Endurance

19

January 7, 2016

TOMORROW IS the fifth anniversary of the shooting in Tucson that injured Gabby. The approach of this day has made me think about what I was doing when Gabby was shot. I was fixing the toilet, and now the same toilet is failing in the exact same way.

As weird as this is, we’ve sort of known this day was coming. We were hundreds of days beyond what was supposed to be the lifespan of the toilet’s pump separator, and I had started to see it as a challenge to keep it limping along past the point when the ground had suggested I should replace it. I should have listened to them, because if it fails catastrophically it produces an enormous sphere of urine mixed with the sulfuric acid pretreat, a gallon of nastiness I would have to clean up.

Five years ago, I was orbiting 250 miles above my family when they needed me most. So much has changed since then; yet I’m in the same place, doing the same thing, as we honor the victims of the shooting with a moment of silence.

TODAY, January 15, 2016, is a great day on the International Space Station because a spacewalk is going on and I’m not doing it. I will always be glad that I had the chance to experience the thrill of floating outside the station with nothing but a spacesuit between me and the cosmos, but at least for now, I am more than fine with sitting this one out. It’s also a thrill to see Tim Peake become the first official British astronaut to do a spacewalk.

Today I am serving as IV. I make sure both Tims get into their suits properly, call out the steps as they check over their tools and check their spacesuits’ functions, and operate the airlock. Tim and Tim are replacing the power regulator that failed back in September while Amiko was on console in mission control, as well as installing some new cabling. They get through those tasks and a few others successfully before Tim Kopra’s CO₂ sensor malfunctions. This isn’t a big deal in itself, because he can self-monitor his CO₂ levels based on his symptoms, but soon after, he reports a water bubble inside his helmet. If the bubble were small, we might have speculated that it was a drop of sweat that had broken free, but the bubble is big. Tim also reports that when he pushes his head back against the absorbent pad in his helmet, there is a squishing noise, a sign that more water than just that bubble is in his helmet.

Tim and Tim have been outside for only four hours, and they have a number of items left on their to-do list, but a water leak in a helmet always means it’s time to come back inside, now. Tim Peake will clean up the work sites as Tim Kopra heads immediately back to the airlock. We want to get them back inside quickly, but rushing increases the chances of something going wrong. So we go through the procedures methodically, one by one, so as to be sure we aren’t screwing anything up. I think of a saying I once heard that was attributed to the Navy SEALs: “Slow is efficient. Efficient is fast. Slow is fast.” When I bring them back inside, I get Kopra’s helmet off first. He seems fine, if a bit moist. Then we get Peake’s helmet off. They both look tired, but neither of them have the exhausted look that Kjell and I had after our first two spacewalks. We’d been in our suits almost twice as long.

A few days later, the Seedra in Node 3 fails again. Often when it goes down, the ground can get it up and running again, and I spend the day hoping they will be successful. I’ve been daring to hope that I could get back to Earth without having to mess with the Seedra again, so when the ground tells us that Tim Kopra and I will have to take it apart and spend a couple of days on repairs to get it working, I acknowledge it with a heavy heart.

The next day, Tim and I slide the beast out of its rack, move it to Node 2, secure it to a workbench, and take it apart. Over the course of the day, we isolate the problem. When I took this machine apart with Terry Virts, it was a multiday operation that left him bandaged and both of us tired and frustrated. Today, I’m aware from the start that the repair is going much better than it had previously. It’s still a very complicated and challenging job—just moving the five-hundred-pound mass is a hassle when it could damage a hatch seal, sensitive equipment, or a body part. But I’ve had so much experience with this machine that I can now work on it with an incredible level of confidence and efficiency. At this point, I could write a repair manual for this damn thing if I wanted to. I feel like I know it the way a cardiologist knows a human heart.

We save time by using tricks I’ve figured out on previous repairs and get the work done in a fraction of the time it took Terry and me to do it back in April. I can’t help but take some pride in that. I also can’t help but wish fervently that I will never have to take this thing apart again.

Later in the day, I’m working in the Japanese module when I come across a drink bag wedged behind a piece of equipment. I dislodge it and find it’s marked with the initials DP. No one up here has the initials DP, or has in a long time. It must have belonged to Don Pettit, who was last here in 2012. I save the bag until Don is working as capcom, then hold it up in front of the camera and ask, “Is this your drink bag?”

