Preflight
Interview: Sergei Krikalev
The
International Space Station Expedition 1 Crew Interviews with
Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev.
Before
we talk about your mission, I'd like to talk a little bit about
you. Tell us why it is you wanted to be a cosmonaut - what steps
were there along the way that led you on the career path to where
you are now?
It is difficult
to say right now what exactly was motivation and event what happened
to make me think to be a cosmonaut because it was long time ago
and I already, for a long time, on this path so…I couldn't
recall any single event which make me think that I'm going to
be a cosmonaut.
As
a little boy, did you want to be a pilot?
I remember
I wanted to be driver, I wanted to be pilot, and cosmonaut, and…many
different things but probably being pilot and cosmonaut was major
thing I wanted. So when I grew up, I realized that it's achievable
so I was trying. Although probability to become a cosmonaut these
days was very low, it was just several people who travel to space
at that time, so I knew that probability to become a cosmonaut
is very low so my choice of a profession was to do something what
I would like, not to, and it was not relied only on being cosmonaut.
You
went to university to become an engineer, correct?
An engineer,
but in the space industry.
So
you did that with an eye toward working in the space industry?
Uh-huh.
But…
So then I
knew that even if I wouldn't be selected as a cosmonaut because
there are very many different requirements to become a cosmonaut
and especially health check is very strict in Russia and especially
because whole program was turned on long- duration flights, so
selection, medical selection for long-duration flight was very
strict and I know that approximately one from thousand applicants
went through medical check. This was kind of average number. So
that's why I decide to be an engineer and work in industry, in
space industry, and be close to space flight anyway.
You
must have been very pleased once you completed your education
and were able to get a job with Energia.
Yes, when
I graduate institute I had chance to select where I'm going to
work and I asked to assign me to work at Energia. Although it
need moving from my hometown, leave my friends and parents back
in St. Petersburg and travel to place where I have no relatives,
no friends, no one I know. So, still I decide to do it because
it was new adventure and…in 1980, I came to Korolev City,
now to start to work at Energia.
Were
there people in your hometown or certain people in Korolev that
you can look back at now and say that they were very important
in helping you achieve what you've achieved?
Again, there
is no single person who helped me to achieve what happened, but
very many people did and most of them, very many at least of them,
did it indirectly. I think a lot of, how do you say… I can
start from parents. Although parents were not pleased that I will
go and leave my hometown and start to work at Energia, still they
didn't…they wasn't in my way to do that. So they support
me in many cases, they support me when I got education in high
school and university, and, again, I can say that very many of
my friends also support me one way or another, sometime through
different conversations, sometime through just, I don't know…help
to exercise me in the physical training. So I would say very many
people, one way or another, involved in my decision, in my ability
to went through all this selection process later. But I couldn't
name one person. I could maybe mention that from my hometown,
Georgy Grechko, he was an astronaut, cosmonaut and he flew to
space first time in end of '74, begin of '75, and, he probably
didn't even knew that but he was also one of the person who influenced
me to make this decision. And when I decided where I have to go
to learn more about rockets, about space, and I was thinking to
go to different places to get this kind of education, and then
I realized that person from my hometown who actually got education
in St. Petersburg just flew to space so he was also kind of example
which I followed.
In
the course of your career you've also had the opportunity to spend
a lot of time outside of Russia, outside of the Soviet Union,
Houston and the United States being just one of those places.
Has that been something that you've enjoyed, spending a lot [of]
time in different parts of the world?
It's complicated
question because I like to travel and probably one of many reasons
for me to become a cosmonaut is to have some kind of profession
I can visit difference places, work with different people, and
see different cultures. So in general I enjoy traveling although
when traveling become very frequent and very long, I know that's
difficult for me and difficult for my family and for my friends
because I didn't see some of my friends more than a year because
I am traveling one place then another, then short stay in Moscow,
then traveling again. So, I enjoy it, but it's difficult, that's
what I would say.
