by Terry Virts
Flying in space is not for the faint of heart. Or OCD control freak.
The Ride Uphill
Staying Cool When You’re Blasting Off
The roar was so intense. I thought I had experienced a lot as a test pilot and jet fighter pilot, having flown more than forty different types of aircraft. But that roar was incredible. I was acutely aware that a significant emotional event was about to occur in my life. I was Endeavour’s pilot, it was 0414 on the morning of February 8, 2010, and the three main engines had just roared to life, undergoing a quick six-second check by the onboard computers to make sure everything was working, because at T-0, when the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) lit off, there was no stopping them. We were going into space—or we would die trying.
Then night turned to day. At T-0, when the SRBs lit, 10,000 pounds per second of high-explosive fuel shot out of each nozzle, on top of the 1,000 pounds per second racing through each of the three main engines. The roar, vibration, acceleration, and sheer violence of that moment shocked me, as our four-million-pound vehicle leapt off the launch pad in an instant. The light from the rockets’ fire reflected off a thin layer of clouds hovering 5,000 feet above, casting a blinding bright light for many miles. Take a minute to Google “STS-130 launch,” and you’ll find home movies that people posted of our launch. You’ll hear people getting excited by the countdown, but they really start screaming and cheering at launch, when those clouds lit up. Their reactions are amazing, genuine, unbridled exuberance, awe, and “We did this!” To witness a space shuttle launch was to see firsthand the best that humanity could accomplish.
While those tens of thousands of people were enjoying our launch, nothing could have been further from my mind. I had a shuttle to fly and I had to keep my head in the game. Endeavour quickly rolled to aim toward the orbital plane of the space station. The main engines throttled down for about thirty seconds, then throttled back up, a ballet of rocket science and trajectory guidance designed to keep the fragile space shuttle from being squashed by the onrushing air pressure in the thickest part of the atmosphere. “Roll program, Houston” and “Endeavour, go at throttle up” were the radio calls between mission control and our commander, George Zamka (Zambo). Though I had heard those calls a million times in training, being smashed against my seat by the mounting g-force, overwhelmed by the roar of 23,000 pounds per second of exploding fuel, and seeing the night turn to day all made this actual launch an experience infinitely more intense than the simulator back in Houston.
One thing quickly caught my attention—that thin deck of clouds was now glowing yellow, reflecting the flames of our engines, rapidly approaching us, getting bigger and bigger, moving fast, to the point that I could see details in the wispy clouds as Endeavour shot upward at 500 mph. I winced as we punched through this bright wall in the sky, and in an instant the sky became black. Another thin deck of clouds appeared, this one up at 35,000 feet, and I had the same reaction—fascination, followed by wincing as we flew through it seconds later. Finally above all clouds, we were enveloped in blackness, rocketing away from Earth, gaining speed at a dizzying rate, climbing into an orbit that would eventually rendezvous with the International Space Station. This first minute and a half of flight was so spectacular and so far beyond anything I’d ever experienced that it was a challenge to focus on my piloting duties.
The g-forces had built up to two and a half times the force of Earth’s gravity. Imagine lying on the floor, and then having a couple of your best friends lie flat on top of you, smashing you. It’s not unbearable, but it’s definitely not normal. Then imagine that feeling lasting for eight and a half minutes. During that time, our acceleration profile built up to two and a half g’s, then tailed off to one g when the SRBs were jettisoned, then slowly built back up to three g’s as we burned fuel, becoming lighter and lighter. With g-forces crushing my chest, I had to remember how to breathe. It doesn’t happen automatically—you have to actively push your chest out to allow your lungs to inflate. It was a very different sensation than the nine g’s I had experienced as an F-16 pilot, which had been in the head-to-toe direction. In a rocket the g-forces kept on going and going and going, whereas at least in a fighter jet they would usually stop after thirty seconds or less.
