How to Astronaut

by Terry Virts

  I made my fair share of mistakes during those shuttle years. One particularly memorable blooper occurred at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. To get there we would fly our T-38 from Houston to California, stopping for gas twice. Ames had a full-motion simulator called the VMS that allowed us to practice shuttle landings from approach to touchdown, all the way to wheel stop. The unique feature of this sim was that it moved up/down/left/right more than sixty feet, giving the crew realistic motion cues of landing and rollout. On this particular occasion, I was late, and immediately after landing my T-38, I jumped in a van and sped to the VMS. As the shuttle pilot, I was responsible for deploying the landing gear and parachute, while my classmate, the commander, actually landed the shuttle. So I jumped in the simulator breathless and we began the first run, diving toward the runway at a 20-degree angle. As my colleague pulled the orbiter’s nose up for a gentle landing, my job was simple—arm the landing gear as we descended through 2,000 feet above the runway, and deploy them at 300 feet. After touchdown I would deploy the drag chute to slow us down.

  Unfortunately, I was too rushed and hadn’t let my brain slow down and catch up to what we were doing. As we dove at the runway, I made the standard calls to the commander—“10,000 feet, 7,000, 5,000, radar altimeter good, 3,000, 2,000 feet”—at which time the commander called out, “Arm the gear.” I promptly pushed the buttons to deploy the drag chute instead of arming the gear. Well, even if you’re not a rocket scientist, you can probably imagine that the shuttle doesn’t fly too well with a giant parachute trailing it, and despite my best effort to jettison it immediately after uttering “#!@$&!$,” we promptly crashed.

  Robotic training in the Cupola simulator, Building 16, Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, USA, Earth.

  You know what? I never did that again. For years after that incident, I never ever made a mistake with the landing gear, or the parachute buttons, or the entire landing sequence. So, despite the fact that it was funny and embarrassing and cost me beers at dinner, that incident served a useful purpose. Making a mistake in the simulator was a really good thing—if the crewmember realized it and internalized it. The best way for me to learn was by doing and making mistakes. If I went through a sim and everything went great, I didn’t learn anything profound, but debriefing mistakes hammered home the most important lessons. You just didn’t want to make a habit of doing boneheaded things like crashing the shuttle, or the boss would give you some career counseling: Find another career.

  I was an evaluator pilot in my F-16 days, giving my colleagues checkrides, ensuring they could fly safely and get the mission done. During one particular emergency procedure evaluation, or EPE, I ran one of my squadron mates through a simulated engine failure where he had to land his single-engine Viper with no power. He didn’t do a great job, and I dinged him in the debrief about his flame-out landing technique. Well, a few weeks later the two of us found ourselves flying over northern Iraq when he had an actual engine failure, becoming a 30,000-pound glider over enemy territory (Saddam Hussein was still in charge when this incident occurred). And he did an absolutely amazing job, nursing his sick jet back to a remote airfield across the border in Turkey with a razor-thin margin of error, earning himself a well-deserved medal and even national press a few years later when the incident became unclassified. That was a perfect example of why we train in the simulator—you make your mistakes and get familiar with complicated procedures so that when they happen for real, and your butt is on the line and the stress level is maxed out and you’re sucking seat cushion, you do what needs to be done.

  The same was true in the space shuttle. Some used to say, “Train like you fight.” I always said, “Train much harder than you fight.” Then when launch day comes, you’ll be ready for anything.

  Plus, there’s no Sim Sup on the real space shuttle. Thank God.

  Chez Terry

  Styling the Hair of a Superstar Crewmate

  When I signed up to be an F-16 pilot, there were many things I expected to do as part of the job description. Learning to fly. Survival training. Studying enemy fighter jets. Moving around the world. Putting my life at risk. These are just a few of the expected duties of an Air Force pilot. However, of the thousands of skills I’ve had to learn over the years, cutting my (female) crewmate’s hair was unique, something I never thought I’d do.