Don laughs at the absurdity of the situation. But he understands, as all space station astronauts do, how easily objects get lost up here. At home you would never put down a glass of water and lose it for three years, but up here, as careful as we are, it’s incredibly easy to lose your drink or anything else. There is just too much stuff, and it all floats.

A few days later, I take a great picture of the city of Houston and the Gulf Coast on a beautiful night pass. When I send it to Amiko, I use the word “home,” and I’m surprised to find that I’m starting to set my internal compass there again. I’m starting to allow myself to look forward to getting back. I hadn’t been able to indulge in these kinds of thoughts for most of the year, but now it actually feels good to yearn for home a bit, knowing I’ll be there soon.

Later in January we see through the second major botanical project on board the station. Growing lettuce back in August was relatively easy—we set up nutrient “pillows” under the grow light in the European module, watered the plants according to schedule, and watched the leaves sprout as expected for an easy harvest. Now I am growing flowering plants, zinnias, which we expect to be more difficult because the plants are more delicate and less forgiving. The sequence was set up this way on purpose—we will use what we learned from growing an easier, less demanding species to aid us in growing something more finicky. The zinnias prove to be even more difficult than we expected. They often look unhealthy, and I suspect that our communication lag between space and the ground is to blame. I take pictures of the plants and send them to scientists on Earth, who, after looking them over and consulting among themselves, send me instructions about what to do—usually “water them” or “don’t water them.” But the lag in communications means that by the time I get the instructions things have gone too far in one direction or the other. By the time I’m told not to water them, the little plants are often waterlogged and growing mold on their leaves and roots. By the time the instruction to water them reaches me, they are dehydrated and on the brink of dying. It’s frustrating to be growing a living thing up here and to watch it struggle, not to be able to take proper care of it. At one point I post a picture of one of the zinnias on social media and get back criticism of my botany skills in return. “You’re no Mark Watney,” quips one smart-ass commenter, making reference to the stranded astronaut in The Martian. Now it’s personal.

I tell the payload ops director that I want to take over deciding when to water the flowers. That might seem like a small decision, but for NASA it’s huge. Having to touch the plants and the medium they grow in with my bare hands would be a major change in protocol. The ground seems terrified that if I touch the plants and they have mold on them, the spores could infect me. The initial reaction I get is skeptical, but I’m convinced that the flowers are going to die unless I’m allowed to take care of them myself, as a gardener on Earth would do, and it’s frustrating to see all the effort and expense that went into designing and launching this experiment going to waste. Some involved with this decision doubt I will check on the plants every day, because that will take a lot more of my time and attention than simply following directions. But I finally get my way.

It’s hard to describe the feeling of watching the flowers come back from the brink of death. I’ve carried memories of the flowers I saw in the botanical gardens with my grandparents when I was a kid, and maybe because those weekends with them were a peaceful respite, I associate flowers with my grandmother and her loving manner. I think about Laurel’s violets that I kept in my office after her death. Once the zinnias are my personal project, it becomes incredibly important to me that they do well. I check on them as often as I can. One Friday I bring some of them down to the Russian segment and attach them to the table as a centerpiece.

“Scott,” Sergey says, a puzzled look on his face. “Why are you growing these flowers?”

“They’re zinnias,” I clarify.

“Why are you growing these zinnias?”

I explain that we are working toward being able to grow tomatoes one day, that this is one of the experiments we are doing to further our knowledge for long-term spaceflight. If a crew is going to go to Mars, they will want fresh food and won’t have access to resupply like we have on the space station. If we can grow lettuce, maybe we can grow zinnias. If we can grow zinnias, maybe we can grow tomatoes, and tomatoes would provide real nutritional value to Mars travelers.

Sergey shakes his head. “Growing tomatoes is a waste. If you want to grow something you can eat, you should grow potatoes. You can live on potatoes.” (And make vodka.) The practical and simple Russian perspective has merit.

When I post the first picture of the healthy zinnias on social media, there is a huge explosion of interest—6 million impressions. It’s gratifying to see people respond with enthusiasm to something I’ve come to care about. And it reinforces my thinking that people are interested in what’s going on in space if it’s presented to them in ways they can relate to.

