pairs appeared on the screen. You had to remember the code, that is, which symbol went with which number. Then, as the pairs popped onto the screen at random, you had to decide whether it was correct per the code. The symbols ranged from the Greek letter omega, to the yen sign, to a checkmark, to a left-facing triangle. To make it even more difficult, after the initial presentation of the memorization screen, you took two totally different tests prior to returning to this one. No fair!
The test for continuous processing, or “running memory,” could be challenging, too. Faced with a changing single-digit number projected on the screen every second or so, you had to decide if the current number was different or the same as the number previously presented. If I wasn’t careful, or if I was the least bit tired, I could be lulled into a coma, totally forgetting the previous number. It took concentration to score well on this one.
The mathematics test was pretty simple. Equations were presented and you had to calculate the result. For example, the equation of 4 + 7 – 3 + 2 = ? has the answer of 10. But during the test the proper response was to hit the key for an answer greater than five or less than five.
My favorite test was called “Match to Sample,” a test of pattern recognition. It reminded me of playing Tetris on the computer. A square divided into sixteenths appeared on the screen. Two different colors were used to create a distinct pattern within the sixteen squares. After a couple of seconds, two sets of sixteen appeared. My job was to decide which of the second patterns matched the first. I tried to note if the patterns of squares were similar to a number or letter. I would also mentally recite phrases like “three top right, one bottom left” to help me recall the patterns.
While this battery of tests may have provided the ground-based team with what they would consider a scientifically accurate indicator of mental health, they did nothing to help me with frustration.
My personal experience with aggravation may not even come close to those of other long-duration astronauts. As my time in space grew, so did my buildup of stress and feelings of “You want me to do what? Really? Are you kidding me?”
For example, we have all heard the joke “How many (fill in the blank) does it take to change a light bulb?” Consider that aboard the station, a light is called a General Luminaire Assembly. It is made up of the socket, called the Baseplate Ballast Assembly, and the bulb, technically known as the Lamp Housing Assembly. In order to change that light bulb, procedures require you to wear safety glasses and have a vacuum cleaner handy—just in case the bulb breaks. Yet the actual bulb is encased in a plastic enclosure, so even if the glass bulb did break, the pieces of glass would be completely contained. Once it is replaced, you are required to take a photo of the newly installed bulb before turning it on. I often teased the ground and training teams that we should give it the name of Long Incandescent Glowing Hot Thing, or LIGHT. Ah, the comic opportunities provided by the U.S. government.
While I was in orbit, situations seemed to happen to me at random. When taken singly they were not difficult to overcome. It was when incidents began to pile up on each other, or become impacted by little irritations, that my limits were pushed.
These situations were harder to tackle miles above and months away from home. It took the help of folks like Dr. Beven and my family support lead, Brooke Loofboro—and some cleverness on my part—to turn frustration into pleasure.
Floating in the U.S. laboratory module Destiny, I was working hard to replace some plant and worm experiment samples (yes, that’s right—worms) on a payload called the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Assembly (CGBA). It was a simple task, but I was running into trouble during verbal exchanges with the ground. Unable to locate specific pieces of equipment, I sensed my frustration level rising. Consulting the stowage note the ground provided (which told me where things should be) and having searched everywhere, I turned to the control center team to see if they had any other potential solutions.
I was asked, “Did you check the stowage note?” My temperature quickly increased and I fought the urge to bark at them, “Of course I checked the stowage note! Do you think I’m an idiot?” But instead of making an inappropriate comment, I held back. This time I sought alternative ways to change my attitude.
The idea came to me quickly. I flew into my sleep station and grabbed a pair of my clean white boxer shorts. Checking my Omega Speedmaster wristwatch, I noted that in Houston it was approaching ten o’clock in the morning.
Although it was early in the day in Houston, ten o’clock was nearing the end of my workday in space. It was also the time when the NASA television channel began to show live audiovisual images from the ISS. Less than five minutes from being live on TV, I hatched my plan.
Floating from my bunk back out into the lab, I concealed my boxers from the video camera mounted on the forward end of the module. As I passed my computer screen I checked the small window in the upper left, a graphic representing part of the communication system for the entire station.
