by Scott Kelly
—
IN EARLY 2008, I started training for my mission to the space station in earnest. I would be launching with two Russians, Sasha Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka, and when we got to orbit we’d be joining Shannon Walker, Doug Wheelock, and Fyodor Yurchikhin. Three months into my mission, Shannon, Doug, and Fyodor would return home and be replaced by Cady Coleman, Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli, and Dima Kondratyev. I traveled often to Russia, Japan, and Germany to train with their respective space agencies.
I had a lot of experience working with the Russians in Star City by this point, which was good, because it would lighten my training load some, but I would still spend a significant amount of my time there. I’d learned a great deal about the differences between our cultures—that Russian people’s behavior toward strangers is indifferent to the point of seeming cold, which to Americans can feel rude, but that once I got to know individual Russians well, their behavior toward me was warm and affable. My friendships with people there reached a depth that would take many Americans years to reach.
The instructors we had at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, came from countries throughout Europe. I found it enriching to work with such a diverse group of people, but the training culture itself was purely German—precise almost to a fault. This could be a bit maddening at times to someone like me, who doesn’t care how the sausage is made. I prefer to be told what needs to be done and how to do it, leaving the nuanced details for the ground to worry about. I spent four weeks training in Cologne. I was enamored of the architecture, particularly the High Cathedral of Saint Peter, a thirteenth-century colossus that stands proudly on the banks of the Rhine.
Compared to my Russian and European colleagues, the Japanese people I met were much more outwardly polite and deferential to strangers, but it took much longer to get past that polite stage and get to something more familiar. Because my Japanese colleagues were polite to everyone, I found it hard to tell whether I had established good working relationships with them. This concerned me because I knew my directness could often be taken the wrong way and for some be off-putting.
To train with the Japanese space agency, I traveled to Tsukuba, a city of about 200,000 located about fifty miles northeast of Tokyo. I was joined there by my future crewmate Doug Wheelock and by Tracy Caldwell from my STS-118 crew, whom I was now backing up prior to my own expedition. One evening as we walked to one of the nearby restaurants, we passed a dessert truck with an English inscription on one side. In large letters, the truck was labeled “Marchen & Happy for You,” under which was printed an odd sort of prose poem:
Beginning was from only one car.
Fumisyasu Hasebe who is the founder who was 23 years old
A little brought the method of the vehicle sale completely different from former close to a grope and completion in 1998.
Creation of the scrupulous interior and jokespace.
The way a visitor can share not only the taste but a style.
It is thought of wanting to provide many people with a joke style with a delicious dessert.
It is the language and “Marchen & Happy for you,”
Which do not change now, either but are hung up.
It does not still change at all. And present
The top in the field of move sale is aimed at and it is under business in various parts of national.
It is our shop also to your town.
The first time we saw this truck, we stopped and read the “poem” out loud, fascinated by its almost-sensical approximation of colloquial English. The Marchen & Happy for You truck became a landmark for English speakers visiting Tsukuba, and we always made sure to point it out to newcomers, watching while they read it and tried to make sense of it. I took a picture of it with my phone one day and showed it to one of the instructors at the Tsukuba Space Center who had strong English skills. I read him the text and asked him, “Does this make any sense to you?”
“Of course,” he answered. “What don’t you understand?”
This only increased our fascination with the ice cream truck and the linguistic and cultural differences it symbolized. To this day, many years later, when my former colleagues and I get together and talk about old times, especially training in other countries, sooner or later someone will bring up a picture on his or her phone and start reading out loud from it: “Beginning was from only one car….” Laughter inevitably ensues, sometimes followed by crying from laughing so hard. The dessert truck poem reminds us of the “lost in translation” aspect of being Americans in Japan, but it also reminds us of that intense period of training for an ISS expedition, and the way these shared experiences brought us together.
—
AS WITH most marriages that begin with the groom thinking about how to get out of the ceremony, my marriage to Leslie was not a happy one. Leslie was a good mother, and she continued to take care of things on the home front so I was free to work demanding hours at NASA, including frequent travel. After Samantha was born, I periodically tried to initiate conversations about our relationship and the possibility of ending our marriage. These conversations never went well. Our talks always ended with Leslie saying that if I ever tried to leave her, she would destroy my career and I would never see my child again. I was shocked and saddened that she would threaten me this way, but I also understood that emotions were running high and we all had a lot at stake.
We decided to try counseling. I was reluctant at first because I thought it might affect my chances to fly in space. I had been asked in the process of interviewing with NASA whether I had ever sought counseling or psychiatric help, and, having truthfully said no, I didn’t want that to change. Astronauts never knew exactly why we got flight assignments or what kept us from getting them, so the instinct to avoid negative attention or controversy was deeply ingrained. But I agreed because I thought it might help, and Leslie wanted to try. The day of our first appointment, we were waiting in the reception area when the door to the counselor’s office opened and out came a senior management astronaut and his wife, both of them wearing the stony expressions of people who have been through an emotional wringer. He and I silently acknowledged each other, and although I wondered whether having been seen there would have consequences, I at least knew it wasn’t unheard of for an astronaut to seek help for a troubled marriage.