  For those of you who are American, I challenge you to name any astronauts not named Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, or John Glenn. . . . Well? Anything?

  That’s what I thought. There are a lot of us, and we just aren’t that famous anymore. Which is a good thing; it means that spaceflight has become routine. But for other countries, it is a different story, and when I was assigned to fly with Samantha Cristoforetti, I learned just how big that difference was. You see, in addition to being amazingly skilled at foreign languages, she was the first-ever Italian female astronaut. On top of that, she has an engaging personality, and her first spaceflight completely captivated the nation of Italy. After getting back to Earth our crew went on a postflight visit to Italy, and when our train would pull up to the next destination there was always a crowd of people waiting to cheer for her. When I give talks, I always ask the audience if there are any Italians present, and if so, “Do you know Samantha?” The answer is inevitably a resounding “Si!” She is a big deal in Italia.

  In that context, it was going to be important to take care of her hair while in space. Sam is in no way overly concerned about such things under normal circumstances; she was a pilot in the Italian Air Force and is very laid back, but she was going to be a rock star during our half year in space, constantly on Italian television and doing media appearances, and would need to keep up her hairstyle. Keeping my hair looking acceptable was pretty easy. I put the electric trimmer (which came with a built-in vacuum) on number 2, ran it over my noggin, and thirty seconds later voilà, hairstyle complete. But for Samantha, it would be a whole different ball game. Lots of women have flown in space since the 1960s, but to the best of my knowledge, they have always just let their hair grow or kept it in a bun, waiting to get back to Earth to visit a proper hairstylist. But not us—we’d be blazing new trails during Expedition 43.

  As for me, my palms were sweaty. My heart was racing. This was going to be unlike anything I had ever done in space.

  Before launch, Samantha told me that I’d have to visit her hairdresser in Houston and get trained before I’d be qualified for launch. I was game, and our training manager put it on our schedule. One day after work we went to the salon and I met her hairdresser, a lovely Vietnamese lady named Linh, who was quite experienced. And patient. As Samantha sat in the chair, Linh explained the myriad equipment and procedures required to do a proper lady’s hair styling. First there are the clips that you need to put in the hair. Next is the proper grip of the scissors—with thumb and ring finger. Who knew? It’s important to use a comb and not a brush. Keeping the hair damp is another key. You start cutting from the center out, holding the hair between your fingers, with the help of the clips. Samantha liked her hair short and layered, so I had to cut it angled at the end, not in a straight line. You have to keep track of which batch of hair has already been cut. Frequent stop-and-assess breaks are required. The hair over the ears had to be trimmed at a sharp angle, à la Star Trek style. And the list goes on and on.

  Samantha and her hair stylist had the patience of Job. It took me two and a half hours that afternoon to learn these skills. I was so deliberate about each and every cut. It was unlike anything I had ever done in my life before, and I just didn’t want to mess that up.

  Fast-forward to the midpoint of our mission, and her hair was getting a little long. It was time. I gathered the hairstyling equipment, got the vacuum ready, cleared out an area in Node 3, set up the video cameras, and gathered the crew. Anton would be the vacuum operator—sucking up pieces of hair as they shot off after I cut them. Samantha would merely have to float there and smile. As for me, my palms
were sweaty. My heart was racing. This was going to be unlike anything I had ever done in space.

  The second of two nerve-racking hairstyling appointments, with me cutting Samantha’s hair.

  The actual operation went smoothly. I put the clips in, and Anton kept her hair wet with a spray bottle as I floated back and forth, working on my masterpiece. I found the task much easier in space because her hair was standing up, so it was more forgiving to sculpt her hair in layers. The whole process took only about thirty minutes, which was much quicker than in Houston, and we had a lot of good laughs. We ended up doing this twice during our 200-day mission, and both times Samantha seemed to be happy with the results. Whew!

