It started out as a simple mission. For me, that is. Rick had the hard part. He was installing a new Regenerator Control Module on Truss Two of the International Space Station. Me, I was merely serving as lookout. My job was simple. I was expected to watch Rick do his work. I was tasked with the mind-numbing chore of keeping my helmet cam trained on him. I would double-check what he was doing with my copy of the check-list. Other than that, I was expected to keep my mouth shut and my head still so that NASA could get its live video feed. I could not even do much sight-seeing on this, my first spacewalk on my second excursion to the ISS. I suppose I harbored a small amount of jealousy, but it was only fair. Rick had the experience and the training. I had no experience at all and just enough training to feel comfortable in my life support suit as we drifted one hundred miles above the earth in free fall. I was told that maybe I could do more on the next shuttle mission.
Rick Hansen was standing on the shuttle robot arm as he did his work. I was anchored on the ISS arm about twenty meters away. The sun was setting at the horizon, and we would have only our work lights for the next 90 minutes. Those lights were bathing Rick in the vicinity of his work area. The expansive, vaguely confusing structures of the space station faded into the darkness and shadows around me. The shuttle, in its docking berth at the station to my left, was a dark, barely discerned whale swimming in the deep waters.
“Okay, Joe”, Rick’s voice crackled through the suit to suit link. “We’re done with Step 23. What’s next?”
“Roger, Step 24, let’s see”, I replied as I looked at the checklist. I had to pause a second as I raised the clipboard up to my helmet light. “Step 24 – rotate the assembly 90 degrees clockwise until it locks in place and tighten the anchor pin.”
“Roger, rotating the assembly”, he said.
I checked off Step 24 with my grease pen. I was sure that Rick had the assembly procedure committed to memory, but he was nothing if not professional. Everything by the book. The NASA procedures said you double-checked every item in the checklist with your buddy, and that is exactly what he was doing. I scanned to step 25, and read silently. I did not have the procedure memorized, and so I needed to keep one step ahead of him.
“Uh, Joe”, the voice of Stan Selman, mission director at Kennedy Space Center, came in on the channel. “Your clipboard is blocking our view.”
“Woops, sorry Stan”, I replied sheepishly. I brought my clipboard down out of my line of sight, and focused back on Rick. All of that training, and I was nothing but a watchdog. I reminded myself to be thankful for the fact that I was here at all. I was realizing my life-long dream. I was an astronaut and I was earning my wings. Ever since I could remember, I had the aspiration of floating in space, weightless, watching the Earth turn slowly below me. Now, here I was. I was doing something that only a few dozen had done before me. The reality was a little mundane, but that came with the territory. Spacewalking was still treacherous, and you had to keep a cool head and concentrate on every move. I could bask in the sensation and the sights later. Right now, I had a job to do. Even if I was just a camera man.
We continued our work. Step 25, Step 26. We were an hour into our mission, scheduled to last four hours. We were ahead of schedule, but that could change at any moment. If we finished ahead, then NASA had said they might ask us to inspect the thermal tiles on the shuttle. We had more than enough life support for that. NASA procedures dictated that any EVA should carry eight hours of life support, no matter how short the scheduled mission.
It was in the middle of Step 28 that disaster struck. This was a dangerous point, one in which we engaged power to the re-assembled unit. The unit was designed to be failsafe, but something went wrong. I don’t think we did anything incorrectly. I personally feel that it was a hardware malfunction. There will be investigations, and inquiries, and congressional reports, and maybe we might even learn something useful rather than just pointing fingers and ruining careers. For the time being, what really happened remains a mystery.
I was dutifully watching Rick. Suddenly, an arc of electricity flashed from the unit and down Rick’s spacesuit. It was a horrifying sight. A brilliant flash of light, out-shining our work lights, lasting no more than a fraction of a second. I could see the arc travel down his suit to his boots. It fried the motors and electronics in the foot rest of the robotic arm. Apparently, the foot restraint clamps jerked open reflexively in response to the current impulse. I could see Rick’s body spasm and his back arch painfully the wrong way. That spasm launched him off the robotic arm and into the cold darkness of outer space. He was drifting slowly away from me; away from our safe, cozy outpost and into the hostile depths.
“Discovery, we have an emergency!” I shouted. “Rick, can you hear me?” No answer. “Rick, come in”. Still no answer.
Adrenaline flooded into my blood. I searched my mind for a plan of action even as I called out to Rick again and again. I briefly thought about launching myself after him, but instantly knew that was foolhardy. We would then have two castaways to contend with, rather than one. I watched him slowly recede into the darkness. His body was in a slow spin. His helmet light was still on, and I could track him using that once the darkness swallowed him.
“Roger, Joe, we saw it”, came the cool voice of Linda Snider, our mission commander.
“Extend the ISS arm”, I said. “Let’s see if I can catch him.”
“Standby”, Linda said. This would require coordination with Yuri Stantonov, the station robotic arm controller. It took precious minutes for Linda and Yuri to consult, to plan, maybe to argue. I spent them watching Rick fade away in the darkness. My suit gave a warning chirp as my respiration and heart rate accelerated.
“Joe, this is Yuri”, came a new voice in a heavy Russian accent. “Direct me and I will move you. Do we have a clear line to him?” He was asking me if he could manipulate the station arm without colliding with the shuttle arm or the shuttle itself.