You
are at this point some number of months away from being part of
the crew that launches to the first space station being put in
orbit by a partnership of nations from around the world. Can you
give us a sense of what you think it means, symbolically, to finally
reach that point where you put a crew on that station?
Symbolically…
I remember my feeling when I was in space for the first time more
than ten years ago, and when we had some kind of calm period of
flight when you have chance to maybe think little more, look outside
little more, and I remember my feeling that we just few people
outside of the Earth, basically, and I recall that this feeling
was very similar to feeling I had when I leave my home, hometown
for the first time when I was small kid and when you used to living
in certain place in this city, and when you leave the city and
when you find someone from same place you feel kind of relationship,
closeness. So I realized that the further you travel, more you
feel kind of part of big group of people, and traveling outside
of Earth I remember this feeling being part of mankind. So we
not represent only our hometown or even our countries in space,
it's more like international adventure anyway. I believe it's
very similar feeling to what sailors feels when they out in the
sea and if they met other ship they probably feel some kind of
brotherhood; doesn't matter which flag is on the ship, and especially
if people have difficulties on it. It's tradition for many, many
years people come to help each other in the sea because the sea
is kind of hostile environment and people used to help each other
just to fight with nature. In space flight, it's very similar:
when we flew to space we knew that we are alone and when I knew
that space shuttle launched during our long-duration mission we
knew that… few more people in space in this time and we felt,
although we didn't have chance to see each other or maybe talk
to each other, but we felt some kind of brotherhood anyway. So,
bring our efforts together to build International Space Station
I would say, just next step. Not something new…it's next
step to joint exploration of the universe.
And
in the course of time that the nations have been preparing to
do this they've been learning how to work with each other as well,
especially a number of nations that had not worked together on
anything before. Can you tell us, from your point of view, how
you see the relationships, working and otherwise, between and
among the countries; how have they improved over the course of
time?
They [are]
changing. People have chance to know each other close, and, I
already witnessed that people who didn't know each other, they
start to work each other and they became very good friends. And
it's not only for cosmonauts and astronauts, it's also for engineers
who work on different project and they, again, have common task
to solve and they work together and they spend time together so
I know very many examples when people working together became
personal friends.
And
apparently that's happened with people from a variety of different
countries.
A variety
of different countries, that's true. Actually, I was lucky to
be in middle of international space program, actually from very
beginning of my career as cosmonaut because my first mission was
international mission, and I flew with French cosmonaut, astronaut,
Jean-Loup Chrétien, and the space flight, although it was
not very short, it was longer than shuttle flights. It was almost
a month part of our mission when we flew together but more important
we trained together for almost a year. We get knew each other
better, we learn some traditions, they learn something from us
and we learn something from them. And, we were enjoying actually
to know more and to…to be able to communicate. And for my
next mission actually, I didn't fly this mission; I was backup
for joint flight with Japanese, and it's again, different culture,
different traditions, and of course they were trying to…to
understand what is going on in our country, and it was interesting
for us to see how people changing here and learn something from
them. And in my third mission, for my second flight I flew with
British astronaut and then Austrian and Kazakh came in middle
of my flight and I had chance to work with German cosmonaut at
the end of the flight and actually we became very good friends,
again, because we trained together with, we spent time in space
together, and every day in space, I would say really more than
average day on Earth.
For
some time now, you and Yuri Gidzenko and Bill Shepherd have been
training to become the first crew to go to the International Space
Station, and to make that voyage from the launch pad in Baikonur
in a Soyuz capsule. It's a two-day trip that we've heard about
but without any detail: what happens for the three of you during
a two-day trip in a Soyuz capsule to the station; what do you
do during that time?
We actually
control this spacecraft we getting ready to come to the station.