The counselor wasn’t able to help us much, and our marriage continued to deteriorate. Meanwhile, I dropped the subject of our marriage each time Leslie threatened me. After Charlotte was born, and “child” changed to “children,” the stakes were even higher. So we settled into a semi-friendly arrangement in which she took care of our children and home and I pursued my career. I was gone a lot, which minimized the opportunities for tension and fighting, and we both liked entertaining and having people around, so even when I was home there wasn’t much chance for serious drama. We continued this way for years.
In the spring of 2009, I was back in Japan. I’d been looking forward to the trip, but once I was there, I felt crappy and the weather was gray and dull. I had a bad cold, was exhausted from jet lag, and was in a foul mood the whole time. I dragged myself through classes and training sessions all day and then collapsed in my tiny economy hotel room at night. It was then that I realized that despite being unhappy in Tsukuba, I didn’t want to go home to Leslie. I would rather be on a business trip feeling miserable than in my own home.
I visited my grandmother the day after I returned to the States. My father’s mother, Helen, whose home had been such a sanctuary for Mark and me when we were boys, was now in her nineties and living in a nursing home in Houston. She had taken a turn for the worse, and while I sat with her, holding her fragile hand, I thought about what a comforting presence she had been when we were little, when she took us to the botanical gardens and sang us to sleep. That had been forty years ago, and now age had robbed her of her vitality. Where would I be when I was her age, decades in the future? If I was lucky enough to be alive still, what sort of
life would I have to look back on? How was I going to spend the rest of my time on Earth?
The very next day, I called Leslie from work and let her know I would be coming home early and that I needed to talk to her alone when I got there. At home, I told her I would always respect her as the mother of our children, and I would always take care of my daughters, but I wanted a divorce.
As I had anticipated, she repeated her threats and reminded me she had evidence that I had been unfaithful.
“I can understand that you’re angry,” I said, “but this is what I’ve decided. I hope you can move on. But do what you need to do.”
I’d hoped to have an amicable split, for the benefit of our daughters. Samantha was now fourteen, an especially vulnerable age to deal with this kind of family upheaval, and Charlotte was five. I thought it was important to show the girls that adults could work through their problems calmly, cooperatively, with generosity of spirit, and with an emphasis on the well-being of the children. This was not to be.
When Samantha and Charlotte got home from school, I gathered myself and spoke to them as calmly as I could, trying to make things seem cordial and positive, though they could tell from their mother’s face that this was nothing of the sort. Samantha was more upset than Charlotte—she was old enough to understand what a big change this was going to be. I tried to assure her that I would do everything I could to keep her life stable. Charlotte didn’t seem very interested in the conversation and spent the whole time playing with a rubber band—wrapping it around her wrist, unwrapping it from her wrist, her bangs hiding her eyes. After a while, Leslie asked her if she had any questions.
Charlotte’s round little face tipped up at me. She met my eyes, and I tried to read her expression. Then she held out the rubber band to me and asked, simply, “Is this your rubber band?”
This gesture was typical of Charlotte. She was trying to change the subject away from the topic that was causing everyone so much pain, and at a moment when I was so concerned about my daughters and how their world was about to be blown apart, she was trying to give me something.
When I put my head on the pillow that night, I felt more at peace than I had in months, maybe years. Maybe I would never fly in space again, but I was going to try to live a life I wouldn’t regret when I was old.
Leslie carried out one of her threats by moving away with the children, but in the end our divorce didn’t affect my career as I’d feared it might. She is still angry at me for ending our marriage. Yet when I started seeing Amiko, Leslie was surprisingly warm toward her. Whatever animosity she continued to feel toward me, she didn’t extend to Amiko, which a lot of people might have done in her situation.
Not long ago, Leslie and Amiko were consulting on the phone about some travel arrangements for Charlotte, when Leslie said to her, “I want you to know that you have always been great to co-parent with. My girls just love you, and that makes me love you too.” Amiko hung up the phone with tears in her eyes. She has been through a lot with my family, and these kind words meant the world to her. I know some people who, after going through a difficult divorce, say they wish they had never married their spouse or had never even met him or her. I can honestly say I have never felt this way. Leslie has been an important part of my life, and though I wish we could be on better terms, I have never regretted my decision to marry her, and I am eternally grateful for Samantha and Charlotte.
15
October 28, 2015
Dreamed Kjell and I were going to go skydiving together. We went up in a plane, and as I was standing near the doorway Kjell jumped out without his parachute. I watched his face change as he realized his mistake, a look of horror overtaking him as he slowly fell away from me. I didn’t have my own parachute on yet, so I was scrambling around looking for one so I could jump out and catch Kjell before he could hit the ground. I searched frantically through piles of junk in the plane. After a while I knew it must be too late, but I kept looking anyway until I woke up.
I’M FLOATING in the U.S. airlock, wearing a 250-pound spacesuit, while the air is slowly pumped out. I can’t see Kjell’s face because we are crammed into a space the size of a compact car, at odd angles, his head down near my feet. I’ve been in the suit for four hours now. Kjell is wearing the only extra-large spacesuit on station because he couldn’t fit into the large-sized one, so I’m wearing a suit that’s clearly too small for me, feeling like ten pounds of potatoes stuffed into a five-pound bag. I’m already tired and sore.