To me, the success with the zinnias is a great example of how crew members will have to be able to work autonomously if we ever go to Mars. I care about the flowers much more than I was expecting to, partly because I’ve been missing the beauty and fragility of living things, but most likely because I was called out on Twitter for my botany skills and had something to prove.

IN LATE JANUARY, I gorilla up for the first time, stuffing my head and body into the plasticky-smelling gorilla suit. I’ve decided what Space Gorilla’s first adventure will be: I hide in Tim Kopra’s crew quarters and wait for him to come along. When he opens the door, I pop out and scare the shit out of him. Then I float down to the Russian segment and show the cosmonauts, who all go nuts laughing. Space Gorilla is already spreading joy.

I decide it will be funny to float in front of the camera where mission control can see me in the suit without warning them first. On a calm Tuesday afternoon when not much is going on, I make my move. I put on the suit and then drift in front of the camera in the U.S. lab until I know I can be seen on the screen. Amiko sees it on NASA TV, but no one on the ground says anything. It’s a letdown.

I’ve been thinking about ways to use Space Gorilla to engage with kids—if he could grab their attention and make them laugh, maybe they would be interested enough to listen to me talk about space and the value of science, technology, engineering, and math. Tim Peake agrees to help me by costarring in a short video in which he is shown unpacking some cargo, only to find a stowaway gorilla that chases him up and down the U.S. lab to the Benny Hill theme song, “Yakety Sax.” The video goes viral and brings new attention to what we are doing on the space station.

ON JANUARY 28, I lead a moment of silence for the crew of the space shuttle Challenger, which was lost thirty years ago today. The two Tims and I gather in the U.S. lab, where I say a few words honoring the memory of the crew and mentioning that their spirit lives on in our current achievements in space. I bow my head for a moment, and as I do I can’t help but remember the cold morning when my college roommate George and I watched the orbiter blow up over and over on his tiny TV. Thirty years, a lifetime ago. I couldn’t have imagined where I am now. I remember George asking me whether I still wanted to go to space and wanting to go more than ever.

A few days later, one of my Russian colleagues floats over to the U.S. segment to show me that his tooth has popped out. It’s a crown attached to an implant, like a little metal peg in the front of his mouth. There is no way to get home without the tooth-jarring Soyuz landing, so he is understandably afraid that the unsecured tooth will be knocked down his throat, or lost, on reentry; he also doesn’t want to land without it, because we are photographed so much immediately on return. I get out the dental kit, thoroughly dry both the tooth and the post with gauze, mix up some dental cement, and glue the tooth back into his mouth. My colleague gives me a broad smile, satisfied. A commander’s work is never done.

ONE SUNDAY MORNING, I float over to the Russian segment and greet the cosmonauts while they are having breakfast.

“Scott!” Misha calls out to me with a mischievous smile on his face. “Do you know what today is?”

“Yes,” I answer. “It’s my birthday. February twenty-first.” The last time I celebrated at home in Houston, I was fifty. Today I’m fifty-two.

“Happy birthday, Scott, but that’s not it! We have only nine days left!”

I’ve avoided counting down this whole year. I’m surprised that the single digits have crept up on me, so it seems my strategy has worked. Nine days isn’t long at all.

“Scott,” Misha says with a note of excitement in his voice, “we did it!”

“Misha,” I answer, “we had no choice!”

Sergey, Misha, and I will do a few Soyuz training sessions together so we will be ready for our descent. Misha, who will serve as flight engineer 1, needs to refresh his training for serving as Sergey’s backup; it’s been a long time.

We start packing up our things and getting organized to leave. I have to figure out what is coming back with me on Soyuz—a small package of no more than a pound or so, including the gold pendants for Amiko, Samantha, and Charlotte and silver versions for my crew secretary Brooke Heathman, my scheduler Jennifer James, and my Russian instructor Elena Hansen. A larger allotment of things can come back on SpaceX later in the spring. I need to clean out my crew quarters thoroughly so it will be fresh for the next person. Because of the way stuff can float around in space, I have to clean the walls, ceiling, and floor. I have to disassemble the small room and vacuum out the vents—those are especially gross, as they are covered with a year of dust. I also hide a plastic roach for my successor Jeff Williams to find.