“Yes”, I replied. I took a deep breath and recalled my training in the huge EVA training pool in Houston. “Pitch up plus twenty degrees”. The arm swung me up. “Yaw left minus ten degrees”. I was now facing directly on a line to Rick’s work light, the only visible sign of him now. It faded as his slow spin turned the light away from me.
“Joe, don’t take any chances”, said Linda nervously. I could understand her position. I was as green as they come. She didn’t want me to play hero out here. This was a job for a seasoned, cool, veteran. Unfortunately, there was no time to suit up a third body. That would take at least an hour, even if they threw out the checklist. They were stuck with me.
“Translate X plus 10”. The arm started moving me toward Rick, as the work light came back into sight. I was a little off line. I barked instructions to get me back on a trajectory toward him. “Pitch down five degrees. Yaw left five degrees. Translate Y plus 5.” The correction was made. We came to a stop, and I gave a new order: “Translate X plus 10”. I was again moving toward him. We were getting closer. My work light now bathed the space suited figure. I started thinking about how I was going to catch him. I would have to grab him, kill his spin, and hold on to him as we retreated back to the station. It would be tricky. I knew that however well trained I had been, my body reflexes would be thinking in terms of 1 G, not zero-G.
My motion stopped. “Translate another X plus 10. We’re almost there.”
“Joe, we are fully extended” Yuri replied. The station arm had reached its limit. I looked at Rick. He was no more than a few meters away.
“Pitch plus 90”, I called out. The arm rotated me so that my body was along the line between us, extending my reach. I raised my arms above my head, hoping to catch Rick as he rotated above me. I stretched my body as far as I could. My finger tips just barely brushed his boots, launching him off into a deeper spin. I could not grab him. I had touched him, but could not grapple him.
“Damn!” I called out in frustration. “Yuri, give me more, just a meter more!”
“Sorry, Joe, I cannot do so”.
“Joe, we’re going to have to abort”, said Linda. “We’re pulling you back in.”
“Wait a minute!” I said in irritation. “We’re not just going to leave him, are we?” I felt a lurch as Yuri started bringing the arm back in toward the station. My mind was racing through options.
“We’re out of options at this point”, said Linda.
“What’s his status?” I asked.
“The discharge fried his radio”, said Linda. “No voice, no telemetry. He may be dead for all we know.”
“But he may be alive out there”, I said in irritation. I left unsaid what everyone must be wondering. What if he was alive out there, alone? Waiting for rescue, wondering what was taking so long.
“Why don’t we undock the shuttle and go after him?” I blurted out.
“Not enough fuel”, Linda replied.
“Okay, I’ve got an idea”, I said. “Let’s deploy the chair.” The chair was the maneuvering unit that was occasionally used for spacewalking maneuvers where the robotic arm couldn’t reach. It was, really, a chair that the astronaut sat in. It had gas thrusters which enabled the spacewalker to move from point to point, un-tethered. NASA had stopped using it in the last few years, favoring instead the safety of the robotic arms. Either that, or they would fasten the chair to the robotic arm. That way, the astronaut was always tied to something solid. Even though it wasn’t used much anymore, NASA procedures dictated that the chair be powered up and readied on all EVA’s, for safety’s sake.
I felt the robot arm shudder as Yuri brought me to a stop near the air lock door inside the massive shuttle payload bay. I saw the chair in its berth to my right beside the door.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Joe”, said Linda. “We’re cycling the lock. Prepare for cessation of EVA.”
This stunk. I was Rick’s only hope. Linda might have to wait hours for NASA to think it over. There were some powerful brains down there already at work on the problem. But they would take hours, arguing, while Rick was getting farther and farther away. He must be unconscious, perhaps critically injured. If we waited too much longer to begin rescue, it would be too late. I called out to him again on the suit to suit channel. Nothing.
I waited at the airlock hatch. I could see a face inside through the bay-view port, looking out at me. I looked over at the chair. Just unstrap it from the restraints holding it in its berth, that’s all it would take. As soon as I made a move toward the chair, they would know something was not proceeding according to plan. They would see me making preparations to disobey orders. But there was nothing they could do. With the lock cycling for my entry, they could not hope to get someone in a suit before I was gone.
Linda came back on the circuit. “Joe, NASA is balking and I’m making a command decision”, she said. My heart sank, because I thought I knew what she would say. I was surprised when she asked “you’ve taken chair training, right?”
“Yes, I have”, I said. It wasn’t much, and underwater training was no match for the real thing. But flying the chair was easy, once you got the hang of it. I decided to leave my response to the minimum. One of the great forms of lying, according to Heinlein.
“I need a volunteer to go after Rick in the chair”, she said.
“I volunteer”, I answered immediately.
There was a pause, and she was probably dealing with the entire shuttle crew, all voicing their willingness to do the job. I held my breath as I waited. If I were in her shoes, I would cut my losses, drag my ass back into the shuttle, and choose Andy Hallowsmith, a veteran of years of work in space. But he was getting a little old. They needed a hotshot with good reflexes. I had flown an F-14 in the service. I could fly circles around Andy, even in a chair.
“Alright, Joe, you have clearance to deploy the chair”, she came back after a few moments. “Andy will work the checklist with you”. I flexed my arm in silent triumph. I started working on unstowing the chair. Andy worked with me as he watched out the bay port. Again, by the book. Check and double-check. Minute by precious minute. I impatiently went through the procedure, although I knew it had to be done. It was my ass on the line with this. We had to do everything right.
