Monday was a half duty day because technically we worked half a day on Saturday. Though, since we are still in our official new arrival adaptation phase, my Soyuz crewmates and I have fairly light days anyway. The reasonably light days will continue for another week or so. While I would not mind diving right into work here, I find that doing anything takes about ten times as long as you would expect or hope. Some of that extra time comes from the fact that the Station is stuffed to the gills since a lot of extra cargo has been brought aboard in anticipation of the Shuttle retiring. The extra cargo means that it is really difficult to get to anything. If there is something you need and it is tucked away, you either have to move a ton of stuff to get to it or sort through a huge bag of items to find the one thing you need. Zero-g definitely makes digging around for stuff really difficult. You open a full bag and items come exploding out. It takes a fair amount of time to corral these things and then another huge chunk of time trying to find whatever it is you are looking for. It is occasions like these that one could use about eight hands to hold things.The other reason it takes additional time to do anything is simply the actual transition to working on the Station that I have to do. This is a big station and it takes awhile to learn where everything is and/or learn which of the zillion laptops are dedicated to what function. It is a good thing that Tracy does not mind answering questions. Part of our adaptation process is officially scheduled time with Tracy to handover knowledge. Doug and I use this time for her to talk about and show us particular tasks in order to bridge the inevitable gap between what we know from training and the reality of the Station.
The few work items I had today included finding and initializing some sound meters that my Soyuz crew has to wear for twenty-four hours so that the ear doctor back home knows to what kinds of noise levels we are routinely being exposed. I also conducted an air quality monitoring session and performed a minor software update on the computer that is used with the treadmill. Wheels and I jointly performed a checkout of the crew medical restraint system and the medical oxygen supply system. This restraint system is a place where you can strap someone down to a flat surface in case there is a serious medical issue on board and you need to perform CPR or some other difficult procedure. The medical oxygen supply system is used if a medical emergency requires that the patient be given supplemental oxygen for breathing.
In the afternoon Tracy and I used some of our handover time to get my treadmill harness adjusted. I think it is going to be challenging to learn how to run on the treadmill. The harness is used to hold us on the treadmill and its fit and configuration is directly related to the level of pain you may have while running. The rest of my day was spent getting acquainted with the Station and trying not to bash into things as I fly from one module to the next. It always seems like the places that would be nice to use as handholds are not allowed to be touched. So, I am going to have to learn the dance routine that it takes to get from here to there.
Since I have heard that many folks at first often do not make it past about ten minute or so due to harness issues, I was very pleased that I could do what I did. It almost made up for my lousy weights session.
Tuesday was what you could call a somewhat frustrating day. It started off with trouble with the resistive exercise machine. Actually it is a rather clever machine, but learning how to use it properly is not easy. I spent a lot of time on the ground working on the proper form and body position to be in so that I will not injure myself. However, reality on the ground and reality in space are not the same. Most of the exercises I needed to do I did not have a problem with. But a couple of key ones were really giving me fits. One of them I never could get into the proper position to perform the required exercises. I found the entire exercise session exasperating. At least after my resistive exercise session, my running on the treadmill session went relatively smoothly. Many people have problems sorting out how to run in a harness on a floating treadmill. I was extremely fortunate since Tracy and I spent so much time yesterday working to get my harness fit just right. I think we got pretty close. I was able to go the entire time (30 minutes) at a reasonable pace (a little slower than I run at home) and my harness did not start hurting until about the last couple of minutes.
Resistive Exercise MachineAfter lunch I was supposed to work with Wheels (Doug Wheelock) for a couple of hours doing some installation and outfitting of a payload rack. Suffice it to say, things did not go quite as planned for several reasons. Some of the problems we encountered were because the hardware we needed was not where it was supposed to be, so it took some time to locate it. Other problems were that the rack would simply not cooperate. After about two hours of working together, Wheels had to go do other things. When I was on my own, I was supposed to attach the rack to some hinges. Well, the rack decided to get a little crosswise and I could not get it into the position it needed to be in. Since the rack is literally about the size of a refrigerator and with as much inertia, I was not able to manhandle (person-handle?) the rack into place. Eventually, it took three of us to herd the rack to where it needed to be.
