by Scott Kelly
With much difficulty, Gunny and I were able to gather our wits and land safely. We proceeded to my stateroom, where we cracked open a bottle of whiskey to calm our nerves and celebrate cheating death.
Leslie met me when I returned from that cruise, and I was thrilled to see her. While I had been gone, I had been deprived of so many things—the people I cared about, beer, decent food, privacy—and it was great to get them all back again. I would have the chance to experience that kind of deprivation again.
—
MY WEDDING DATE WAS set for April 25, 1992, a month after I returned from the cruise. That morning when I got up and started going through the process of getting ready—taking a shower, shaving, packing my bag for the honeymoon—a strange feeling of dread loomed over me. I kept poking at it in my mind, the way your tongue keeps going to a sore tooth. This was supposed to be as happy a day as any, like the day I landed on the aircraft carrier, or the day I got my wings, or the day I graduated from college. But all I felt was this strange foreboding.
All of a sudden, as I was knotting my tie, I realized I didn’t want to get married.
I cared for Leslie and enjoyed her company. But if I was being honest with myself, I wasn’t marrying her because I had been moved to in my heart. I thought about the six groomsmen who were prepared to stand up with me. They were all Navy men, some from my squadron who I hadn’t even known for very long. The people I had grown up with and been through trials with and who had been there for me for many years, were coming to the wedding, but they weren’t in the wedding party. Without being aware of it, I had created a Navy event rather than a wedding.
I felt I had no choice but to go through with it. I wasn’t going to disappoint Leslie and her family, or my own family. Mark was coming all the way from Japan, and I thought about how bewildered and annoyed he would be if he arrived to learn the wedding had been called off. By the time I was dancing with Leslie at our reception, I had managed to put all these thoughts out of my mind. Somehow it didn’t feel like a permanent mistake I was making. I was only twenty-eight. I would try to make this work, but if I couldn’t, I figured, I could get divorced.
—
I APPLIED TO U.S. Navy test pilot school in Patuxent River, Maryland, after two and a half years in the Pukin’ Dogs. Usually pilots serve in a fleet squadron for four years before applying, so I didn’t think I would be accepted, but I wanted to let the selection board see that my interest was serious and to familiarize myself with the application process. To my surprise, I was selected, and even better, my brother had been selected too, so we would be classmates. We started in July 1993. My biggest concern wasn’t my flying, which I had become pretty confident about, but the fact that I had almost never used a personal computer. I knew I would have to get comfortable with technology, so I asked a squadron mate to help me buy one and teach me how to use it.
Leslie and I headed to Patuxent River (everyone calls it Pax River for short), only a few hours from Virginia Beach. This would be the first time in my career that I spent much time with members of the other military services. The school had U.S. Air Force pilots, Marine pilots, Army pilots; there was an Australian F-111 pilot and an Israeli helicopter pilot. Some of the people in my class would later become astronaut colleagues: Lisa Nowak, Steve Frick, Al Drew, and of course Mark. Soon after we arrived, the senior class threw a party for us, called a “You’ll Be Sorry” party, warning us that we would be sorry for deciding to become test pilots because the training was so hard.
I didn’t find the academic work particularly grueling, though I had to review some calculus and physics. We learned about aircraft performance, flying qualities, flight control systems, and weapons systems of the aircraft we might be testing. We also spent time familiarizing ourselves with the airplanes we would fly regularly during training. For the fixed-wing pilots like me, that meant the T-2 again, as well as the Navy version of the T-38, a much more challenging airplane. Friday nights were spent at the BOQ bar or at the home of one of my classmates. The weekends we spent doing homework.
As we got checked out in the T-38, I found landing particularly challenging, because I had gotten out of the habit of flaring an airplane—pulling back on the stick as you get closer to the ground to arrest the rate of descent prior to touchdown. When we land on a carrier we approach and land with a constant rate of descent. We also started flying other airplanes, generally with instructors or classmates who were checked out in them. This was all meant to expand our flight experience base. We also learned to write technical reports, a large part of the program. Experimenting and collecting data on a specific aspect of the airplane, then writing a detailed report on the findings, take more of a test pilot’s time than actually flying airplanes.
