ISS

by Mains, L Valder

  As part of their planning they wanted to avoid becoming overheated so they did not dress in their flight suits ahead of departure. They left them and their other gear in the spacecraft overnight and planned to suit up on the way but now he was shivering in the chill morning and wondering if it had been a mistake. Sara pulled up alongside Jericho One’s tail section and he went behind the unit and uncoiled the thick electrical cable and plugged it into a receptacle under the fuselage. He gave her the thumbs up signal and she fired up the generator. In less than a minute all systems on board Jericho One would be live and they would have engine starting power.

  She jumped down and they stood amid the noise and cold and hugged. He noticed she was trembling but he didn’t know if it was from the cold or excitement. Probably both he thought. He steadied the ladder for her as she climbed up to the open main cabin hatch. It was his job to disconnect the generator after main engine start and drive the starting tractor out of the way.

  This was the trickiest part of this whole thing and the only part they could not rehearse; they could not start the engine while practicing because fuel conservation was critical. The hard part was avoiding being roasted alive by the engine as he climbed the ladder into the spacecraft.

  He was shivering and it seemed to be taking a long time but then he heard the main engine begin to spool up and he covered his ears with his hands at the intensity of the whine and he was soon engulfed in exhaust heat. He waited until Sara came to the hatch to give him the thumbs up signal before he disconnected the generator and drove the starting unit over onto the grass beside the runway.

  The next part was the most difficult, he needed to climb aboard Jericho One and release the ladder and close and seal the hatch without falling or getting char broiled by the engine. He ran up the ladder quickly without getting singed but it took him three tries to get the door closed and sealed but when he did the relief from the engine noise and heat was immediate.

  Sara was belted into the pilot’s seat and when she saw the green indicator light that told her the door was sealed she released the brakes and throttled up the engine. The huge craft shuddered and began to roll down the runway. Jack struggled to walk up the aisle against the increasing acceleration. Fuel usage was critical because of the extended distance they would need to travel. Gerry had calculated the amount of fuel they would need from engine start to orbit and warned them in the strongest possible terms that there was no margin for error. They were traveling down the runway at ninety knots when Jack strapped himself into the co-pilot seat.

  “Check gauges,” Sara said over the engine noise.

  He began the automatic scan he’d been practising for what seemed like months, checking everything from tire temperature to cabin pressure. Everything was nominal and he gave her a ‘thumbs up’ and a grin. She was concentrating so hard her return grin was more a grimace than a smile. He watched the muscles in her forearms bulge with the stress of controlling the huge machine. It was at its most unstable barreling down the runway. Her bangs were in her eyes and soaked with sweat and her brow was deeply furrowed in concentration. He turned away from her and looked out the windscreen and felt butterflies in his empty stomach as the nose of Jericho One began to lift. One minute they were rolling at speed down the runway and the next they jumped into the sky with a solid kick in the pants. He couldn’t help it he yelled “Yahoo!”

  The cute sweaty pilot in the next seat smiled at his outburst though she never took her eyes off what she was doing. A few minutes later they were at twenty thousand feet and climbing steadily and just as planned ISS came on line as they passed through sixty five thousand feet. The sound of Gerry Wright’s voice came through loud and clear.

  “Great job you guys that was a perfect takeoff. Now it’s time to put on your gear and get ready for zero G,” he said. He would talk them through the next few critical hours. Jack got dressed first and finished fastening the airtight outer lining of his spacesuit and then took over flying while Sara struggled into hers.

  They had not put them on earlier because things have a way of being delayed especially with such a complex task as getting Jericho One airborne and rather than risk overheating themselves and depleting their suits energy reserves the plan called for suiting up under way. Jack held the spacecraft steady keeping the rate of climb constant like he’d been taught.

  “Give me a read out,” Gerry said.

  Jack read off the various gauges and indicators, scanning them in the sequence he memorized and going back over them if Gerry did not hear every one. When he turned his head to read the fuel transport gauge he caught sight of Sara lying in the aisle between the passenger seats with her legs up in the air struggling to get into her suit. He laughed at the look of frustration on her face and she glowered back at him.

  “I’m not a bean pole like you I have hips,” she shouted over the engine noise.

  “What’s going on?” Gerry said.

  “The pilot is having trouble getting into her pants,” Jack said.

  “You are going to run out of time you’d better help her Jack. Look on the upper right corner of the display console. There is a button with the label APX engage it and let go of the stick,” said Gerry. He did as he was instructed and watched as the auto pilot took over the controls.

  “Did the autopilot engage?”

  “There is a green light on,” Jack said.”

  “Okay good, you can go and help her but don’t take too long.”

  Jack climbed out from behind the flight controls being careful not to bump any switches on the way out and walked back to where she was struggling.

  “What should I do?” he said. She considered it for a moment and asked him to get behind her and help her pull. With his help they managed to pull it up quite a bit but not enough. They continued to struggle and pull but they didn’t manage to get it up enough to close the seal. “Are you sure this is the same suit you wore before?”