The other difficulty we had was that during the course of the outfitting, we had to move the rack to a new position. Well, as it turns out, one side of the rack was doing a good job of bracing a ton of bags of equipment in place. As soon as the rack moved, so did the equipment. Imaging about two dozen bags and packages about the size of a computer paper box (or, even bigger - some were the size of two computer paper boxes combined) bursting free and scattering all over the lab. It sucked up a lot of time trying to keep those items contained. This activity took so long that we ended up working through dinner and up to the time we were supposed to be going to bed. And, that was just half of what I was supposed to do with that rack today. . .
On Wednesday I was ambushed by stowage issues. It seemed like everything I needed today was not in the location that the ground thought it was in. That made the schedule run late and later. It was rather comical, in some ways. But, unfortunate in other ways as now the work must be repeated in the future when all the right items can be found.
Before I started my Station scavenger hunt I had my exercise session the first thing in the morning. I am pleased to report that it went better on the resistive exercise machine today than it did yesterday. I was able to alter my stance to finally sort out some of the right positions for the required exercises. My run on the also treadmill went well, but I have some tender spots from the harness - just like I expected.
The sound meters from Monday had completed their data taking and I transferred said data to a computer so that the ground could downlink it. That was not an easy task. The reader for the data is an infrared reader that has to be precisely situated next to the infrared port on the sound meter. Of course there is no good way to get these two pieces of hardware to stay put next to each other, so I ended up with a lot of data transfer failures and had to keep re-trying.
I took my first neurological test today just like the ones on the ground - matching symbols, doing calculations, etc. My score was consistent with my scores on the ground so my brain seems to be functioning fine. Whew! I also performed a computer based training session that was required for my Crew Medical Officer refresher training. I am duly refreshed on how deal with nosebleeds and on the different methods for closing up wounds.
After lunch I had more work to do with the rack with which I was working yesterday. I thought I was doing great until I was informed at the end that I did not do the procedure correctly. I was supposed to connect a bunch of cables (power, data, etc.). It looked to me like the cables were already connected. They were all on the right connection point according to their labels and I did not see any other place that they should go. As it turned out, I needed to stick my head down into the rack a bit farther. I was supposed to move the cables to other connections that were labeled exactly the same as the connections where the cables currently were. Oops. I'll chalk that up to a rookie mistake. . .
Then I was supposed to install a laptop on this rack for some payloads to use. This is when the stowage problems kicked into high gear. I believe I was supposed to collect six or seven different pieces of equipment from various locations around the Station. I only found three of them. Everything else was missing. So much for that activity.
I next had to measure my body mass on the American mass measuring device. The entire crew had their mass measured yesterday morning on the Russian device. At least both devices measured about the same. Afterwards I was to 'temp stow' the device. Well, the procedure referenced some items that they themselves were temp stowed. As I was not the person who put these items in their temporary stowage location (which, by definition is the operator's choice of locations since it is not intended to be permanent), I had no idea where they were. So much for that activity. . . Of course, by now I was way behind the timeline since it took so much time before we cried "uncle" in the previous laptop installation activity.
My last item of the day was to change out all the HEPA filters in the U.S. Lab. Fine, no problem. But the new filters were lost and we had to use alternates. All right. But then you have to remove hardware to get to these filters to change them out. OK. But there is this one, new piece of hardware that the ground forgot about and it was not supposed to be removed. Eventually I got nearly all of the filters changed out. But not until after I had to take a break so that my fellow American crewmates and I could do a public affairs event. We were supposed to do a video link with a school in California. They never got the sound going out to them, so the event was eventually canceled. I was glad because I still had to finish the filter change out. I think the documenting of part numbers and serial numbers took the most time of that activity. The ground has to track everything so we always have to note what part is where. Of course, if crews are not diligent in doing their part, then items get lost and then they have to deal with what I dealt with this afternoon - missing parts.
By the time I finished with the filters it was dinner time. I was ready for bed soon after dinner as we had been woken up the night before by an anomalous caution and warning event. Basically one of the sub-computers running some part of the Station stopped talking to its upper level computers. That set off the alarm. No real issue as the back-up computer took over. But, it did interrupt our sleep.
Thursday was kind of a crazy day. I managed to create a lot of work for the ground.
1) I discovered corroded batteries in one of the modules and thus creating a "toxic spill."
2) I accidentally turned off a wrong power switch and took down at least one Station computer.
3) I performed a routine inspection of our treadmill and now it is making strange noises and is unusable.I am sure at this point the ground is questioning my abilities.
We had some fresh fruit that came up with us on our Soyuz. After dinner we had an impromptu and lively game of 3-D space soccer with a grapefruit. No rules, just had fun kicking the grapefruit around.
