by Terry Virts
As we descended, Endeavour’s indicated airspeed (essentially air pressure) steadily increased while her altitude and Mach number decreased (Mach 1 is the speed of sound, Mach 5 is five times the speed of sound, etc.). Because we were still supersonic until a few minutes before landing, people in Florida below us heard a very distinctive, double sonic boom from the shock wave the shuttle created as it smashed into air molecules faster than they were able to get out of the way. Once we began our final turn to line up with the runway, Zambo (George Zamka, our commander) let me fly Endeavour for a few minutes. As a test pilot, this was one of the highlights of my career.
The flying qualities of our rocket-turned-spaceship-turned-airplane were not great. It had what is called a harmony problem. It was very sluggish in roll, but very sensitive in pitch. It also had a quirky feature common to any delta wing airplane—if you pull back on the stick to climb, it first drops a bit in altitude, and then as the wing catches more air it finally climbs. This isn’t a big deal up at high altitudes, but in the final few feet before touchdown on the runway it was a serious trap that shuttle pilots trained extensively to avoid, because a sudden command to pitch up would lead to an abrupt touchdown. My job during those few minutes of stick time was to keep us centered and on the path that computer guidance was commanding. After those brief minutes of fame, Zambo took back control of Endeavour for final approach and landing.
My next job as PLT (pilot) was to be a cheerleader—calling out altitudes and airspeeds as we performed what amounted to a 20-degree dive-bombing flight path on the outer glideslope to the runway. When we were 2,000 feet above touchdown, Zambo slowly pulled up to aim down the runway on a 1.5-degree inner glideslope. At 300 feet I put down the landing gear, my most important task of the whole mission. Zambo greased the landing, it was perfect, and I occasionally remind him that it was the best shuttle landing I had ever experienced. Of course, it was also the only one. There was still quite a bit of piloting to do, though, as he flew the nose gear precisely down to the runway at the proper speed; getting that maneuver wrong could have led to a violent slap-down that would have cracked the fuselage. He kept our 220,000-pound vehicle on the centerline as it hurtled down the runway at nearly 200 mph, and I deployed the drag chute to slow us down. All the while a continuous stream of fire spewed from the back of the orbiter, where our rocket-fuel-powered hydraulic pumps vented their exhaust. Videos of the STS-130 landing looked like a scene from a Mad Max movie. As we slowed to less than 50 mph I jettisoned the chute, and shortly after that Zambo made the radio call, “Houston, Endeavour, wheels stop.” We could finally breathe again.
I liken the experience of landing in a space shuttle to a nice, smooth Air Force landing. But let’s go back to EI (400,000 feet above Earth’s surface) and switch our narrative over to the Soyuz, because there are other adjectives to describe that experience. If coming back to Earth in the shuttle is like riding an airliner, being in the Soyuz is like riding a bowling ball.
The first noticeable difference was shortly after EI as we reentered the atmosphere. This time it occurred in daylight. Capsules like the Soyuz, Apollo, SpaceX Dragon, and Boeing CST-100 all use bank angle just like an airplane does to turn, though much less effectively. While the shuttle had a cross-range of more than 1,000 miles, a capsule returning from orbit can typically turn only 50 miles to the left or right. As we were zooming over Africa, we banked to the right, and when I looked out the hatch at the ground below, we were moving fast! You don’t notice your speed up in orbit, 250 miles above the planet, but by this time we were only about 50 miles above the deserts and mountains, and still zooming by at several miles per second. It was so impressive that I scribbled a few unintelligible notes to myself on my kneeboard, trying to draw my fleeting view while scrunched up in that tiny capsule and bulky spacesuit.