I was finally buckled in to the chair and I pushed the release which pushed it up out of the payload bay. I gave a few small puffs on the gas propulsion, and tried the gyros, trying to familiarize myself with its handling. It was much more sensitive here than it was in the pool. In the pool, everything was in slow motion, slowed by the water. Out here, it was fast motion, quite unlike the old movies you saw of people in zero-G. I overshot on several thrusts, and had to reverse thrust to get back in line. This was more like my days of training in the Tomcat. One learned to develop the softest touch, and the fifty-thousand pound machine would leap to obey you. Overshoot, or have just a small twitch, and you might tear your wings off.
“Joe, you have one hour of pursuit time”, Linda said. “At the end of that, you come back, even if you are empty handed. You got me?”
“Roger, commander”, I acknowledged. “I see his light now. I’m thrusting out now. Do you have a radar fix on him?”
“Yes, he’s about 4000 meters away. We don’t have a Doppler on his velocity yet. He’s a small target. Just go light on your fuel at first, give a short burst toward him and let’s see how things progress.”
I complied. I could not see his suit at all. I could just barely see his light. It was fainter than some stars around me. It was a good thing he was spinning, causing the light to disappear and reappear periodically, about once every minute. If not for the blinking, I wouldn’t have been able to make him out in the starry background.
“Steady as she goes, Mr. Allen”, said Linda, addressing me like a first year flight trainee on his first solo in the T-34. “We’re assessing your closing speed.”
“Roger”. I relaxed for a moment from the hyper-alert mental state I had assumed as I got the chair going in the right direction. I looked to my right to the still-dark earth, a hundred miles down. I could see clouds, and lightning bolts flashing, providing a half-glimpse of the land-masses below me. Was that Turkey down there? I had to wait for more flashes, gathering in a small piece of the picture each time, until I knew for sure that it was. It was an awesome sight, even more mesmerizing than the day-side view. My heart gave a quick palpitation, before I grabbed control of myself.
“Okay, hot-shot, no sight-seeing now”, I said to myself. “You’ve got a job to do”. That was my mantra in my years as an Air Force trainee. You took a deep breath, a quick blink of the eyes, recited your mantra, and you were in the zone. You were riding the tiger and nothing else mattered. You emptied your mind of everything; the fight with your woman last week, the bills waiting for you when you returned, the next level of NASA training coming up, the bad tires on the car that you just hadn’t quite gotten to before this mission. It was all gone, and there was just this moment that counted, when you applied all of your energy trying to predict what would happen in the next few moments.
I was always surprised when these times of intense concentration occurred. I had tried to duplicate that state of mind at other times, like when training for the next Astronaut Corps exam. But I never could. I tried it when I was driving, but could not reproduce it. The closest I had come to equaling this zen state was when I played soccer in college. Your focus was down to a few seconds, like now, but it was a different kind of concentration. On the soccer field, you tried to eliminate all conscious thought and become a reflexive machine. In the sky, you merely tried to eliminate all distractions, keeping your brain working on the higher aspects of the task at hand. I had talked to fellow pilots who had confirmed these theories. The best state of mind for a Tomcat pilot was one in which your body became part of the machine, and you didn’t even think about driving. You just willed yourself to go there, and the body-machine took over and carried you there without conscious thought. This freed the mind to think about what it must; course, altitude, location, attitude, fuel status, weapons status. It gave the brain enough extra cycles to plot its course over the next few seconds. It was a difficult state to achieve, and he had seen many trainees wash out because they could not attain it.
There was no sensation of movement. I looked back through the rear view mirrors. The station was already a hundred meters away, well lit up, providing a welcoming beacon for my return. It was visibly receding. I checked my readings on the arm of the chair. Fuel was at seven eighths. All systems were green. I looked at the suit control panel on my wrist. Life support was green. Body temperature a little high, but going back down. It was to be expected. I had launched in a state of full adrenaline pumping. Now I was in the zone, and my body started running itself, detached from my consciousness. It would take itself back to nominal status of its own accord. The prior onrush of adrenaline was replaced by a slight sense of fatigue. My legs were trembling slightly, aftereffects of the rush I had just experienced. I knew the feeling well.
“We’ve got a fix on your closing speed”, came Linda’s voice, coming in a little distorted and crackly. “You’re a little short, give yourself another quick burst.”
“Roger”, I said. I grasped the throttle and gave a short thrust opposite the direction of the blinking light ahead of me. I felt the slight kick of acceleration, but otherwise seemed perfectly motionless. Looking back, I saw the view of the station was even smaller than before.
“That’s enough”, said Linda, and then a crackle of static suppressed her next sentence.
“Say again, Linda?” I said.
“I said ‘what’s your fuel status?’”
I suspected that she had a full readout of the chair’s systems right in front of her in the shuttle cockpit. She was merely trying to keep my mind on the mission. Keep the scan going: fuel, position, attitude, life-support. She was a good commander, I thought. Not bad for a Marine. A jarhead, I thought, and had to laugh. I visualized what she must have looked like in Basic, shaved bald, homogenized, relieved of the person she once was and remade into the kind of officer she became. Now she had a full head of curly brown hair; not long but definitely not regulation. In zero G, it flowed like Medusa’s coiffe. I was fascinated by that writhing mass. They had tried to make her cut it for this mission, but she had refused. They tried to make her wear a hairnet, and she refused.