Actually this two-day trip it's involve little more explanation,
why we are flying two days. Actually, we can fly faster because
we are in space after less than ten minutes, and then it depend
on ballistics how we do this approach. But from point of view
spending propellant, to be more accurate and precise we change
our one-day cycle to fly to the station to two-day plan because
it's allow us to be more efficient on fuel. And also, there are
some different opinions on advantages to fly a little longer to
the station because people get accustomed to space conditions
a little more and, because docking with the station is very critical
task, it is better to be more or less adjusted to space flight
environment. So basically now this two-day period of flight we,
after launch to the orbit, we change configuration of vehicle
from launch mode to on-orbit mode. We activate all systems to
live in this small spacecraft, and actually Soyuz, not capsule
itself but Soyuz spacecraft was built as a prototype of the station
long, long time ago, and that's why built from two parts. One
is relatively small-actually very small-for three people, to fly
up and down and it's very well protected. It's designed to sustain
high-G and very high temperatures for re-entry. And second part
is, like, model of the station, small habitation module which
built initially to see if people can live in space for long enough
period of time; it was prototype of the station. So we will spend
two days in this small station, as I said, activating all systems
and then control spacecraft to bring it on trajectory to the station.
It's very similar with what we used to do for Mir flights and
we have a lot of experience how to do it. All this flight planning
also attached to ground sites so some specific operations supposed
to be over Russian ground sites to be capable to send and receive
information to and from on board computer, and to see that most
critical parts would be done over…part of orbit where we
can have downlink telemetry. So, and we will change our orbit
several time, do some measurement how accurate we did this orbital
burn so approximately two days after launch we schedule to dock
to the station.
Could
you give us a brief word picture of how that's designed to happen?
In a normal course of activity, as a Soyuz comes to dock to the
International Space Station, what happens for you folks on board,
and for you, as the Flight Engineer, what are your responsibilities
during this activity?
In general,
it's kind of, general statement, what is the task assignment,
who is doing what. Flight Engineer is responsible for all systems
on board station, and we usually make jokes saying that they responsible
for all systems including crew, because it's one of the systems
which control spacecraft. But actually in flight going through
all activation process, going to work with computer and life support
systems on board the spacecraft, if something goes wrong it's
my responsibility to take care of it. Of course, all crew will
work on it, but it's kind of my final responsibility to tell what
to do and how. When…when we fly close to the station and
we actually wear kind of launch and entry, similar to launch and
entry suit for the shuttle, we have the similar suit in Soyuz,
and several hours before docking we wear the suit, sit in the
capsule, and docking is supposed to be in automated mode, so it's
my responsibility to work with computer to load all information.
I need to see that all process are going as it's scheduled, and
we usually work with a pilot together to bring Soyuz to the station.
And Mir experience show us that majority of docking made in automated
mode but if something happened it's my responsibility to recognize
that something goes wrong and pilot need to take control, so switch
from automated mode to manual mode. So then in case it happened,
and probability of it, of this is not very high but still we need
to be able to do this, and again it depend on situation, when
and what will malfunction. We may split and be in different modules
of the Soyuz for the docking, we may stay together in descent
launch and entry capsule. So we work together with pilot to bring
spacecraft to the station.
Assuming
it all goes fine, you're docked to the station after a two-day
ride "uphill," as they say, what would be the first
thing that you would have to do once you leave the Soyuz spacecraft
and go on board the International Space Station?
Open the
hatch first. So this is one of the first procedure we need to
do after docking, we need to see that Soyuz is sealed well to
the station, to be able to open tunnel between Soyuz and station.