The actual EI phase was also quite a bit different. Although I saw the same red/orange/pink glow out my window, the Soyuz was much more violent. First of all, the Soyuz separated into three parts with a giant bang minutes before EI: an empty orbital module, the descent module where we were, and an unmanned service module. After hitting the atmosphere, the external Soyuz heat blanket burned off, per design. There were constant banging and ripping noises as I watched pieces of the blanket (and who knows what else) fly by my window. Then came the parachute. We had had a briefing by crewmates who had done this before, and they basically said, “You’re going to think you’re going to die, but don’t worry, you won’t.” And you know what? It felt like we were going to die. But, thanks to the briefing, Samantha, Anton, and I had a blast when the drogue chute came out. We were hooting and hollering and yelling in Russian, “Rooskiy gorkiy!” Which means “crazy roller coaster!” In the F-16 community, we would have called this phase of flight “Mr. Toad’s wild ride.” The tumbling lasted a few minutes until the main parachute finally deployed and we were stable and calm, back at one g.
I had in my right hand a control stick that doesn’t control anything, but gives the crew some primal comfort from the idea that they have some semblance of control, and a checklist in my lap.
Next came the waiting, as we slowly descended the remaining few thousand feet to the Kazakh Steppe. Just when things seemed to be smoothing out, the seat stroked, violently raising itself about a foot up from the bottom of the spacecraft. This stroking allowed a shock-absorber device to cushion the impact a bit. Each crewmember has his own couch, form-fitted to his body; mine had been cast about two years prior, at the Energia factory near Moscow. During that procedure, you put on white long underwear to cover all of your skin and get lowered by a crane down into wet plaster. When it finally sets they pull you out, and voilà, you have a seat liner that is molded for your body. As the Russian technicians finish this seat, they manually carve out extra room above the top of your helmet area, and I used every bit of it. On Earth I fit without a problem, but after 200 days in space I had grown a few inches and the top of my head was butted up against the top of the seat liner.
Before stroking, I didn’t have much room in the cockpit. We were all in our bulky and uncomfortable spacesuits, wedged into a volume that was roughly the volume of the front seat of your car, with small pieces of equipment wedged into every inch of free space. After stroking, I was moved up so that there was probably a foot between the control panel and my face. My right arm was smashed against the capsule wall. My knees were in my chest—no stretching your legs, there’s a capsule wall in your way. I was strapped down very tightly so I couldn’t move. I had in my right hand a control stick that doesn’t control anything, but gives the crew some primal comfort from the idea that they have some semblance of control, and a checklist in my lap. I thought to myself, “OK, I’m not claustrophobic, but if there was ever a reason in my life to panic it would be now.” I figured I had two choices: a) panic, in which case I’d be strapped in, unable to move, with absolutely nothing to do about it, or b) not panic, in which case I’d be strapped in, unable to move, with absolutely nothing to do about it. I chose option b.
A few seconds before impact in Kazakhstan—me, Anton, and Samantha strapped into our Soyuz TMA-15M.
The last few minutes before touchdown were spent quietly waiting. Hands on my checklist, which was on my chest. Controlled breathing. Making sure my tongue wasn’t sticking out between my teeth because I didn’t want it shortened upon impact. Watching but not trusting the altimeter because it can have errors of several hundred meters. There was nothing more for our commander Anton to do; we were floating helplessly under the parachute, waiting for touchdown. The Russian Air Force was there waiting for us in their Mi-8 Hip helicopters; they got a visual very early, calling out our altitude over the radio.
Then everything happened at once. A loud tone, explosion, violent crash, seemingly bouncing out of my seat, being thrown sideways. The Soyuz has “soft-landing” rockets on the bottom of the capsule, designed to fire a split second before impact, but my suggestion is to rename them “less-of-a-crash-landing” r
ockets, because a crash is exactly what it felt like. I imagine driving into a telephone pole in your neighborhood would feel roughly like a Soyuz landing. But the combination of form-fitted seats, soft landing rockets, and shock absorbers in the seats made the landing entirely safe, with the exception of a few minor bruises. Shortly after we landed and rolled 360 degrees, back to an upright position, someone on our crew said, “Are we alive?” The three of us put our hands together—we had survived and were back on our home planet!
Getting out of the space shuttle had some similarities to getting out of the Soyuz. As Endeavour’s pilot, I had a lot of tasks to accomplish postlanding: doing a detailed checkout of the flight control and hydraulic systems, powering down the thrusters, etc. Which meant I was the last person to get out of the shuttle. That became a trend; five years later I was also the last out of our Soyuz, and even now when I’m in a crowded car or airplane I tend to be the last one out.