When the engines shut down, we were suddenly surrounded by a cloud of ice particles that had floated up from the shuttle’s engines—hundreds of pounds of frozen oxygen and hydrogen, all sparkling and shimmering in the sunlight that was just peeking above the horizon over Europe.
Passing the seventy-five-second point, I briefly thought about our two space shuttle accidents. It was roughly at that point that both the Challenger and Columbia accidents occurred. That brief moment is called Max-Q, or maximum dynamic pressure, when the vehicle is flying fast but still at low altitude. The combination of high speed and thick air causes a tremendous amount of pressure on the front of the rocket. Our airspeed was about 500 knots, and it sounded like a freight train driving past our front windows. I was shocked at how loud that roar was as the crushing force of extreme wind pushed against us. It was at this point that the Challenger’s SRB had vented hot gas into the fuel tank, causing an explosion. It was also at this point that a piece of foam had popped off Columbia’s fuel tank into the 500-knot windstream, shooting back into her wing, creating a large hole that would prove fatal two weeks later, during re-entry. I was acutely aware that this was a very dangerous moment, and there was absolutely nothing that I could do about it.
Beyond the acceleration, there was terrible vibration. It felt as if someone had grabbed me by the collar and was shaking me. I had heard that solid rocket fuel produces a lot of vibration, and they were right. Noise. Fire. Light. Acceleration. Vibration. The first two minutes of a space shuttle mission.
After the solid rocket motors had expended their two million pounds of fuel, the g-forces began to trail off, dropping down to one g, and the vibration and noise subsided. I had been watching the clock and gave the crew a polite heads-up—“Stand by for a little bang,” just before the spent SRBs were to be jettisoned. That was the understatement of the century. I had a front-row seat at the window for this big event, and I looked up at the perfect time to see the three forward-facing RCS jets (NASA acronym for small rockets, or thrusters) fire for about half a second, forming a shield with their exhaust to protect our windows from the blast of the SRB jettison motors. Those motors were basically missile rocket engines that fired directly at the shuttle in order to quickly push the boosters away at separation. When they fired, there was such a loud roar and flash in the cockpit that my crewmate Steve (“Stevie-Ray”) Robinson immediately answered my “little bang” warning with a “or a big one!”
Once the solids were gone, the g level dropped to a comfortable Earth-like force, and the roar and vibration stopped. It became amazingly calm and smooth, like being on the ocean on a calm day. For a few moments. As we burned fuel from the external tank, Endeavour became lighter and lighter, turning our liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel into water exhaust at a rate of 3,000 pounds per second. The constant force from the three main engines pushing on a lighter and lighter vehicle meant that the acceleration built up from one to three g’s. In the minute before the engines shut down, we were adding 100 feet per second every second to our velocity!
During that ride into space, I stole a quick glance outside, saw the Moon in front of us, and called to my commander, “Hey Zambo, look out the left window!” It was a few seconds of wow and then immediately back to work. The shuttle had launched in a head-down attitude, and upon accelerating through Mach 13 (about 10,000 mph) she rolled head-up to point our radio antenna up toward a communication satellite. The computer chose which direction we rolled, left or right, and as we did this 180-degree roll, I lucked out as we rolled to the left, giving me a view of the entire East Coast of America, from Georgia to Boston. I wasn’t expecting it, but I immediately recognized I-95 and all the major cities. Wow! And then quickly back to work.
When th
e engines shut down, we were suddenly surrounded by a cloud of ice particles that had floated up from the shuttle’s engines—hundreds of pounds of frozen oxygen and hydrogen, all sparkling and shimmering in the sunlight that was just peeking above the horizon over Europe. Wow! A few minutes later we flew into that sunrise, and the entire curve of the Earth was covered by a bright, intense, thick blue light. I thought, “I’ve never seen that shade of blue before.” Wow! But I had to get back to work, preparing the orbiter for our next maneuver. The sun was finally up as we passed over the European Alps, still climbing, traveling five miles every second. The snow-covered peaks zoomed by as we crossed countless Swiss and Austrian valleys, and I thought, “When I used to live there it would take hours, and now it’s only taking seconds to cross those valleys!” Yet another wow!