Then open hatches and go inside and activate space station, because
we did part of activation on 2A flight 2A.1, and 2A.2; maybe 3A
will continue add some deliverable on the station. They may install
some equipment which need to be used on the station, but still
for us we need to activate communication system, we need to activate
life support, probably everything will start from light, we need
to switch lights on and for this purpose power, electrical power
system have to be activated. We need to install communication
link with the ground, so we need to activate comm and we may need
to do some assembly before we use…communication system. Actually
we do a lot of work now on ground to see what need to be done
first, what is priority of things to do because initial plan was
to have some boxes for communication system is stowed somewhere,
so we come to the station and station is silent. We are not able
to talk to ground, ground not able to talk to us, ground not able
to send messages. So only way to communicate would be to go to
Soyuz, activate Soyuz systems again and talk to ground through
Soyuz radio link. But then we found working together with engineers
that pre-installation of several boxes on the ground, and maybe
taking other boxes out to be on same weight balance will help
us to set communication faster in flight. So, it's one of many
things I just described. We need to activate, as I said, life
support systems, we need to get water available for us, and food,
and oxygen supply, CO2 scrubbers, so everything need to be done
and…we are working with flight planners very closely. And
they have big difficulties to fit everything we need to do in
first couple weeks because usually normal flight takes much more
time, and for us especially…when we come to the station where
no one lived before, we need to find everything. We need to install,
we need to set up our environment to work in the station. So,
it's going to be challenging tasks to continue assembly of the
station and all this activation.
You
will also have the distinction of being the first person to make
a return visit to the International Space Station, after having
been part of the first assembly crew when there were only two
modules present…when you get back, there will be, it will
be a larger station than the one that you left.
A larger
station that's what I said when I flew to the station, "We
need more modules," and it's going to be another module attached
to the station, Service Module, which actually provide all life
support and it's kind of core part of Russian segment of the station
and for early days of the station it's going to be basically core
of the station because it will have our computers which control
attitude. This module will have all life support systems and all
computer interfaces will be there, so…it's going to a little
bigger station, but it's going to be much cluttered with equipment
because shuttle flight 2A.1 already delivered a lot of equipment
on the station and it's just temporary stowed somewhere. And,
depend on when we fly we will see a different configuration of
the station and I see as a big challenge to be able to put everything
in order and keep everything in order because station is relatively
small, still relatively small, and although we have more modules
I don't expect to have more space in the station. And this is
another challenge for us to stay in small station and start all
this big adventure with from very small volume.
Is
there a good comparison to be made, do you think, between the
early International Space Station and the Mir space station that
you saw when you first arrived there, before it grew to its eventual
size?
It's very
similar and that's why we are saying that we already faced very
many problems which were similar for Mir station. It's actually
going to be very similar to station I flew for my first flight
when we had basically two modules and it was Core Module on, of
Mir, and another Kvant, Kvant-1 module so in our flight we are
going to have basically the same. Core module is very similar,
or Service Module, and FGB which is another module and which is
going to be filled with deliverables. So, Node for first period
of time is going to be not available for us; maybe we would be
able to open hatch and bring something out and put something in,
but most of the time module is going to be closed. So it's very
similar with what I experienced already more than ten years ago
on Mir, when station is relatively small, when you have a lot
of things to do, and you have to manage to do everything in very
small volume.
In
late 1998, when you joined Bob Cabana to go on board the International
Space Station for the first time, you had a look on your face
that seemed to me to say, "I am ecstatic about being here…I
really am happy about the fact that I get to do this." Will
you get that feeling again when you return? Will it be the same
excitement?
I hope so,
because it's every time you start to do something new it's very
exciting, and although it's going to be my second visit on the
station but it's going to be new from different point of view.
It's going to be new module, new computer systems, new actually
control systems for all station, and it's new approach because
when you just open hatch and go in and bring something in and
out, maybe do some installation or assembly tasks it's one story.
When you come to place you are going to live for several month,
it's little different and it's kind of opening door to new house
you are going to stay in, so, I think, I hope I will have the
same feeling when I come to station for long stay.
A
few moments ago, you were talking about activation tasks - set
up of the new house when you first arrive. After a time since
you are staying for a number of months, one would imagine that
you would, of necessity, have to develop a routine, a more regular
kind of schedule, since it is the place that you live and work
every day and not just for a couple of weeks. Can you give us
a sense of what you imagine a daily schedule for the ISS Flight
Engineer would be like?