Amiko tells me she’s had someone come by to check on the pool and hot tub—the pool heater broke partway through my mission and she hadn’t noticed until she started putting everything in order for my return. She knows I have been thinking about how great it will be to jump in the pool. She asks me to send a list of the things I want her to have on hand when I get back. Typing the list makes me think about home even more: the sheets of my bed, the shower, the pool and hot tub in the backyard. I’ve spent this entire year trying not to long for home, and now I’m putting myself there deliberately. It feels very strange.

I email her a list:

Often when I do interviews and press events from space, I’m asked what I miss about Earth. I have a few answers I always reach for that make sense in any context: I mention rain, spending time with my family, relaxing at home. Those are always true. But throughout the day, from moment to moment, I’m aware of missing all sorts of random things that don’t even necessarily rise to the surface of my consciousness.

I miss cooking. I miss chopping fresh food, the smell vegetables give up when you first slice into them. I miss the smell of the unwashed skins of fruit, the sight of fresh produce piled high in grocery stores. I miss grocery stores, the shelves of bright colors and the glossy tile floors and the strangers wandering the aisles. I miss people. I miss the experience of meeting new people and getting to know them, learning about a life different from my own, hearing about things people experienced that I haven’t. I miss the sound of children playing, which always sounds the same no matter their language. I miss the sound of people talking and laughing in another room. I miss rooms. I miss doors and door frames and the creak of wood floorboards when people walk around in old buildings. I miss sitting on my couch, sitting on a chair, sitting on a bar stool. I miss the feeling of resting after opposing gravity all day. I miss the rustle of papers, the flap of book pages turning. I miss drinking from a glass. I miss setting things down on a table and having them stay there. I miss the sudden chill of wind on my back, the warmth of sun on my face. I miss showers. I miss running water in all its forms: washing my face, washing my hands. I miss sleeping in a bed—the feel of sheets, the heft of a comforter, the welcoming curve of a pillow. I miss the colors of clouds at different times of day and the variety of sunrises and sunsets on Earth.

I also think about what I’ll miss about this place when I’m back on Earth. It’s a strange feeling, this nostalgia in advance, nostalgia for things I’m still experiencing every day and that often, right now, annoy me. I know I will miss the friendship and camaraderie of the fourteen people I have flown with on this yearlong mission. I’ll miss the view of Earth from the Cupola. I know I will miss the sense that I’m surviving by my wits, the sense that life-threatening challenges could come along and that I will rise to meet them, that every single thing I do is important, that every day could be my last.

PACKING UP to leave space is strange. A lot of stuff goes in the trash, which means stowing it in the Cygnus that will burn up in the atmosphere later this month. I throw out a lot of unused clothes—my challenge to myself to use as few clothes as possible has been a success, and there is a duffel bag’s worth of T-shirts, sweatshirts, underwear, socks, and pants left over to prove it.

On the weekend, I find the time to take pictures of a bunch of stuff people have asked me to bring—T-shirts, hats with logos, photographs, artwork, jewelry. I gather it all up and take it to the Cupola. As I open the shutters, I catch a glimpse of tawny sand, and I instantly know from the color and texture exactly where we are above the planet: the Somali plains just north of Mogadishu. In one way it’s satisfying to feel like I know the planet with such intimacy. In another way, it makes me feel like I’ve definitely been up here too long.

One by one, I take the items I’ve brought up here for people and float them against the backdrop of the Earth to snap a picture of each. It’s not hard or even that time-consuming, but it’s the kind of thing I never felt like doing and that could always be put off until later…until now.

There is another thing I wanted to do that I haven’t quite found the right time for. I’ve been thinking about the whole arc of my life that brought me here, and I always think about what it meant to me to read The Right Stuff as a young man. I feel certain that I wouldn’t have done any of the things I have if I hadn’t read that book—if Tom Wolfe hadn’t written it. On a quiet Saturday afternoon, I call Tom Wolfe to thank him. He sounds truly amazed to hear from me. I tell him we’re passing over the Indian Ocean, how fast we’re going, how our communication system works. We talk about books and about New York and about what I plan to do first when I get back (jump into my swimming pool). We agree to have lunch when I’m back on Earth, and that’s now one of the things I’m looking forward to most.

On February 29, 2016, I hand over command of the International Space Station to Tim Kopra. Tomorrow I will leave the station and return to Earth.