If I had to summarize the launch experience in one word, it would be: Wow!
There were so many things to see outside the window, and I had the most intense urge to spend time looking at them, taking it all in, photographing everything. But I was the shuttle pilot, and I had a job to do. That situation was repeated constantly throughout my seven-plus months in space. There were such sublime views and experiences, and yet most of my time was spent on mundane tasks. I quickly had to learn how to avoid distraction. The key for me was to be aware of my surroundings, and if I was tempted to stare at something for too long, to pull away from it and deliberately focus on the tasks at hand. In the fighter-pilot world, we called this “task saturation,” and it was often deadly. Staring at the target or instrument or sensor for too long almost killed me on several occasions in jets. There was the same temptation in space, except seeing our planet from space is way more enticing than staring at a dial in an airplane cockpit. But the results could be equally deadly. As a pilot or astronaut, as in many other professions, you can’t let yourself get fixated on one task. That’s a recipe for disaster.
The ride into orbit is the most exciting, utterly intoxicating eight and a half minutes you can imagine. But the harsh reality is that you have to be disciplined when experiencing launch. Because target fixation is a bad thing, whether you’re flying an F-16 or a space shuttle.
Orbit
Gazing at our planet from my favorite place in space, the Cupola module.
Learning to Float
How to Cope with Zero G
I think Pink Floyd needs a follow-up song. “Learning to Fly” was great, but “Learning to Float” would really be a hit. A lot of people have learned to fly since Orville and Wilbur Wright first took to the skies. But learning to float, that’s an entirely different ball game. And that’s precisely what you must do when you ride a rocket into space and the engines shut down. Because from that moment until your spaceship returns to Earth, often half a year later, you are floating. And you don’t have a long time to learn—you need to figure it out ASAP. With no grace period. The main engines cut off and you are floating, weightless, and you better have a plan, or you will be flailing like a fish out of water.
“What does it feel like in space?” has a simple answer: It feels like you are falling. Because you are falling. You see, at the altitude of the space station’s orbit, Earth’s gravity is still very strong, roughly 90 percent of what it is on the surface of the planet. The difference is that you are moving. Fast—17,500 mph (8 km/sec). Every second, you drop toward the center of the Earth about 15 feet (5 meters). However, during that second you move forward 5 miles (8 km). Then the next second you drop another 15 feet, but you also move forward another 5 miles. And so on and so on. That motion makes a curve, and if you are at precisely the right speed, that curve will match the shape of the Earth. Et voilà—you’re in orbit, staying roughly the same altitude above the Earth’s surface.
The sensation of falling is one that every human has genetically wired into our brain—we intuitively know that if we are falling, something very bad is about to happen. That is probably why we flail our arms, maybe trying to fly, maybe trying to grab on to something on the way down to the ground. But in space, flailing does you no good at all, trust me. So rookies need to deliberately think through the experience of weightlessness before they get to space. Consciously don’t flail. Consciously don’t kick your feet. Consciously move slowly and deliberately. These very basic skills are important because you can hurt yourself and your crewmates if you don’t abide by them, and many rookies have done just that. If you look at video footage of first-time flyers, or space tourists, you’ll see scratches and cuts, especially on their first few days in space. There are even stories of folks getting punched or kicked by accident as a new guy moved around carelessly in the unfamiliar environment of space.
One of the most shocking things about being in space was the speed and randomness with which stuff floats away.
The first skill to master is to move slowly. If you move too quickly, you’re going to bang your head into something or end up floating to the wrong destination. What’s worse, you’ll spin yourself around on the way. So you push off slowly and deliberately, aiming directly toward your destination. On Earth your brain knows to compensate for gravity, so when you throw a ball to someone you aim high. The same mental compensation happens in space, except the ball doesn’t drop, so for my first few weeks in space I was constantly throwing tools to my crewmates above their head. It takes time and deliberate thinking to float in a straight line directly to the target, not high.