Launching into space, accelerating from 0 to 17,500 mph, riding a rocket trailing flames, shaking and roaring and smashing you into your seat for the eight-and-a-half-minute ride to orbit is a kick-ass experience unlike anything you’ll find on Earth. But the ride back to Earth, slowly decelerating from 17,500 to 0 mph, is even more amazing. Many countries have launched rockets, but only a handful have successfully brought people back home from space, and there’s a reason for that. Re-entry is hard. It’s an incredible experience, but a dangerous one. And if you ever get a chance to do it, you’ll feel like you’re going to die, but trust me, you’ll be OK. . . .
Adapting to Earth
You Try Walking After Six Months in Zero G
Although getting into space—accelerating from 0 to 17,500 mph—is an incredibly difficult task, coming home from space—decelerating from 17,500 to 0 mph—is even more difficult. The technical intricacies of thermal protection, attitude control, and guidance and navigation make it very difficult to come back to Earth. I knew this before I ever flew, at least from a technical point of view. But I was also concerned from physiological and spiritual points of view. How would my body readapt to gravity? Would I miss space? Would I feel out of place in mundane daily life after the sublime experience of space? Would I drop things absentmindedly because they don’t float anymore?
My first spaceflight was a two-week experience. But it was long enough to affect the whole crew with a sensation of both dizziness and feeling heavy. Adjusting to gravity began while we were still in the middle of re-entry. Decelerating through Mach 20 (twenty times the speed of sound, or about four miles per second), there was a fair amount of acceleration and force on the shuttle from the atmosphere smashing into Endeavour’s heat shield. We were finally experiencing weight again, and with that our brains’ vestibular systems were asking, “What the heck is going on here!?” They were probably much less polite, because it was extremely disorienting!
One of the lessons we had learned from astronauts who had gone before us was a technique to get our brains readapted to gravity quickly, so we would not be too dizzy for landing. During the re-entry phase, after the onset of the effects of gravity but about twenty minutes before landing, Zambo and I slowly rotated our heads up and down and left and right. Forcing our brains to deal with the “new” sensation of gravity, in multiple axes, by rotating up/down/left/right caused our brains to adapt as quickly as possible. As the two pilots on board, it was critical that we both be able to land the shuttle with minimum disorientation. I’m sure nodding and shaking our heads slowly looked strange, but we weren’t worried about looking cool; we only wanted to be ready for landing. It worked for me. I did not experience any problems with disorientation, and based on his perfect landing I don’t think Zambo did either. Some of our other crewmates had a problem with disorientation after landing, and I wonder if doing our technique would have helped them with that.
Another acute problem during re-entry was dehydration, caused by body fluids pooling in our legs—which could potentially lead to orthostatic intolerance, that light-headed feeling you get when you suddenly stand up. When you first get to space you have to pee a lot, reducing the total amount of fluids in your body. That isn’t a problem in weightlessness, but it is down here in the land of gravity. To combat that, we had a very elaborate system of fluid-loading. One of the mission specialists helped us by managing a series of drinks that we had to take every fifteen minutes, beginning an hour and a half before landing. We could choose from water with salt tablets, Powerade, chicken broth, or any kind of salty water. It wasn’t tasty, but it was important.
My fluid-loading program had a slight hitch—my buddy was telling us, “OK guys, time to take your next drink bag” at fifteen-minute intervals, but when everyone else was done he still had me drinking more. I finally got to the point that I was about to pop—and keep in mind, we were in our pumpkin suits, strapped in for re-entry, with only a diaper to use. I cried uncle, went about our normal descent profile, and landed. When I was back on Earth I felt very good, no light-headedness or sick feelings. And then I learned that my comrade had accidentally given me the wrong fluid-loading prescription, basically double what I needed. I say “accidentally” because he may or may not have been getting me back for a certain prank I played on him on the launch pad, but it was OK with me because I felt so well once I got back to Earth—after finding a bathroom. So my advice to you the next time you need to return to our planet from space—do lots of fluid-loading.