It's very
similar for all crew; I don't think we will have different schedule
for different crewmembers. It's not like on shuttle flight when
you have one shift doing one things, and when one shift is sleeping,
another shift is doing something. We probably will stay on same
schedule for all of us, and my experience of Mir flights also
says that pretty soon you have to develop kind of routine and
you wake up in the morning, do certain things in certain order,
and kind of general post-sleep activity when you prepare food,
when you check if everything went well through the night with
the station, the station systems, have some breakfast and usually
ground will plan and schedule activity for us to do…again
different task, assembly, check out of systems maybe do some experiments,
not very many of them planned I mean purely scientific experiments,
because sometime people try to differentiate…kind of assembly
task and scientific experiments but in our case I would say constructing
of all station, activate many systems for the first time, is very
big technical experiment. We are trying to build something we
never build before. We trying to use new control systems which
is under testing right now on the ground, but no one knows and
no one's sure how it's going to work in space. And although very
many systems have different stages of test, when you test boxes
of this system first and then assemble it to the system and check
how it's going to work as a system then we will go further. We
will use many systems at same time and see how all station as
unique technical device will behave. We know that it's going to
be some interference from one systems to another. We know that
one system will use output of another system, like electrical
power system will responsible to power up everything. We know
that computer systems rely on communication system and vice versa;
and we think we know how it's supposed to work, but this is part
of the test. We need to see the station is going to work, and
if it not doing something we think it's supposed to do, it's our
job to find this problem, to fix it, this problem if possible;
if not make some changes or maybe propose for the ground to make
some changes to the future to make the station flyable. It's very
similar, I would say, to test new airplane, when pilots sit in
airplane for the first time, and…airplane went through design
and testing process on the ground but still is big challenge for
the first time to lift an airplane, to see if it really flies,
if it's capable to be controlled, if all systems work as expected.
And actually what we are expecting as test cosmonauts, I would
say, test astronauts that not everything will work as we expecting
right now because very many things uncertain; system is very complex
so for sure we will see some interference between systems which
people couldn't even think about right now. So we need to be ready
for it. We know that some systems, as I said, wouldn't behave
the way expect but still we need to be able to handle all of this,
and to fix problem in flight, if necessary.
Would
you think that it's correct for us to think of Expedition 1 as
a shakedown cruise, as the crewmembers are, well, lab rats, the
ones who are there to find out how it works?
It's not
only Expedition 1; probably we will have biggest impact because
we activate majority of the system for the first time, but I would
say first several Expeditions will have very similar feeling because
Expedition 2 is going to activate robotic system on the station
which we are not going to work with because it's going to be delivered
later. And we going to work with a Lab, but then next modules
comes and other additions to the system will be made so first
several missions-actually until Assembly Complete, I would say-people
will face the same kind of problem. But again, our task is to
be ready for all this problems. We look at it like big experiment
and something can go right from very beginning, something need
to be, to have additional tune-up to be sure that system is working
as expected. Something maybe need to be changed, maybe we need
to change some modes of different systems, to be sure that output
of the system is actually what we expect from this. So, probably
in future reports you may show some problems on the station, but
it's not what we, what is going to be big surprise for us. This
is common, I believe, for many space flights: when you fly to
space you going to face something unknown. And I believe first
several missions on the station are going to face more unknown
than others. And this is interesting, this is a big challenge,
and that's why it's interesting to be in first several crews.
From
the look on your face, I imagine you think that it's going to
be fun.
It's going
be fun and difficult, and…we'll see.
If
I can return for a moment to the question of working out or developing
a regular schedule, you said that you think that it will probably
become similar to what developed for the template of a day-to-day
life on board the Mir. Does that mean that you get weekends off?
There are holidays? Does that mean that you work according to
Houston time of day or what, what's that like?