This window let us know at a glance whether we could talk to the control team or whether the ground could see us through the station’s video system. In the symbolism of colored lightning bolts, green meant good signals. Anything else meant a short wait for satellites to realign.
As I expected, there were no green lightning bolts, signifying no audio or video capability. The green “squigglies” would appear precisely at ten.
I flew beneath the lab’s forward video camera. Noting the time to live video at less than thirty seconds, I donned the boxer shorts—but not in the conventional sense. This time, they went on my head!
Microgravity was my ally, allowing the white underwear to puff out above my head so that I looked much like a professional chef.
Experiment samples in each hand, I anticipated the countdown to my live appearance.
With five seconds to go, I repositioned myself with my back toward the lab’s aft end. This would allow me to float straight up, looking directly into the camera. I was ready. I slowly rose to fill the camera’s lens.
Waving and grinning mightily, I flashed my pearly whites to all the folks back on the ground and mouthed the words “Hello, Houston!”
Oleg, flying into the back end of the lab from somewhere in the Russian segment, began laughing uncontrollably, simultaneously grabbing a camera from the wall. Similar to an ESPN sports photographer, he rapidly snapped away, capturing multiple images. Chronicled for all eternity, Clayton Anderson, United States Astronaut, floating in space with boxer shorts on his head!
Later, after landing I would learn that my escapade did not have the expected result in Mission Control. Flight director Kwatsi Alibaruho, the first African American to hold this position, was leading the team that morning.
As my image was captured by the camera in space, it also appeared on the massive control center TV screens on the ground.
“P-A-O, Flight,” Alibaruho called the on-console officer for public affairs.
“Flight, P-A-O,” came the expected reply.
“What the hell is he doing?” queried the MIT graduate-turned-leader of Mission Control.
For seconds, silence filled the airwaves, until Alibaruho ordered, as only a flight director can, “Cut the feed, NOW!”
Thousands of viewers (or maybe only hundreds, if you’ve actually seen NASA TV) were greeted with the classic multicolored vertical bars on their television screens as the public affairs officer cut the signal.
That’s the kind of stuff Dr. Beven had to deal with.
As it happened, I wasn’t the only one dealing with psychological issues during the summer of 2007.
With some fellow astronauts making “poor choices,” rumors were flying fast and furious around the space program.
Lisa Nowak, involved in a love triangle with my astronaut classmate, former test pilot and naval officer Billy Oefelein, had taken her now-famous diaper-clad journey to Florida a few weeks prior to our launch. In this episode, an embarrassment to the entire corps, Lisa was arrested after accosting Billy’s girlfriend in a parking lot at the Orlando airport. Furthermore, someone had leaked information stating that astronauts had been drunk or hungover at the pad on launch days. An official government investigation was launched and a report written, NASA’s Astronaut Health Care System Review chronicling the incidents and pushing NASA to defend its Astronaut Corps.
Living off the planet, I got word of these crazy events in a surprising conference call with Steve Lindsey, the head of the Astronaut Office.
I received word from the ground that I had a call on space-to-ground 3. Those were code words for “someone wants to speak to you privately.”
Steve was cordial but his first words went directly to the recently released report. He outlined its contents and the efforts the space center had taken to “circle the wagons.” Asserting nothing off-color had actually transpired, he tried to assure me all would be well.
I was familiar with the diaper caper; it had been splashed all over the news while I was still training. The drunk astronaut story was news to me. My first response was “I’m not mentioned in the report, am I?” I knew the answer was no, but I wanted to hear it from him directly.
Steve laughed and assured me I was not part of the problem (at least not that problem). But the alleged shenanigans would have other psychological impacts on my five-month tour.
As a result of the perceived astronaut scandal, NASA’s Public Affairs Office, in conjunction with NASA Headquarters and the Astronaut Office, decided that several of my “personal choice” video conference events would have to be canceled. The fact that one of those choices was to be on The Dr. Phil Show was probably what put them over the edge.