After graduating from test pilot school in July 1994, I moved to the other side of the airfield to the Strike Aircraft Test Directorate, the Navy’s test squadron for high-performance jet airplanes, located on the same base. My fighter squadron was a great fraternity, but in some ways the test pilot community was better because of its diversity. There were civilians (a group of people I hadn’t previously worked with much in the military), people from different countries, different cultures, ethnicities, sexual orientations, genders, and backgrounds. I was surprised to find that diverse teams were stronger teams, each person bringing his or her own strengths and perspectives to our shared mission.
—
MY DAUGHTER Samantha was born on October 9, 1994, in Pax River. Leslie had become more fragile and sensitive during her pregnancy, but once Samantha was born, Leslie’s life revolved around her. As a mother, she was doting and full of praise. Samantha was a jolly kid, outgoing and infectiously happy.
Mark lived not far from us, and he and his wife came over often, or we would go to their home. I was part of a close-knit group of test pilots and flight test engineers, and we all enjoyed having one another over on the weekends. Leslie and I both liked having people around, which kept us from having to spend as much time alone together. My colleagues and friends all liked her, and so did their spouses. So for a while, we got along. Thanksgivings and Christmases with her family or mine were always great. I was doing the work I wanted to do and I had a family. It seemed like this was going to be my life.
—
IN MY ROLE as test pilot I was assigned to assist in the investigation of an accident involving an F-14 that had crashed on approach to the USS Abraham Lincoln in a routine training mission. Lost in the accident was Kara Hultgreen, a pilot I had overlapped with in flight school. I didn’t get to know her well in Beeville, but since she was one of very few women there, she was hard to miss. Shortly after we got our wings, when the Navy had just opened up combat positions to women pilots, Kara had become the first woman to qualify in the F-14. Her achievement drew a lot of attention, so it was especially distressing that she lost her life soon after, on October 25, 1994.
A video of the crash, shot from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier, showed the airplane overshooting the centerline. When Kara turned the airplane too tightly, the airflow into the left-hand engine was disturbed, causing a compressor stall—a known issue with the F-14A. (The F-14 had horrendous flying qualities in general, and the scene in Top Gun where Goose smashes into the canopy is one of the more accurate moments in that movie.) When Kara engaged the afterburner on the remaining engine, the rapid thrust asymmetry caused her to lose control of the aircraft. Her RIO was able to eject them both and he escaped safely, but the pilot gets ejected 0.4 seconds later, by which point the cockpit was facing the ocean. She impacted the water before her parachute opened and was killed instantly.
A new digital flight control system was being designed for the F-14 to prevent upright flat spins and crashes like Kara’s. The system had taken longer to roll out than anticipated and was plagued by technical delays and cost overruns. Once our investigation of Kara’s crash reached the conclusion that the new digital flight control system would likely have saved her life, the project was e
xpedited. Soon it was ready to be tested.
Normally, first flights of new aircraft (or significant modifications to existing ones) are flown by test pilots working for the companies that manufacture them—in this case, Northrop Grumman. But because I had flown the Tomcat more frequently in the last year than anyone else, despite being relatively junior, I was chosen by our squadron commander—to everyone’s surprise, including mine—to fly the first flight. The day before I was scheduled to fly, when I got into the cockpit to check out the airplane’s systems, I was testing the trim button on the stick and discovered that using the button caused the flight control surface to move in the wrong direction. The lead flight test engineer, Paul Conigliaro, and I were aghast. I was supposed to take this thing into the sky the next day, and the flight control software was completely screwed up. To this day, Paul remembers my first words to the contractor responsible for the new system: “I can’t tell you how much this concerns me.”