  They spent time earlier practising putting them on. Once they mastered it they loaded them on board with all the other flight related gear.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I don’t understand how you gained weight in two days,” he said shaking his head.

  He heard Wendy Randall’s voice come over the radio.

  “Jack, I need you to put on your helmet and plug into the consul.” he found it and placed it on his head and plugged it in. The Commander’s voice was now inside.

  “Jack, I think Sara is retaining water. That’s why her suit isn’t fitting,” she said.

  “You mean she drank too much?” There was a pause and she said, “No Jack it’s not that. When girls get their period, that is, when they menstruate sometimes they retain water and it makes them kind of swell up.”

  “Oh,” he said. He took off his helmet and went back to Sara still struggling. “Do you have your period?” he asked. “Yes.” “The Commander says you’re retaining water. You are going to have to take off your pants,” he said, “she thinks that’s the problem.” She looked at him closely and then asked him, “Is that really what she said?”

  He smiled his answer; if she was swollen he figured taking off her pants would help. He helped her pull off the jammed space suit and then he waited to help her to take off her pants. She looked at him and said.

  “Jack, go and check some gauges.”

  A few minutes later she was pushing him out of the pilot’s seat. They both had their helmets on and suit systems operating as the sky outside the spacecraft lost its blueness. They were approaching the outer limit of the earth’s atmosphere. Gerry told her to start the procedure for switching the engine over to rocket fuel and when she finished the engine re-lit and gave them a huge hit of thrust. The next two hours would be critical.

  They were about to navigate through tons of floating space junk and satellites that circled the planet in low earth orbit. Jack thought the whole ride was all pretty cool until he suddenly realized he was going to throw up inside his helmet. He put his he
ad down low and did some deep breathing and the feeling passed. When he looked up again the view outside the windscreen now showed a completely black and star filled universe. He was awestruck and he looked over at Sara and she was sitting there, calmly flying JERICHO ONE like she’d flown spacecraft all her life. She even smiled at him.

  “Jeez, how do you stay so calm?” he said.

  “What you can’t see is that inside I’m scared shitless. My dad always told me when I was afraid to smile and nod, because if you don’t act scared you won’t feel scared. He was a terrible bull shitter.”

  He laughed but her story helped to calm his nerves. Suddenly the radio was working again and ISS was asking for readouts. The next two hours went by quickly as they aligned the trajectories of the two spacecraft. It was Jericho One that was going to have to catch up to the ISS and they were on a good track to do that now.

  An hour later she yelled, “I see it.”

  The ISS was ahead and above them but it was impossible to estimate how far away it was. The only clue was its small relative size but that could mean a hundred or a thousand miles. “Sara, you are a bit hot you are closing the gap too quickly. How much reserve fuel do you have for the main engine?” “It reads 15000 pounds.”

  “Okay good, this is what I want you to do. You need to turn your ship around and use the main engine to slow down. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Okay on my mark give the port side thrusters a three second burst this will begin to turn you around. The tricky part is using the starboard thruster to stop you when you are in the right position. I can see you now so I will tell you when to fire it. Okay now, three seconds on port side.”

  She counted out loud as she held her thumb down on the control, ”one thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and three,” she said and let go. “Okay that’s great now get ready to fire the starboard thruster for three seconds on my mark.” She did as she was told but this time nothing happened. They were spinning faster. Jack felt the centrifugal force on his body wanting to pull him out of his seat. “Fire it again Sara.” She did but with the same results.

  “Okay guys hang on we’ll get right back to you.” She looked over at Jack and for the first time he saw fear in her eyes. “It will be okay they’ll figure it out,” he said.

  He reached out his gloved hand and held hers. At least they stopped accelerating and the spin was manageable in terms of nausea. All they needed to do was close their eyes and the effects went away completely. The small amount of centrifugal force was not enough to make them motion sick. After a few minutes the radio came back to life, it was Jerry. “I think we’ve figured it out but we’ve lost our window for slowing you down. Sara find the auxiliary IGC damper switch located on your left below the Nav console and engage it and wait for the light.” She did what she was told and a green light came on. “Okay I got green.” “Good, now on my count fire the starboard thruster for a four second burst. Ready, now.”

  Sara fired the thruster and this time they saw the craft’s rotation begin to slow as the stars outside stopped spinning past them.

  “That’s great you guys, but now here is the bad news, you’ve got to catch up to us again by traveling around the earth once more. See you in seventy five minutes.”

  They were traveling backwards and they watched as the ISS fell slowly further and further behind them.

  “It’s weird but it doesn’t feel any different going backwards than it did going forward,” she said. Sara sounded a little bit shaky, traveling backwards was disorienting.

  “You did a great job of flying this thing,” Jack said, “I know I could not have done it for sure.”

  “God, don’t jinx us now. We’ve got a lot more to do before this is over,” she smiled at him thankful for the praise.

  “I wanted you to know I think you are great and you are doing a wonderful job and if you kill us it’s okay.” She laughed and took a swing at him. They fell silent and Jack thought they must have dozed off because the next thing he knew the ISS was calling them.

  “You guys sleeping in there?”