Ah, Friday. My first week is done. My day today was much quieter than it was yesterday. The main event this morning was some refresher training in preparation for our undocking, fly-around, and re-docking on Monday. My Soyuz crew went over all the required procedures - everything from how to prepare the Soyuz for flight now that it is docked to the Station and in a powered-down state, to the actual mechanics of doing the re-docking. After we were done with the procedures review, Fyodor and I got on their on-board simulators and ran through a few fly-arounds and dockings for practice. I think we are ready to go.
I also had my standard exercise for the day - running on the treadmill and using the resistive exercise machine. The ground had us do some more inspection and checkout of the treadmill to ensure there was not a major problem. They finally decided that everything was OK and the treadmill was put back into service. Other than that, the rest of my day was fairly low key. That was nice as I had a chance to do a little more settling in. Figuring out the best way to organize my personal stuff is a challenge. Deciding what to keep where for daily operations seems to be somewhat of a moving target as I do not really have a settled routine here yet.
Interestingly, Saturdays are considered partial work days for us. That means that in addition to the task of cleaning the Station we will be scheduled for tasks during the day. Though, I was not scheduled for much other than exercise. The day started off with our usual cleaning of the Station - get drops of drinks and food off of walls; vacuum vents; clean all the handrails and clean the bathroom area. The rest of the day did not contain much that was structured. I did my required exercise. I did a few minor tasks that the ground wanted done that were not on the schedule (re-locate hardware, label things better, etc.) And I set up the video connections for our fly-around on Monday. When we have a docking or a re-docking, we have a way to connect the Russian TV system to the U.S. video system so that U.S. assets can be used to downlink the video. If we were to use Russian assets, then we would have video only when flying over the Russia. But, using the U.S. satellites we can have much more video available. And, since both ground control centers like to keep up with things like these, we string up the cables between the two halves of the Station to make it possible.
Aside from the work we did, Saturday was a rather quiet day in that we did not have our standard communication capabilities. Due to the location of the sun with respect to our orbit right now, one of our communication antennas was reaching temperatures outside of its limits. This is expected, but what the ground has to do is park the antenna in a specific configuration to keep it within its limits. When the antenna is parked, it cannot track our satellites and, therefore, is not used. What all of that means in practical terms is that we did not have our usual e-mail syncs (we are synced three times a day), we did not have the IP telephone, and we did not have any video capability. So, those of us that had video conferences scheduled with our families had to do them via voice only. We could not receive or send any e-mail nor could we make phone calls. As you might expect, phone calls and e-mail are big activities on the weekends. Oh well.
Sunday was an unscheduled and relaxing day for us. We finally got our antenna back within temperature limits, so we had its capability for about half of the day. That was nice. I did my required exercise. I noticed that at the end of your session when exercising on the treadmill you get a summary of how far and fast you ran. They also included in your summary have how far the Station went during your time on the treadmill. So, today I went about 3 miles and the Station went over 8000. What a hoot.
Here are my thoughts on my first week: I am still finding my way around this place. It is big and every nook and cranny is crammed full of equipment and supplies. What I find interesting is that going through modules in orientations other than the usual "up" and "down" like on the ground does not seem odd. The funny part is that it is easy to get lost. You can be exactly where you want to be, but since you may be on your head staring a wall upside-down you may not recognize where you are. By the same token floating does not seem unnatural at all. Uncoordinated still, perhaps, but not unnatural.
Everything takes much longer to accomplish than you think it will. Searching for and gathering hardware is a challenge because you do not have the ability to lay things out on a table. If the stowage area or container you are looking in is very full (have I mentioned that most of them are?) then it takes some skill and planning so that the contents do not burst out and start floating away. Carrying things is no small matter either. You use your hands to move around, so you cannot fill up your arms.
Sleeping also takes some getting used to. Like most people, when I first arrived it felt very odd to not lie on something when sleeping. I would wake up several times in the night because my body would want to turn over to a new position. But, of course, turning over does not change anything. It is an interesting challenge to figure out how to do things that are common on the ground, such as eating a meal or washing your hair. And, of course, it is a challenge to find your groove with the toilet.
But, each day that I am here, I get better and better with my surroundings. I have to admit, flying through the modules doing flips and moves like I am some kind of cartoon super hero is fun. Being on the Station after so many years of training is absolutely everything I hoped and expected it would be and more.