If she weren’t married, I might have asked her out. I was intrigued by her. She was a fascinating mixture of toughness and femininity. Several of my buddies had interest in her, and one had even asked her out. She said no, of course. She didn’t strike me as the type to go out on her old man. My relationship with her had been strictly professional. We had known each other since beginning in the Astronaut Corps together. But this was our first opportunity to work closely together.
Yes, she was a good officer. She had made perhaps the most significant decision of her life back there, when she had given him clearance on the chair. It was a Marine decision, to risk the lives of others to rescue the one man down. The civilians would play it safe; worrying about their careers should anything go wrong. They would hold meeting after endless meeting, avoiding decisions and asking for more studies, while Rick’s life ebbed away. I was glad that NASA still usually chose military personnel for leadership aboard the shuttle. We were trained for this type of decision. You made your own decisions, ones that affected the lives of those you commanded. If you passed the buck up the chain of command, a decision might never be made. I thought that I might have liked to serve with her in Iraq.
“Fuel is at three quarters”, I replied. “I have a reserve for retro thrust and return. Hopefully, I’ll have enough to stop at the end.”
“Your signal is a little scratchy”, she said. “I think we’re reaching the limits of suit-to-suit range. If we lose signal, remember your UHF. You should be able to contact the current ground station, and they can relay to us. If you have to, switch to 12.950 Mega-hertz FM band.” More static, but I thought I heard the words “good luck” in her last sentence.
“How’s my closing rate?” I asked.
“Your closing rate is okay”, she said. “You cannot afford any more thrusts. I repeat, no more thrusts.”
“Acknowledged, no more thrusts”.
“Joe, we have some decisions to make. At your current closing rate, it will take three hours to reach Rick. Three hours there, three hours back. You’ve got the life support, but I’m concerned that we’ll lose radio contact.”
“Like you said”, I answered. “We can switch to UHF and relay with ground-stations. All systems are green, Linda. I request permission to go for the extended rescue.” I heard static over the headset as I finished my sentence. Communications could go at any moment. That was one area where NASA could learn lessons. Equip spacewalkers with longer range comms, even for short range missions. Luckily for me, I was wearing a Russian Orlan spacesuit. The Russians always built their systems with a curious combination of state of the art electronics and old, ever reliable museum relics. The American spacesuits had the latest in digital, spread-spectrum, high performance radios, with backup built upon backup. But they were all relatively short-range systems, even in the emptiness of Earth orbit. All of which would do me no good once I got out of range. The Russians, on the other hand, kept their old seventies era shortwave systems as a backup to their equally sophisticated comms. Like I said, a lesson to be learned for when the investigations started.
“Permission granted for extended mission”, Linda’s voice came in just barely audible. “I repeat, permission…” And then there was nothing except crackling.
“I acknowledge permission for extended mission” I said, hoping she could hear me. “I will listen on suit-to-suit for five more minutes, and then switch to UHF on 12.950 MHz FM.”
But I heard nothing but static. I did a quick scan of my instruments. I finally got annoyed and shut off the digital radio. I switched to the UHF and announced myself.
“This is Discovery EVA-2 calling on a general Mayday. Is there anybody there?” It might take a while to come into range of a shortwave receiver on the ground. As I recalled, this was about the time a switch-over between ground stations was to occur. Comms would be spotty. So I was hoping to contact civilians on the UHF. There was still electrical activity down there, and the signal might be getting washed out in the thunderous radio noise of the lightning. I wasn’t particularly surprised when nobody answered.
I was alone. It finally hit me. If Rick was still conscious, he might be experiencing the same emotions. There was nobody near me. I scanned ahead. Rick’s light seemed no closer, no brighter. I had lost contact with the people nearest to me. I had a thought, and tried suit-to-suit again, trying to raise Rick. Still nobody. I switched it off and went back to UHF and tried another Mayday. No answer, just the anonymous hiss of static, in which you thought you might occasionally detect the faint whispers of people, perhaps the souls of the dead like that movie a couple of years back.
I glanced at my chronometer. I wasn’t sure, but I thought it had been about forty five minutes since I had so boldly launched myself out into the emptiness. My conscious brain tried to gain control; to tell me that I was safe, that Discovery wasn’t that far away, that the chair would take me to shelter when this was all over. But, some dark force inside me told me I was alone, in an extremely hostile environment, and that I wasn’t going to make it back alive. So many things could go wrong. The chair would malfunction. My spacesuit would spring a leak. I would lose sight of Rick. I would lose sight of the station for my return. I looked back and saw nothing where the station should be, nothing except an intense light that temporarily blinded me.
“Damn night flyers”, I thought. This was my term for the idiots on the road at night, coming up on your six and shining their brights to get you to move over a lane, never mind that they had an empty lane to the left. God forbid that they should have to change lanes or crank down their cruise control for a few seconds. I always would adjust my rearview, to shine their brights right back into their faces. I did the same now, to avoid the glare. But I had to thank those back at the ISS as well. They had the candles burning for me. They must have had every bulb in the place lit up full. The NASA clowns groundside would be fussing furiously over the expensive waste of battery power.