  I’ve been very fortunate in my career. I’ve done some pretty crazy and hair-raising things. Flown F-16s over Iraq and Korea. Piloted a space shuttle. Flown a rendezvous mission. Done spacewalks. But in all seriousness, by far, without a doubt, the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life was cut Samantha’s hair. Because if I’d screwed that up there would have been millions of Italians angry at me. And that’s probably not survivable.

  It’s Not Rocket Surgery

  Medical Training for a Spaceflight

  Several decades into my career as a fighter pilot and astronaut, I finally had a chance to do something I had always wanted to do. In the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed and peace broke out, the Air Force offered a very generous “early out” program, where members could simply leave the service even if they had years left on their commitment. Because there was no evil empire to fight anymore, we didn’t need as many people. Several of my Air Force Academy classmates and F-16 buddies took their offer. One went to play professional baseball and made it as high as Triple-A in the minor leagues. Another pursued a career as an actor and was in a Bud Light Super Bowl commercial, which impressed us all. As for me, I went and talked to the squadron flight surgeon about going to medical school, though I decided to stay in the Air Force and continue flying. I guess it worked out in the end.

  When I was assigned to fly as a shuttle pilot on STS-130, one of my duties was to be the CMO (Crew Medical Officer). For me this was very cool. Many of my astronaut colleagues were not that excited about the idea of being CMO, and on STS-130 there were no doctors, only pilots and engineers, so I felt lucky to have this duty.

  NASA trains nondoctor astronauts for some of the skills of an EMT (emergency medical technician). We can do IVs, shots, and medical exams, perform CPR, etc. We are not given the full training that a nurse or professional EMT would get, but we are able to take care of the basics. Most important, if there were a medical emergency we would be able to communicate with the flight surgeon on duty in mission control, being his or her eyes, ears, and hands for the space-bound patient.

  All of my training as space shuttle CMO occurred at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, using medical dummies as well as human volunteers. Yes, they asked engineers to volunteer and let us astronauts practice giving them shots or starting IVs. I’ll never forget one volunteer who came in to get his blood drawn by me. I was wearing a white lab coat and had a stethoscope around my neck and looked like George Clooney in ER. I was handling everything quickly and professionally and must have seemed like I knew what I was doing. Just before I started the IV, he nervously asked, “You’re a doctor, right?” I replied, “No, in fact, I’ve never done this before.” He literally turned white and his mouth gaped open. I went ahead and plunged the needle in, finding the vein on the first try.

  I learned an important lesson that day. No matter the situation, act like you’ve been there before. Never let them see you sweat.

  My first shuttle CMO experience came and went quickly, without fanfare. A few years later I was once again assigned as CMO, for my long-duration mission, only this time I had a real treat. I got to spend a week at several hospitals in downtown Houston, doing FMT (Field Medical Training). I worked in an emergency room, an operating room, an ICU (intensive care unit), and even an eye clinic. And I loved every minute. I was so pumped about being a doctor that week that I actually went to Barnes & Noble and got a MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) book. More on that shortly.

  That week in the hospital was a highlight of my career. I had the honor of working with a human cadaver, ridding me of any medical inhibitions. In the emergency room I got to assist in some very serious situations, including bandaging severe burn victims, stitching up some gaping wounds, observing chest tube insertion (I had no idea how much water could squirt out of a human chest), holding a dear elderly lady’s hand as the orthopedic surgeon set her badly broken femur after a car crash, and performing ultrasound exams to quickly establish a new patient’s condition upon arrival. I felt like I’d seen most major ER situations except delivering a baby (and I wanted to do that but my trainer told me I wouldn’t be doing that in space so there was no need).

  The inpatient side of the hospital was equally fascinating. I helped with intubation, catheterization (not my favorite), and IV placement and did rounds with our instructor-physician. He was eager to teach, and I was eager to learn. Something that was both fascinating and sad were patients who had wounds that allowed us to see inside their bodies. I’ll never forget two in particular; one was a gunshot-wound victim and one had been riding a motorcycle, and both had significant internal areas of their bodies exposed. I learned a lot about what the inside of a body looks like thanks to that invaluable training, thanks to those poor patients. If I ever had to deal with an actual emergency, having had that experience would have made me infinitely more capable.