We will have
more or less normal schedule. Humans are humans, and although
we are living in space we need some time to sleep, some time to
eat. We need to do some physical exercise and actually we need
to be more…more scheduled for this exercise. Here on ground,
I can not do exercise for several days, many days, but my daily
activity is allowing me to do some exercise-I walk from one building
to another, I climb ladders, I just go from one place to another.
And all this allow me to exercise my muscles, to be in shape good
enough to continue my job. In space flight when you weightless
very soon you can lose your shape and we need to stay in, maybe
not in perfect shape because again to spend a lot of time for
physical exercise would be wrong because we are flying to space
not to do exercise, and if we are concerned about health status
too much, safest thing is to stay on ground. So we know that we
will have some impact on our health, but still we need to do exercise
every day to be able to save ourself in case of serious malfunction,
if we need to return back on Earth in emergency, and we may return
not on scheduled landing site-we may land somewhere on Earth…in
ocean, in Africa, in South America, Australia, so it depend on
seriousness of this situation. So, we must to be in shape to be
able to save ourself and to save a mission in general. That's
why we will have about two hours of physical exercise every day.
We'll have about eight hours of sleep scheduled, at least-I know
that, again, my experience on Mir says that we have eight hours
of sleep scheduled, usually we use six or less than six, and we
catch up with some daily activity or maybe do some photography
or some preparation for next day so we usually use this time-or
maybe even communicate with each other because on the station
sometime, being busy all day you are working alone or with one
partner, but you have chance to meet all of your crew close to
the end of the day, usually around the table, floating around
the table and during dinner time. We have about eight hours scheduled
for work period of time and some time scheduled for getting ready
for next daily activity, talk to ground, discuss changes in schedule
because every day will create some changes for future plans. Saying
about holidays, usually days on weekends and holidays are kind
of slower, but it's basically meant for us-on Mir at least and
I think here on new station it will be the same-we again, catching
up with previous week, to clean up everything we did on previous
week; if we put some equipment out and it stowed somewhere temporarily,
put everything in place, to put everything in order. It's a lot
of like housekeeping. We need actually to keep our station clean
because with daily activity and, in weightlessness, if you spill
couple droplets of tea, it could stick somewhere on the ceiling
and you need some time to clean it off and get station nice and
clean. So…and also it's probably difference in philosophy
of long-duration flight and short-duration flight when for short-duration
flights crew is working hard because this is very short and critical
part of the activity, and it's like running short distance, you
don't need to breathe when you run, I don't know, sixty yards,
hundred yards, but for long run, you have to be in kind of cycle.
And it's also concern not only us but people on ground: many people
will work on, in Mission Control for long hours and experience
on Mir showed us that it's efficient to have some kind of ways,
some days, middle of the week, weekdays are usually very intense
and busy; on holidays many people on ground-because as I said,
they will work for many years in this cycle-they need to have
holidays and we probably wouldn't have all specialists need for
us for specific activity on holidays and it's smart to give them
time to rest. So, usually holidays on Mir was housekeeping days;
probably the same is going to be on this new station.
Not
going to be a forty-hour workweek?
Actually,
saying about workweek we [are] living and working at same place,
so I would say we have twenty-fours of the day working day. It's
like we are sleeping in our office, but we still on our service;
it's like on a ship-although you may be off shift but you still
on your service…as soon as bell rings you have to be ready
in few seconds, actually, for the station, to get ready to respond
to situation you faced, and again it happened on Mir when something
wake you up, some system change mode and goes to unexpect mode,
so we even during sleep, we are on service… we still on our
duties. So I would say we have twenty-four hours per day workday.
You
have experience of long-duration flights on board the Mir. What
are the most important things, what was the most important thing
to you, to keep you happy and healthy, and working with a good
attitude while spending a long time away from home?