This thought cheered me up a little, dispersing the gloom that had been settling in. This would be the most expensive mission in ISS history, all for a few lights. Congress would include it in their NASA budget considerations, along with 500 dollar hammers and hamsters in space. The national debt would inch up a few billion dollars more. All so a privileged few could roam about in spacesuits and live in a rickety old log cabin in space. I loved it. I loved space. I loved being privileged with this experience and with this responsibility. I loved the fact that mankind had not quite given up on the exploratory instinct; that we weren’t evolutionary dead-ends like the termites and the cockroaches; not just yet.
I heard a crackle on the UHF, a voice hidden in static, with that strange inhuman quality to it when the radio can barely receive the signal. Like a machine imitating a human. Like an alien first trying its hand at human speech. I punched the push-to-talk.
“Mayday, mayday, this is Discovery EVA-2 calling. Please repeat your last transmission.”
The return transmission was still distorted beyond recognition. I used my onboard gyros to rotate to a full-on view of the dark earth below me. This shifted my UHF antenna to a different angle, hopefully improving reception.
“This is WB8QRT from Cairo”, came a faint, male voice on the radio. He had a heavy accent to his English that I couldn’t quite place. He was coming in loud and clear now, a definite improvement in signal quality. “Please repeat your call sign. Do you need assistance?”
I glanced down. Yes, indeed, there was a section of the Suez Canal passing below now.
“This is Discovery EVA-2. This is a class 1 rescue mission. I need a relay.” I thought I recognized the call sign as an Amateur Radio enthusiast. Amazing. I thought that all HAM’s had long ago gone to Packet Radio, something our gear could not receive. This guy must have some classic equipment, to match the ancient Russian radio I was using.
“Discovery, are you licensed for this channel?” the voice asked. “I don’t recognize your call sign.”
Great. The guy was worried about the FCC, or something. He was probably transmitting too powerful a signal for the government to tolerate. He was worried about his own license.
“Cairo, this is a U.S. government rescue mission. I need a relay, over.”
“I’m sorry, but this channel is reserved for Amateur Radio communications. Why don’t you try calling the Pentagon?”
This guy was an asshole. Still, what did he know? It wasn’t every day that a HAM could log a conversation with an astronaut. I thought a moment.
“Look, Cairo, I’ve got a deal for you. This is a major event. I mean, this is a once in a million kind of thing. Turn on your recorder. You’ll get the tape of a lifetime. In return, I ask that you relay me.” Hopefully, the guy would recognize my call sign for what it was; the space shuttle Discovery. Hopefully, he would recognize the EVA acronym; Extra-Vehicular Activity. Hopefully, he would realize how much money he could get from the news services for the tape he was about to record.
“Discovery, who would you like me to patch you to?” Bingo. I revised my opinion. An asshole, but a smart asshole.
“Kennedy Spaceflight Center. Or the nearest deep space ground station”.
“Uh, I’ll have to look that one up. Stand by.”
I had no doubt that he was hooked, that he was turning on his recorder right now. Then, he would look it up. It would take a while, googling up NASA and finding a phone number to call. Getting past the automated answering systems and the lackeys whose job it was to deny service to the people whose government they served. I figured I had a while.
I spent the time admiring the view. Well, there was nothing else I could do at the moment. The Earth spun serenely below me, oblivious to the drama high above her. The Sun peaked over the Eastern horizon, bathing what looked like Saudi Arabia in a golden gleam. I thought I could see all the way to the Indian Ocean, an intense band of silver just at the horizon.
Sunrise in Cairo. That meant it was early morning in the States, with few government employees up and about at that time. This might take a while. I turned on the suit-to-suit and tried again. No answer from Rick; no answer from ISS. I scanned my instruments. I watched the sights some more. I checked my chronometer. Ninety minutes in. Rick’s chances were fading by the minute.
I called Cairo back. No answer. Maybe he had hung up. Maybe he didn’t want to help out an American, Egyptian sentiments for the U.S. being what they were. I was feeling the loneliness again. I was feeling the fear. The fear that Murphy’s Law would suddenly decide to kick in. The fear that this might be the end for Mr. Joseph Allen, Captain, USAF. It was an irrational fear, and I had not felt it since I was a trainee. But it was there now. I found myself a little embarrassed. I had become a death-defying fighter jock, and had thought myself beyond all fear. But the loneliness gnawed at me desperately, and the loneliness gave birth to the fear.
My disheartened thoughts were interrupted by a welcome voice. “Discovery, this is Cairo. Please stand by for your patch to Kennedy.” That unknown man down there was a genius.
“Discovery, this is Mission Control. How goes it, Joseph?” It was Stan Selman. I had never been so glad to hear the Mission Director’s voice.
“All systems nominal”, I said. “I’ve got about 90 minutes to reach Rick. Have you heard anything?”
“Not a word, Joe”, replied Stan. “But we’re tracking you and Rick. You will rendezvous with him in 84 minutes and 30 seconds. His suit-to-suit was probably fried. Don’t worry, our Russian friends have confirmed that the Orlan suit would conduct a discharge like that, and the life support would not blink an eye.”
“Well, you saw the way his back arched. That looked to me like a convulsion”.
“Joe, you’re not a doctor. Don’t pretend you are one. The Russians say it could have been dielectric flexing in the fabric of the suit. Brought on by the discharge. Nobody knows for sure, but we’ve got a crazy fly-boy, would-be astronaut willing to test the theories down here. On himself. They’re trying to figure out what papers he needs to sign.”