“How you doing, Kjell?” I ask, staring directly at his boots.
“Great,” Kjell says and gives a quick thumbs-up I can barely see through the bottom of my visor. Any normal person, upon experiencing the air leaving the airlock around him, would be somewhere on the scale between apprehensive and terrified. But Kjell and I have trained for this, our first spacewalk, for a long time, and we feel prepared and confident in the equipment and the people who are keeping us safe.
Suddenly a series of loud bangs reverberates through the airlock, a sound I’ve never heard in training. It’s like someone knocking on a door loudly and urgently. Then it’s quiet. Has something gone wrong? Should we be doing something? I mention the sound to the ground, and they tell me that it’s normal, one of the things that happens when the air is sucked out of the airlock. No one thought to tell us about it in training, or maybe they just forgot to mention it, or maybe they did and I forgot. I’ve practiced this moment many times, wearing a spacesuit and being lowered into a giant swimming pool containing an ISS mock-up at JSC, but it’s different doing it for real, in space, with no safety divers to help us out if things go wrong.
Once the airlock is nearly at vacuum, Kjell and I do a series of checks on our spacesuits to make sure they are not leaking. This process consists of a series of switch throws and slides of a lever, all of which are extremely difficult to do while wearing the suit’s gloves, sort of like trying to change a car’s tires while wearing a baseball glove. To make things worse, we can’t see the controls, so we have to use mirrors attached to our wrists to see what we are doing (the labels on the controls are written backward so we can read them).
Looking ahead at the procedures, I see that once the airlock is down to a complete vacuum, each of us will turn our water switch on, which will allow water to flow through the cooling system to control the temperature in our suits. We can’t do this prematurely because the water can then freeze and crack the lines. As the air continues to escape the airlock, I consider warning Kjell that the water switch is easy to flip accidentally. It’s right next to a similar-looking switch that we use often to silence alarms or scroll through lines of status messages on a small LCD screen. But I tell myself that Kjell is as well trained as I am for this spacewalk. I’m not going to micromanage him.
When the airlock is not quite at a vacuum, Kjell says, “Houston—and Scott—I just hit my water switch on/off.”
Shit! I think, but don’t say. I take a breath to steady myself. “You cycled it?” I ask. He’s just done the very thing I decided against warning him about.
“Yeah.”
Our capcom for the spacewalk is Tracy Caldwell Dyson, my crewmate from my second shuttle flight—she gained a new last name through marriage in the intervening time. “Houston copies,” Tracy responds. “Kjell, can you tell us how long it was on?”
“Less than half a second,” Kjell says. He sounds dejected. We’ve already spent hours today—and entire working days over the past two weeks—getting ready for this spacewalk. We do not want to have to start all over, not to mention the possibility of damaging the $12 million suit.
While spacesuit experts on Earth confer about how to proceed, I’m pissed at myself for not warning Kjell. Knowing the way NASA works, we are aware there is a very good chance they will not allow us to continue. If that happens, it will be because the experts cannot guarantee Kjell’s safety, and the most important thing is that we both finish the day alive. On the off chance NASA will let us continue, I need Kj
ell to keep his head in the game.
“It’s happened before, Kjell,” I tell him. “It’ll happen again.”
“Yeah,” Kjell answers, sounding dispirited.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, wishing I could make eye contact to see how he’s doing.
“No worries,” Kjell replies in a flat tone completely at odds with his words. Astronauts have seen their careers permanently affected by mistakes like this.
“It’ll be all right,” I say, talking to myself as much as I’m talking to him now.
Suit experts on the ground are still discussing whether to proceed, and what precautions we’ll need to take. Meanwhile, we are told we can open the hatch and enjoy the view while they decide on a course of action. As I put my hand on the handle, I realize that I have no idea whether it will be day or night outside. I unlock the hatch handle and crank it, releasing the “dogs.” Now I have to simultaneously translate the hatch toward my chest and rotate it toward my head, which is challenging, because with nothing to hook my feet onto, I’m pulling myself toward the hatch almost as much as I’m pulling it toward me.
I tug and push and pull for a few minutes, and finally the hatch cracks open. The reflected light of Earth rushes in with the most abrupt and shocking clarity and brightness I’ve ever seen. On Earth, we look at everything through the filter of the atmosphere, which dulls the light, but here, in the emptiness of space, the sun’s light is white-hot and brilliant. The bright sunshine bouncing off the Earth is overwhelming. I’ve just gone from grunting in annoyance at a piece of machinery to staring in awe at the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen.
Inside my spacesuit, I feel like I’m in a tiny spacecraft rather than wearing something. My upper body floats inside the hard torso, my head encased in the helmet. I hear the comforting humming noise of the fan moving the air around inside my suit. The helmet has a faint chemical smell, not unpleasant, perhaps the anti-fog solution our visors are treated with. Through the earpiece built into my comm cap, I can hear the voices of Tracy in Houston and Kjell just a few feet away from me out here in outer space—that, and the strangely amplified sound of my own breathing.