When we checked the airplane again in the morning, it had been repaired—it turned out two wires had been crossed. My RIO, Bill “Smoke” Mnich, and I rolled down the runway that morning not knowing for sure whether this airplane would leave the ground in a controlled manner. At 125 knots, I slowly pulled back the stick and we were airborne. Soon after, we were raising the landing gear and flaps. I pulled the throttles back from full afterburner and headed out over the Chesapeake Bay to begin our maneuvers. After an hour and a half of flying very slowly and methodically, expanding the flight envelope of the new system step by step, we were safely back on deck.
The F-14 was retired in 2006, and airplanes with this system never experienced another flat spin or aircraft carrier landing fatality.
9
June 21, 2015
Dreamed that Amiko arrived here on the ISS. I wasn’t expecting her, so it was a pleasant surprise. She was here for work—she was setting up a public affairs event for Anton Shkaplerov—and I showed her around. It was nice to be able to welcome her to this place I’ve been telling her so much about. We had a conversation about whether we could both fit into a single crew quarters, and we decided we couldn’t. At least, not for sleeping. She was wearing the same outfit she wore to jump out of an airplane.
BEING ALONE in the U.S. segment, I can go all day without seeing another person, unless I have reason to visit my Russian colleagues. The chatter of my crewmates is suddenly gone, and with it the chatter between each of them and the ground. I appreciate the quiet and the privacy, a rare luxury up here. I can blast music or enjoy uninterrupted silence. I keep CNN on all day, at least when the satellites are lined up, to keep me company.
I do sometimes miss having another person to talk to, even if it’s just to complain about the challenging work schedule or to talk about what’s on the news. On a more practical level, I often miss being able to get a bit of help now and then. Many of the tasks on my schedule are doable by one person but would be much easier with another pair of hands at key moments. My workdays are longer when I do everything alone. The cosmonauts would drop everything to help if I needed them to, but they have their own work, and the delicate exchange of labor, resources, and money between our two space agencies is complex. I don’t want to complicate it further by asking for free help.
Today is Gennady’s birthday, and we have a special dinner in his honor. I give him the gift I remembered to pack: a ball cap with embroidered U.S. Navy pilot’s wings. Today is also Father’s Day, so we wind up talking about our children. Gennady has three daughters—two now grown and a twelve-year-old like Charlotte, along with a granddaughter close in age to his youngest daughter. He says he has regrets about missing his daughters’ childhoods because he was so focused on his career. He says he’s a much different father now than when they were younger. We both say we are looking forward to spending more time with our kids when we get back.
After we say our good nights and I go back to my CQ, I find an email from my ex-wife Leslie, which is unusual. She generally doesn’t deal with me directly. She wanted to let me know that she had heard from Charlotte’s teacher. A few days ago, Charlotte’s class was playing a game, and she was first to choose her teammate. Charlotte could easily have chosen one of her friends, but instead she chose a classmate who is developmentally challenged and has never been chosen first for anything. The teacher was so touched, she created a special award for Charlotte for always doing the right thing. Leslie’s email makes me feel both closer to Earth and farther away at the same time. It nearly brings a tear to my eye.
—
I WAKE UP early in the morning, six a.m., and float out of my CQ, through the lab and Node 1, turning on lights as I go. I turn right, into Node 3, where I go into the WHC. I don’t start it up, though—today is a science sample collection day. The process of urination is going to be even more complicated than usual. I grab a urine collection bag, clear plastic with a condom attached to one end. I put the condom on, then wrap it in mesh bandages to prevent leaks. As I urinate, I have to push with enough force to unseat the valve on the bag to allow the urine to flow in—without the valve there, of course, it would just come floating back out. But it’s hard to push with enough force to open the valve without pushing so hard the urine leaks from the condom—and this is exactly what happens. Urine soaks the gauze, then quickly forms droplets that float out to the walls. I’ll have to clean them up later. After I finish peeing, I remove the condom while trying not to liberate more urine. I use sample tubes with plungers to draw out three samples, initial them, mark them with the date and time, and scan their barcodes into the system. Then I head down to the Japanese module to put the tubes into one of the freezers. I will go through this process again and again, every time I urinate for the next twenty-four hours.