  “As a matter of fact we are,” he said.

  “Nap time is over kiddies you need to do a main engine burn for thirteen seconds. Jack do you have a watch?” “Yes.” “You time it and it needs to be precise. Are you ready Sara?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay in three, two, one, burn.”

  This time there was a distinct hit as the main engine burned. He gave her the cut throat sign at exactly thirteen seconds and she shut the engine down. A few seconds later Gerry came back on.

  ”That was perfect you nailed it exactly. Okay, over the next two hours you will slowly close on our position and you will need to make fine adjustments with the thrusters. Piece of cake.”

  “Why do I get the feeling this is gonna be anything but a piece of cake?” she said.

  “If anyone can do it, you can,” Jack said.

  “I’m beginning to doubt your sanity Jack,” she said, and smiled and squeezed his hand. He smiled at her and squeezed back.

  “I need to pee,” she said. She unclipped her belt and floated out of her seat. “Oh my God this is wild. Try it.”

  He watched as she floated down the aisle and unclipped his seat belt and gently floated up to the ceiling. Well it wasn’t exactly up. There is no up or down in space. He closed his eyes and felt the awareness of his body expand. It was odd not having a reference for up or down, heavy or light.

  “Can you help me?” she said.

  He opened his eyes and turned himself by reaching out and grabbing a seat back and she came into view in the doorway at the rear of the space ship. She was outside the washroom looking perplexed.

  “So, how do you pee in weightlessness again?” she asked him.

  “Carefully,” he answered. Luckily he was out of range for a punch.

  “Very funny, I’ve really gotta go.”

  He climbed into the tiny room with her and found the suction hose and the special adapter for use by females and attached it.

  “You pee into this but before you do you have to turn this switch it starts the suction.” He handed her the tube and for a moment she looked like she was going to ask him a question but she changed her mind.

  “Do you want me to pull your pants down for you?”

  “Ha ha very funny,” she shooed him out of the bathroom and he was halfway back to the cockpit when she said,” Okay, yeah, I might need some help.”

  “Don’t worry I won’t look,” he laughed.

  Her face was pretty red by the time he got her suit off.

  “Do you want me to hold it ah….there for you?” he said smiling.

  “I’m sure you’d like that wouldn’t you,” she scowled. When he got back to the cockpit the ISS was looming large directly ahead of them.

  “Okay Sara, you need to line JERICHO ONE up with the open bay door,” Jerry said.

  “She’s in the bathroom, shouldn’t be more than a half hour or so,” Jack said.

  “Okay I’m back,” she said glaring at him.

  “You need to line up the center of your ship with the open cargo bay. Do you see it?”

  “I do but I can’t tell how far below you we are. It looks like we need to come up a bit.”

  “All in due course first we need to get things lined up straight. Go ahead and fire the manoeuvring thrusters but remember to use small shots.”

  Sara said,” I want to move to my left about ten feet, so I am firing my starboard thruster.”

  She gave it a two second shot and they waited to see how much it would change their position. After ten minutes Jericho One had moved left seven feet.

  “Okay Sara, now give a port side shot to stop your movement.”

  She did and after ten minutes it seemed to have stopped then right where Jerry wanted them to be.

  “Good. Now you need to give a shot to the bottom thruster to bring you up to us. She did and again it took
ten minutes to see any change.

  “Okay Sara now a stopping shot.”

  She gave a shot and they slowed. They watched as a hatch on the side of the ISS opened and an astronaut came out. He waved at them and went to the Canada arm and unlocked all its sections and unfolded the huge crane. It looked like it could reach down and pluck them out of the sky.

  “Okay Sara, now we need you to extend the landing gear. There is nothing else on the exterior that we can grab onto,” Gerry said. She found the switches and flipped them to the engage position but nothing happened, the landing gear doors did not open.

  “There’s nothing happening Gerry. It’s not working,” she said.

  “Okay hang in there, we’ll figure it out.” She looked over at Jack and there was concern on her face. Ten minutes later Jerry was back on the radio.

  “It’s a fail-safe mechanism. The landing gear cannot be deployed in zero gravity. I guess they didn’t want to have a hull breach in space. The bad news is there is no way to safely over-ride the mechanism.

  It is also likely that we won’t be able to easily open the hatch door either. That won’t be as much of a problem because you loaded the samples and the supplies we need in the hatch under the lighting cluster on the tail.

  We are going to use cargo straps around the fuselage to tie you down and that is going to take a hell of a lot of cargo straps. While we are doing this I want you to be sure to keep your full gear on including helmets. If the hull is punctured your air would quickly be gone. If that happens we will cut through the hatch to get you out, but it would take time.”

  Jack watched as another astronaut came out the hatch carrying a huge bundle of yellow nylon strap. Jerry used the robotic arm to swing the astronaut over the side of Jericho with the strapping. He lost sight of him but he heard something contact the exterior of the ship. It did not take them long to tether JERICHO ONE to the robot arm and guide it closer to the docking bay. Another half hour and they were secure or at least as secure as this kind of jury rigged thing gets.