I didn’t believe it for a moment. That was pure Stan. God bless him, but he would’ve put a good face on the Columbia disaster, if he’d had a chance to communicate with the doomed astronauts before their plunge. Stan always made sure he established a personal, face-to-face relationship with all of the astronauts. It was his theory that you had to meet a man, in person, before you tried to communicate long distance. You had to get to know him, knock down a few beers together, and shoot the shit. That way, he said, you could see his face as you talked to him on the radio.
“Well, if that guy gets through, tell him he gets my vote for the Corps.”
“Okay, Joe, we’re going to lose this patch pretty soon. I want you to switch to 335.4 Mhz FM. Every ground station on Earth has been alerted to listen on that frequency, and relay to Kennedy. 335.4 MHz, got that”?
“335.4 MHz, roger. If I don’t get you, I’ll go back to this frequency, and maybe find another HAM out there. Cairo, you’ve done good. I wish you luck. This is Discovery EVA-2, switching channels”. I hoped he made a mint on his recording.
I switched, and Stan was already there. We exchanged pleasantries, and then he was all business.
“We’re going to have to concentrate on the rendezvous”, he said. “There’s going to be some tricky maneuvers there. We don’t need to be wasting any propellant backtracking.”
We spent some time discussing the rendezvous. Rick’s body had spin, and it had momentum. When I arrived, I would have to match his velocity. I would come up alongside him to assess his spin axis. I would move around until I was on that axis. That would simplify things, and I wouldn’t have arms and legs flying at me. Then I would go in for the snatch. I had to set my attitude, and time my arrival so that he was at an optimum angle for me to snag him. They figured the best way to do it was for me to let him roll right into my lap, and then wrap my arms around him and hold tight. I would then tether him to me using some bungee cords in the chair’s equipment drawer.
He would inevitably give my some spin. So I would have to adjust gyros to kill that spin, maybe even puff some gas, all while holding on to him for dear life and hoping I didn’t tear something up in his suit. We were assuming that he was incapacitated, so that he couldn’t help in the maneuver. Oh yeah, and because of fuel margin, all that had to be done perfectly, the first time.
If that went well, I would turn around and navigate back to the ISS, with him in my lap. It sounded simple when Stan explained it all. I knew it would be anything but simple. We went over the plan three times. By the end, I was explaining it all to him. I visualized each step in my mind, playing it out so that I wouldn’t be surprised when I was doing the real thing.
We finally lost the signal as I sped across the planet’s surface. We would be in range of the next ground station in a minute or two. I stayed on the channel, occasionally sending a query.
I thought about Rick. It was hard to believe this was all happening. He had a beautiful wife and two lovely children. I had spent some time with his kids. Gone to ballgames and movies. I had babysat for them one time. That was a lovely, trusting thing he and his wife had done – entrusting their precious children to a hard drinking, bachelor fly-boy astronaut. His boy, Sean, age seven, looked just like him. His daughter, Sandy, was the spitting image of her mom, Danielle. They were the best behaved children I had ever seen. We spent hours playing Uno and Yahtzee. Then we watched cartoon movies on DVD until it was bedtime. They went right to bed, and I read them a story about a worm and the town he lived in.
I had gone through flight school, active duty in Iraq, and astronaut training with Rick. He was a year ahead of me. We had developed a strong friendship; he was forever inviting me to Memorial Day barbecues and poker games. He invited me whenever his folks were in town. That was what it was like in the military. Married officers would pick a bachelor and practically adopt him into the family. That made up for what a bachelor missed most – a family life. A place to go just to get out of the barracks and shoot the bull with someone. A place to see how life could be lived. A place to see possibilities.
I had no other friend that close to me. Oh, I had plenty of drinking buddies, two great brothers, and I had dated some lovely young lasses. But I could not see any of them replacing what I had with Rick. I whispered a silent prayer for him; and for his family. He would be alright, I told myself. Hold on to that. I fought the gnawing doubt in my gut, that when I finally arrived I would find nothing but a corpse.
The radio was quiet. Now, in addition to the loneliness and fear, I could add despair. I had to get myself together and get back into the zone. I busied myself with my tasks, monitoring my instruments, sending out another hail on the UHF. In many ways, this was a lot more difficult than flying. You were constantly occupied in the cockpit. Out here, I pretty much only had to point in the right direction, twist a joystick, and the craft flew itself where I wanted to go. Then I waited until I got there. There was plenty of opportunity for the mind to wander. And when my mind wandered, the black of space seemed to suck out all optimism and I turned to dark thoughts. This was another lesson for the big brains groundside. I’m not sure what could be done about it. Maybe an MP3 player with some good, hard rocking music to lift the spirits. That was it, that’s what I would report on my debrief. Equip every astronaut with some David Bowie for emergencies.
I got Stan back on the line for a while, and we ran through the mission one more time. He sent me greetings from Linda and crew in Discovery, as well as Yuri and Tony aboard the ISS. He told me the President had been notified and was monitoring the situation very closely. Stan went through a few more scenarios. What if I had to abort after I had snagged Rick? I would have to jettison him, Stan told me. Jettison and assess fuel before attempting retrieval. What if, during rendezvous, we collided too hard and damaged his suit? What if I damaged my own suit? There was a folding sun visor in the chair’s drawer. I could use that to help protect my suit during the snag. The rendezvous would occur during sunlight, so I had to think about the sun’s position and the effects of its glare. I would have to maneuver so that the sun was at my back or to my side rather than in my eyes.