With the pee sample done, I head into Columbus for my blood draw. Like most astronauts on ISS, I know how to draw my own blood. At first I told the instructors in Houston that I wouldn’t be able to stick a needle in my own vein, but with some help I agreed to give it a try and quickly got the hang of it. Gennady joins me in Columbus to help, right on time, though I told him last night he didn’t need to. I clean the site on my right arm, which I’ve found to be a better vein. Using my left hand, I pierce the skin and slip the needle in. There is a brief flash of red in the tube holder, an indication that I hit the vein, but when I connect the vacuum tube, there’s no blood. I must have gone right through. Having ruined that one for today, I will have to try again on the left side. Because this is my only remaining arm, I suggest Gennady give it a try for me.
Gennady grabs another butterfly needle and connects it to the tube holder. After cleaning the site on my left arm, he takes aim and slides the needle perfectly into the vein. But the needle isn’t properly connected to the tube holder, so blood escapes, flowing out into globs in the air that wobble and then resolve themselves into crimson spheres, traveling out in every direction. Gennady quickly reseats the connection while I reach out to grab some of the blood spheres with my hand before they can float farther away. The ones I missed I’ll have to track down and clean up later. Luckily, I’m mostly alone on the U.S. segment, so no one will encounter a gory surprise before I can get to it.
Gennady changes out the tubes over and over until he’s drawn ten tubes of blood. I thank him for his help, and he goes back to the service module to have breakfast. I put the tubes in the centrifuge for half an hour, then put them in the freezer along with the other samples.
Later in the day, I will take a fecal sample; tomorrow, saliva and skin. I will go through this whole process every few weeks for the rest of the year.
Within the past week I’ve developed a badly infected ingrown toenail on my left big toe. Almost every moment of the day, unless I’m sleeping, I have one or both feet hooked around a handrail to hold me steady, so big toes are extremely important. I can’t afford for this guy to be out of commission. I’m treating it with topical antibiotics—we have a full pharmacy up here—and monitoring it closely.
The CO2 is much better now that I’m the only one exhaling on this side of the ISS. My headaches and congestion have largely cleared up, and I notice a difference in my mood and cognition. I’m appreciating this break from the symptoms while I can. At the same time, I’m concerned because the ground will probably act as though there is no problem now. Then the next crew will get here and we will start the whole cycle all over again.
One of the nice things about living in space is that exercise is part of your job, not something you have to fit in before or after work. (Of course, that’s also one of the bad things about it: there are no excuses.) If I don’t exercise six days a week for at least a couple of hours a day, my bones will lose significant mass—1 percent each month. We’ve had two astronauts break their hips after long-duration spaceflights, and since the risk of death after hip fracture increases with age, bone loss is one of the biggest dangers my year in space will pose to my future health. Even with all this exercise, I will lose some bone mass, and it’s suspected that bone structure changes permanently after long-term spaceflight (this is one of the many medical questions Misha’s and my year will help to answer). Our bodies are smart about getting rid of what’s not needed, and my body has started to notice that my bones are not needed in zero gravity. Not having to support our weight, we lose muscle as well. Sometimes I reflect that future generations may live their whole lives in space, and they won’t need their bones at all. They will be able to live as invertebrates. But I plan to return to Earth, so I must work out six days a week.
When it’s workout time on my schedule, I float into the PMM, a windowless module we use as a large closet, to change into shorts, socks, and a shirt. The PMM always reminds me of my grandparents’ basement—it’s dark, dingy, and has random stuff everywhere. My workout clothes are getting a bit fragrant because I’ve been using them for a couple of weeks—there is no laundry up here, so we wear clothes for as long as we can stand, then throw them out. I struggle to find something to hook my feet onto while I change. The clothes are still moist from yesterday’s exercise, making changing unpleasant.