Because one of our astronauts had flipped a gasket, and others allegedly imbibed too much at the wrong time, I would miss out on an opportunity to represent NASA in what I felt was a positive light. Management thought that with all the press coverage now focused on astronauts, something from my videoconference with The Dr. Phil Show might be taken the wrong way—as if Dr. Phil was counseling me.
I thought it would be cool to commiserate with Dr. Phil. We could discuss the psychological aspects of being cooped up in a tin can with two Russians for six months, endlessly boring holes through the sky. We could talk about the pursuit of childhood dreams and the almost-certain need to overcome adversity somewhere along the way. It seemed a good way to put some positive spin on the situation and show the world that astronauts are human beings, too. If nothing else, it gave Dr. Phil a decidedly different topic to discuss, one that had nothing to do with adult temper tantrums, girls faking pregnancy, mother-in-law mayhem, or the best celebrity babysitters.
With all of this happening in August, my time in space grew short. Attempts were made to line up my backup choice, NBC TV Weatherman Al Roker, but there simply wasn’t enough time. Through Roker’s agent, I would end up in a videoconference with Russian funnyman Yakov Smirnoff instead. He was a good boost for my psyche and morale, telling me in his heavy Russian accent, “It is very bad situation when astronaut funnier than comedian!”
Most days, morale aboard the ISS was good. The three of us meshed well, and we took turns serving as unofficial morale officers for the crew, making sure the mood stayed light.
One night early in the increment I was awakened from sleep by the crackle of the station communication system. Blasting through the speakers came the sounds of conversations from the ground—and all of them were in Spanish. The chatter trailed on for over twenty minutes, which I would learn the following morning is about the amount of time it takes the station to traverse Mexico and South America from northwest to southeast.
At breakfast, I explained to Fyodor and Oleg (they might say I bitched) about the interruption in my sleep. They both broke into wry grins. Turns out that the previous day they had misconfigured the Russian communication system after a routine test, leaving the network perfectly tuned to pick up matching frequency audio transmissions from the ground.
We had a good chuckle that day. Later in the week the situation ramped up. Working hard in the lab, I suddenly heard a burst of loud music through the intercom speaker around ten fifteen in the morning. Hearing mariachi music, I wondered what the hell was going on. I thought we were passing over Mexico again! My question was answered in seconds when Fyodor in a fatherly voice chuckled and said, “Clay, chai-ku.” It was time for our coffee break.
For the rest of the mission, Spanish music became our standard coffee-break signal. Each time I heard it, I grabbed the microphone. With a tongue trill worthy of Spanish American comedienne Charo, I called out ¡Ándele! ¡Ándele! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba! and floated down happily to my friends.
Laughter was always an important part of our psychological toolbox for life in space. Flying into the Russian service module for dinner one evening, I was greeted by a heated conversation between my Russian crewmates.
I listened intently, trying my best to decipher their fast-paced emotional Russian exchange. As I struggled to pick up on the thread of their argument, the only thing I could make out was the repeated use of the word “bobs.” That’s strange, I thought. I don’t remember learning a Russian word bobs. Perhaps they’re referring to something having to do with our lead flight director, Bob Dempsey.
After a few more minutes, I couldn’t take it any longer. In my limited Russian, I told them I didn’t understand their conversation and asked them to please slow it down a little so I could try and figure it out.
Fyodor smiled and said, “Clay, you know. Bobs. Big bobs, little bobs.”
Laughing, I now saw the light!
“You mean boobs,” I corrected. “You’re talking about boobs!” Providing them with the standard male gesture of cupped hands held up to the chest, indicating a well-endowed female, I said, “Breasts, right?”
Repeating himself excitedly, but now with the proper pronunciation, Fyodor gushed, “Yes, boobs!” As if back in junior high school and participating in a round of potty talk, he chuckled, “Little boobs, like Suni.”
Oleg, not to be outdone, jumped in. “Yes, little boobs, like Peggy,” he chortled.
Fyodor, not missing his chance to pile on a high-profile U.S. astronaut—one not revered in most cosmonaut circles—added, “Little boobs, but BIG penis!”
What is it they say in Reader’s Digest? Laughter is the best medicine? In space, it’s the cure.