I lost Stan again for a few minutes, and I spent the time again visualizing the mission; this time with a few emergency scenarios thrown in. When I was in final position, I was to delay the snag until I had full communications with the ground. I asked Stan why, and he told me so that they would know immediately if the rescue was a failure. I thought silently to myself that, in the event of failure, they would like to know immediately how many corpses they would have to retrieve.
We were forty-five minutes out. Then thirty. On every comm opportunity, Stan’s calm voice would bring me out of my reverie. He would remind me of the job ahead of me. He must have known or imagined what I was feeling up here. He knew I was too gung-ho to admit any feelings of isolation or gloom. He knew equally well that I was human, and would experience such feelings. Stan did everything he could do to keep my mind working and sharp. This rescue was something nobody had done before. There was no training for this at astronaut school. Everything was unknown, and the unknown brought out the worst in a man. Yet another lesson to be learned. The psychologists would have a field day, figuring out how to train the next generation of astronauts to deal with the unknown.
Fifteen minutes out. I had to stretch my legs and arms for a few minutes. Three hours was a long stretch, even in zero-g. I rolled my neck muscles as much as I could in the cramped confines of my helmet. At ten minutes, I started some self-meditation to get myself calmed down. Stan helped me relax, speaking to me in that calm, cool voice of his. Start with your feet. Relax each muscle group in turn, moving up the legs and torso and down the arms.
I glanced ahead to get another fix on Rick. I spotted his lamp first. I then realized that I was seeing his suited body as well. The sun was just rising and reflecting off the white material in his suit. He was no longer just a slowly blinking beacon. All of this was now real. I was still too far out to get a fix on his spin. He looked so still.
Stan came on again and told me that Danielle wanted to talk to me. Uh oh, I thought, this was not a very good idea. What was I going to tell her? I was surprised that Stan had allowed this. My thoughts were interrupted by her voice.
“Hello, Joe”, she said in her familiar voice.
“Hello, Danielle. I’m looking at Rick right now. This will be over soon. Why don’t you let me…”
“I just want to tell you one thing, Joe”, she interjected. “I don’t want you to take any risks. You’ve got a job to do, you hear me? You do it, and if anything goes wrong, you get out.”
“Yes, ma’am”, I said. She hated it when I addressed her that way, even after all those years as a military wife; everybody was sir and ma’am all the time. It was an antique form of courtesy we practiced, even when we didn’t have to. You just developed the habit. It even carried over into my semi-civilian life as an astronaut. My civilian friends ragged me about it. Well, there are worse habits in the world.
“One more thing…thank you for doing this”, she said after a moment. “I can’t think of anybody I would rather be doing this mission. Take care of my Rick for me. Okay, here’s Stan again.”
Back to business. I had to describe everything I saw. I could see him fairly clearly now. He was spinning head over heels, with his spin axis perpendicular to the ground. That was good. That would put the sun at the right angle. Stan asked me to time his spin, and I clocked it at about one revolution every 45 seconds. That shouldn’t be too difficult to overcome.
At one instant, his spin carried him around so that he was facing toward me. I was about twenty yards out. I saw his arm go up in a wave to me. My heart skipped a beat. He was still alive! He had seen me! But then his spin carried him away from me and his arm went up in another wave. Disappointment washed over me. He had not seen me after all. He was probably semi-conscious and moving his arm reflexively. So, I could not count on his help in this maneuver at all.
Now it was time to get back into the zone. I had to brake my motion relative to his, and had to do it very carefully to avoid wasting fuel. I could not afford any overshoot. I had to time it so that I came to a stop just a meter or so away. I had to maneuver myself onto his spin axis. All the while, I had to keep Stan informed.
I gently gripped the throttle and turned it ever so slightly. Simultaneously, I turned the chair so that its rear thrusters could apply the brakes. I had to gauge distance and direction through the rear-view mirrors. Imagine driving an F-14 seated backwards while overtaking your wingman. This was enough to drive a seasoned truck driver mad.
“Slowing now”, I told Stan. I was all business. I watched as we came closer together, all the while easing off on the throttle. It was all by feel. No instruments in this aircraft. I was flying by the seat of my pants.
Our relative velocity reached the point where I could no longer tell if we were closing or not. I turned back to face Rick. I had enough juice in the forward thrusters to make adjustments if I had to. He was just a few meters in front of me now, slowly spinning. I could not get any closer without getting kicked in the face by his boots.
Now we came to phase two. Maneuver over to his spin axis. This was delicate work. I had to remind myself to be patient. Just the slightest burst of gas to get myself moving. Don’t hurry it. Even though our available life support made it a race against time. It was a delicate balance. Don’t waste fuel. But don’t waste time either. All the time I was talking in a monotone voice, letting Stan know what was going on. I had never felt so focused as this moment. The chair indeed became an extension of my body.
There. I judged I was as close to his spin axis as I ever could get. I killed all relative motion, looking at him spinning with his arm still gently waving.
“I am in position”, I announced. “I am ready for the snag.”