After landing the shuttle, Zambo and I had a lot of procedures to perform as commander and pilot. Communication with mission control, safing the hydrazine-powered hydraulic pumps and rocket propellant systems, getting the computers and electrical systems in a good configuration, etc. While we were busy shutting down Endeavour, our crewmates were getting out of the vehicle, one by one. When it finally came my turn, I grabbed my helmet and tried to hand it to the ground crew, telling him, “Be careful, this thing weighs five hundred pounds!” This was a perfect description of the next few hours and days for me—everything felt heavy! When I finally got back to my room late that night, it felt like my blanket was made of lead, and I was a superhero who was pinned against the bed by a villain with a giant magnetic force field. A day later, when I was finally home, I took my son out in the driveway and we played some basketball. Except whenever I took a shot I couldn’t even get the ball up to the rim, much less in the hoop. I swear someone filled our basketball with lead during my two weeks off Earth—maybe that same mission specialist who was helping me with fluid-loading. I wanted to tell President Obama this story because he is a basketball fan like myself, but it slipped my mind when I had a chance to meet him a few weeks later.
Feeling heavy wasn’t the only issue; there was also dizziness. About an hour after landing, we were out of our orange spacesuits and into our more comfortable blue flight suits, and after a medical checkup we were on the runway underneath Endeavour performing a walk-around, a basic postflight inspection that every pilot does after landing. Wow, was I dizzy. I was able to do the whole walk-around, but I wanted someone next to me, just in case I tumbled over. Luckily I didn’t, but it was a fairly unpleasant experience. I also noticed that although a few of us felt sick when going into space (I was among them), different people felt badly upon return to Earth (not me, thanks to fluid-loading). My flight surgeon always told me that you couldn’t predict who would get sick going uphill and who would get sick coming back to Earth; it was a bit of a random proposition. And based on my limited experience I can confirm he was right.
I don’t know why this is such a common question, but it is—“Did you drop anything after you got back to Earth?” The answer for me was a resounding yes. The morning after my shuttle landing, I was at a local hotel in Cocoa Beach with my family. I was holding a water bottle, and when I went to give it to someone, I floated it to them in a straight line, except, gravity. It fell straight to the ground. It was an instinct; my brain had gotten used to floating things in a straight line. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work he
re on Earth. . . .
Things were similar after my 200-day mission, but the heavy feeling was less intense and the dizziness was more intense. That first day was painful. It was like I had had a bottle or two of wine. I was able to walk and move around, but I hated it. NASA invented a torturous test in which we were required to lie on our stomachs and stand up as quickly as possible to test for orthostatic intolerance. They also made me close my eyes and walk, one foot in front of the other, toes touching heels, in a straight line. It’s hard enough to do that right now, but try doing it after nearly seven months in space! I made it through all of that torture and could walk around on my own, but I really wanted either a person or handrail next to me that first day.
Actually, what I really wanted was a bed. Our Soyuz capsule had thumped down on the Kazakh Steppe and rolled over 360 degrees, coming to rest upright. It’s much better when it comes to a rest on its side, as it usually does, because then the big burly Russian ground crew can crawl into the Soyuz and drag you out and plop you down into a La-Z-Boy, set up right there in the desert. However, in the rare case when the Soyuz comes to rest upright (like ours), we have to crawl out the top hatch on our own. Then the big Russian guy grabbed us and put us in the lounge chair. You rest for about thirty minutes, call home on the satphone, and then go to do medical testing. That was one of the most humiliating things about my whole flight. We were in the middle of nowhere, so there was no bathroom. I got out of my spacesuit, pulled my long underwear down, and peed into a bottle while my two flight surgeons held me steady by each arm. That was a first for me, being held upright by two medical doctors while I peed. They then gave me a preemptive IV to get some fluids in my body in order to stay ahead of dehydration, just as fluid-loading does. Next was a helicopter ride to the airport in an old Soviet Mi-8 Hip as the sun was setting—it was beautiful!