The next problem is rotation. If getting yourself or some object to the correct destination in space isn’t hard enough, try to do it without spinning it around. There were several very humorous instances on my first flight when I pushed off to fly across the module, and I aimed myself very well, hitting the destination. Except I began to spin immediately after pushing off, floating helplessly between two walls, my body slowly rotating like a chicken on a rotisserie spit, hitting the destination back-first. I always tried to look cool ’cause I’m a fighter pilot, with a “Yeah, I meant to do that” look. Only I didn’t mean to do that. The physics that my brain had learned on Earth, in terms of how things fall or bounce off each other, had now transitioned to pure Newtonian physics, F = m × a (force = mass × acceleration), with no friction or gravity. It’s a different, even alien environment, but boy is it fun once you learn how to float.
Handling your body is only half the problem; you also have to learn how to handle things, and that is an entirely unique skill of its own. One of the most shocking things about being in space was the speed and randomness with which stuff floats away. If you have a checklist, or pencil, or batteries, or whatever, and you leave them unsecured, you will lose them faster than a tourist in Rome can lose a wallet from his back pocket. Intellectually, I knew that there wasn’t someone sneaking around making those things disappear, but at times it felt like an invisible force was causing them to fly off.
The most entertaining phase of this learning curve was the first few days in space. Nothing is better than watching a rookie (myself included) getting dressed in the morning. I would bounce off the walls while holding my shorts—which were stuck around my feet, with my shirt floating away, etc. Eventually, I figured out how to properly restrain myself and manage clothes, usually by wedging my feet under a handrail and my clothes under a bungee, pulling them out piece by piece as needed. That deliberate process of keeping things restrained until they were needed worked well for just about any task.
There are several methods to restrain items in space: pockets, Velcro, tethers, Ziploc bags, bungee cords, straps, storage bags, and containers. Those are all seemingly innocuous or even extraneous things down here on Earth, but they enable work to happen in space. Without them, the ISS would be filled with a giant cloud of mess and you could never get anything done. Imagine what would happen if your teenager’s room suddenly lost gravity and everything in it began to float. That’s what a spaceship would be like without some handy Velcro and Ziploc bags.
There is one very cool exception to this rule—you can float something in fro
nt of you, steadying it before releasing it, and it will stay put for a short time. This came in handy when doing maintenance. I would float a wrench or screwdriver while I quickly used both hands to finish another task, then grab it as it floated next to my head. Once you got really good at this, you could float something in the middle of a module as your crewmate was on his way, and he could grab it out of midair on his way to his destination. Kind of like Amazon Prime delivery in space—very fast and convenient. You just had to keep an eye on stuff you were floating and not forget and leave the area, because then it would be gone.
One of my more famous lost-item episodes involved a small camera. NASA sent up three Ghost-brand cameras, small video/still cameras similar to a GoPro. Being a camera guy, I opened them up as soon as they arrived on the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship and commandeered one for myself, keeping it in my crew quarters so I could easily grab it and shoot without having to hunt for it. One of my crewmates also took one, and we put the third in storage. Literally the next day I heard from them—“Terry, I lost the Ghost.” Ugh. I figured it would turn up at some unexpected time, as things normally do, almost always making their way to one of the many filters that were constantly sucking air.
Well, days turned to weeks turned to months. No Ghost. I was bummed, and felt responsible, because I was the camera guy and I had decided to just keep the cameras in our personal sleep stations instead of in their designated storage locker. It was getting near the end of our mission, so I decided to call Houston and fess up: I told them that a Ghost was MIA. They weren’t too mad; there wasn’t much to do since it wasn’t a critical piece of equipment and we had two others. But losing something really, really bugged me and my OCD. Literally the very next day I was in Node 2, where our crew quarters were located, arranging some equipment underneath a little-used shelf, and voilà—a Ghost camera was innocently floating there, stuck to an obscure piece of Velcro on the wall, where it had hidden for more than three months.