Stan asked me a few questions, going again through our makeshift checklist. Was I on the spin axis? Did I have the visor ready? What was my fuel status? What was my life support status? I answered each question dutifully. Don’t be impatient, I told myself. Think it all through. Stan had me give him a mark when Rick spun into position, and again the next time he came around. I visualized him downstairs with a stop-watch in hand. Patience. We spent a couple of more revolutions while he went through the steps of the snag, and had me mentally rehearse each one.
“You are go for the snag on my mark”, Stan said.
“Roger, go for snag on your mark”, I affirmed in an almost robotic voice.
Rick was coming around on the next revolution.
“Counting down…ten…nine…eight…”
I could feel myself tensing up. No, relax yourself. Be loose.
“…six…five…four…”
Take it slow. Don’t hurry it.
“…three…two…one…mark!”
I was right on the mark. I pushed the chair forward as Rick’s legs spun above my head. I was coming under him just as he spun around right into my lap. I released the throttles and grabbed the visor. I slipped it under him, pulled my arms out, and grabbed hold of his mid-section for dear life. I tried not to touch his life support pack, and I think I succeeded. We were now one.
Several things now happened, all at once. Rick’s spin was imparted to the chair and the earth and stars started spinning slowly around me. I focused on him so that I would not be disoriented. His body slammed against mine, harder than I had thought it would hit. I felt the recoil as we collided, and almost lost my grip. His limp body wrapped itself around my lap and his head clunked against the side of the chair. I head the sound of it hitting via conduction through the chair and my suit. It was the ugliest sound I had ever heard.
Panic threatened to rear its ugly head as I imagined what damage might have been done. I forced myself to ignore the fear. I just held on, waiting to make sure that my grip was secure. Stan’s voice sounded in my ear, but I couldn’t hear what he said, so great was my concentration. I couldn’t have answered. In hindsight, I can only surmise that those few seconds of silence must have seemed like an eternity to those on the ground. It sure seemed like it to me.
I looked him over as best I could, given the awkward position we were in. He was laying in my lap, anchored firmly by my grip. He was completely limp. His arms and legs were flapping, but that couldn’t be helped. I didn’t see any puffs of air escaping from his helmet, so I assumed his life support was okay. Stan later told me that I couldn’t have seen it anyway.
“Snatch is complete”, I announced. I heard cheers in the background down on the ground. With the sky still spinning around me, I carefully removed one arm, checking to see that he remained secure. I had to use quite a bit of strength to keep him anchored to me, as the centrifugal force from our spin was pulling him away from me. With my free arm, I reached back and pulled a bungee cord from the chair’s storage.
“Securing him now”, I said.
“What’s his condition”, asked Stan.
“Unknown. His suit appears secure.” I looked down at the life support status readout on his wrist. “Life support is active. Respiration and heartbeat are low-end nominal. Temperature is nominal.” Another, louder, cheer came from the ground. I applied the bungee cord where my free arm had once anchored him. It was quite difficult with only one arm. But I got it done, and then started attaching the second bungee cord.
“Joe, report on your life support, please”, Stan requested as I reported this step complete.
I glanced down at my own readout. “Respiration 30, heartbeat 185”. I took a deep breath.
“Joe, take a deep breath”, said Stan. “You’ve done good. Let’s get you guys back safe and sound.”
I took another deep breath, and calm returned. I hadn’t realized how keyed up I had been. I felt a few beads of sweat on my forehead, and the suit immediately cooled itself down a few degrees. I rubbed my forehead against the felt lining the brow of my helmet. Sweat in the eyes would not be good, not out here where I couldn’t do anything about it.
Now I felt an intense surge of exhaustion. It hit me like a sledge hammer. But I had to overcome it. This mission was not over yet. I had to get us back. I blinked my eyes and took a few more breaths. Okay, time to go home.
“Proceeding with phase four”, I said. I had to kill my spin, reverse the chair, and launch myself back toward the station. This was a piece of cake, something I had done in simulators and in the pool over and over. Of course, I had never done it with a precious cargo strapped into my lap. It took a little time to adjust to the increased payload. I had to adjust for the change in center of gravity. But I managed.
I finally gave the burst to send me back toward the station. I kept in touch with Stan in between the occasional loss of comms. He kept me up to date on my progress, checking my fuel against the rate of closing against my life support. It was going to be close.
That beautiful space station shone like a Christmas tree. We got closer and closer. We made it into the station lock with about five minutes of life support remaining, sucking fumes from the gas tanks. We cycled Rick through first, while I waited outside.
I wasn’t worried at all. After what we had been through, it was unthinkable that I would run out of air. I waited outside, a wonderful calm running through me as I watched that beautiful blue Earth spin below me.
I got word on Rick while I was still cycling in the lock. He was going to be okay. He had come to after some ministrations by Dr. Osley. He was weak, and would require attention once we got groundside, but he would survive.
As I made it inside, I saw preparations already underway for an emergency abort of the shuttle mission. I was excused from my duties, and I just floated in a daze as the rest of the crew bustled around me. I was strapped in and asleep in five minutes, and slept through the telephone call from the President, Danielle’s call, and the disembarkation from the station. And I acquired the fine distinction of being the first astronaut in the history of space travel to sleep through re-entry.
But that was okay. I had done my job. And pretty soon, after the award ceremonies and the visit to the Oval Office, I would have the time to do some sight-seeing. With my feet firmly planted on the ground.