  “Dr.” Virts, Crew Medical Officer. My patient didn’t fare too well.

  I also came home from that experience and gave my kids four brief words of advice: 1) Don’t ride motorcycles. 2) Don’t drive like an idiot. 3) Don’t be around guns. 4) Don’t smoke. If you avoid those activities, your likelihood of ending up in the ICU or at the morgue prematurely are seriously reduced. My time in the ICU taught me what COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) is and the grim future that many smokers have to look forward to. I’m sure my teenagers didn’t believe me, because I’m dad and I don’t know anything, but if you heed this advice you will have a great chance of avoiding some awful experiences.

  These skills were useful in space, even without medical emergencies. As part of our normal activities I had to give shots, draw blood, take urine and saliva samples, etc. The most common medical tasks were performing various scans. I did a monthly set of ultrasound measurements on my brain, my heart, and even my eyeballs to determine how eyesight was affected by fluid shifting due to weightlessness. I would strap myself down to a large storage bag with a bungee cord to stabilize myself, set up a video camera for the medical team down on Earth to observe me, and operate the ultrasound device while searching for brain activity. I wish I were kidding, but I’m not—it was very difficult to ever find any brain activity behind my thick skull. Imaging the shape of my cornea and determining blood flow in my heart were much easier tasks. I took pride on being able to find the required targets quickly, without too much guidance from the medical team on Earth.

  One interesting difference between space and ground ultrasounds was the fluid used. Earthbound medical technicians use a Vaseline-like gel, allowing the ultrasonic signal to be transmitted from your body to the sensor. It always seemed like they kept that gel chilled in the fridge to generate screams from patients when it touched them. In space we have endless containers of that same gel. A few years ago Don Pettit, a colleague of mine and probably the smartest astronaut in an office full of smart people, discovered that water works very well for ultrasounds; it transmits the signal without the mess (or screams) from gel. So that’s what I used for my scans—a blob of floating water to help the sensor contact my eyeball or brain or heart.

  Another important scan that our whole crew did was the OCT (optical coherence tomography). It’s a machine that uses light waves to look into the back of your eye to image your retina. And because some astronaut
s have had problems with eyesight, we spent a lot of attention trying to determine how our eyeballs were being affected by weightlessness. It was much more of an art than a science trying to use this machine. And it was also a two-person job. The scan-ee would stabilize themselves and press their face up to this machine, placing their eyeball at just the right angle to the sensor. It took a long time to go through the series of scans for each eye—maybe an hour. I actually developed a reputation for falling asleep while getting scanned, and then the machine couldn’t see into my eye because it was closed! I recommended they send up some energy drinks for this experiment.

  One final eye scan was the fundoscope. This device looks like a blaster from Star Wars. You press the pointy end against your eye, and it takes visual and infrared images of the back of the eye (retina). As with the ultrasound, I took pride in being able to get this scan done quickly. Julia Wells was the technician on the ground who would talk me through these scans. She also happened to be responsible for all of my medical training, including FMT. It became a competition to see how quickly I could get an image taken. Hopefully faster than my crewmates could.

  Another skill that I trained for was basic dental work. Like medical training, I really enjoyed dental training, which took place at the University of Texas School of Dentistry in Houston. We learned only the basics: how to remove a tooth, replace a filling, etc. No root canals or braces while in space. Later, believe it or not, one of my crewmate’s fillings fell out, and I had the opportunity to do the first-ever filling in space! This happened on a weekend, and before I performed the procedure, I called my family dentist on Earth to review the details of this task because I couldn’t get hold of the NASA dentists. Performing a tooth filling was definitely something I had not expected to do, but it was fun.