Again it's
probably flight schedule work load. My experience on Mir, actually
all my time on Mir, we were very busy, and busier you are in flight
it's kind of better you feel, because you know that you trained
for this flight for many months you come to the station to do
what you supposed to do, and if something goes wrong and ground
uncertain what to do, they need some time to reschedule, or maybe
to think about data they got, and we have kind of slow day…this
is not happiest day on orbit. Day when you have very busy schedule
and when you fulfill this schedule, this is kind of, happy kind
of day on the station. So, good communication with ground, understanding
what ground wants and what ground do, and for them to understand
what we are doing and why we do this things certain way, this
is important to stay in good shape and good attitude during flight.
So, and again, my experience not only from space flight but from
working in Mission Control sooner or later, although we are working
in remote mode, in many cases, we don't see faces of people on
ground, but we create basically personal relationship with people
who support us on ground, who work with us through our daily routines
although they are changing on ground, but it's basically means
that we have bigger family. And of course very important to have
opportunity to talk to your family, to your friends so this, all
this is a part of, kind of, well-being on the station.
I
understand that as we talk now, the exact flight plan of what
you will do during your time is not set. But, do you think you're
[going to] get to make some space walks?
We have at
least one space walk scheduled right now. It's not as much as
I would like to because although it's difficult activities, but
again it's probably something what let you go out of daily routine
and add some additional flavor to the flight. All this preparation,
going outside, work outside, it's, again, usually help you to
stay well on the station.
I
take it that you are scheduled to make the space walk
I am scheduled
to make space walk
What
is it that you're supposed to do on this EVA?
We need…actually
major task to do is to reconfigure station for docking with new
modules, so we need to rearrange docking cone on the station.
But because we open hatches and go outside anyway, we will need
to take off some samples from station surface. We need to install
new samples for future scientific experiments. We may need to
reconfigure some antennas on the station. Maybe it's under discussion
now in this EVA would be included in other task like installation
of ham radio antenna, and this is, this named ham radio antenna
but I think we are going to use it not only for ham radio it may
be capability to uplink and downlink digital information also.
We may need to work with reconfiguring position of some sensors
for the station to be able to get more precise data on attitude.
So, task is…actually we have more tasks than fit in one EVA,
and people are now discussing what is the priority, what need
to be done first, what need to be done later, what can be stay
in kind of jar, job jar, when, what we do if we have extra time.
So, but major task would be reconfigure station and move basically
docking cone from one port to another.
Again,
understanding that the precise order and schedule of things is
not set on the day that you and I are talking, you are scheduled
to receive some number of visits from space shuttle crews during
your time on board. What are the significant tasks that will occur
during shuttle assembly missions while you and Yuri and Shep are
on board?
Each shuttle
flight will deliver different hardware. Next shuttle flight is
going to deliver, basically, foundation for future truss, and
install hardware connected to it. Then 4A will install truss and
the solar array on the station, an early thermal system. So, after
4A, station will have more power and for us it will mean that
we have to reconfigure a lot of things to have different power
sources because before 4A flight only power available for us would
be power generated by FGB and Service Module solar arrays. And
most important flight I believe in our scheduled mission is 5A
flight which deliver Lab for us. It will mean additional modules
for us to live in because 3A and 4A will install equipment outside
of the station, and it wouldn't be habitation area for us, but
5A will deliver Lab and its new module which is going to be central
part of U.S. side of the station. It also has new computer systems,
new hardware for future scientific equipment, and life support
equipment also. So it would be another big and interesting task
for us to activate all of this, check out to check it in different
modes, to reconfigure all computer systems on board to the station
to make computer able to talk to each other and exchange information
and actually, I believe biggest task for us will be through all
flight, will be computer configuration, and testing hardware and
software in different modes. Because although even on Russian
side, Service Module is very similar to Core Module of Mir station,
physically, and it has also a very similar systems also, like
many life support systems were designed and test on Mir, and…now
even similar system which we used to use on Mir are going to be
controlled differently. So, major difference probably between
this station and Mir, especially in early stages when International
Space Station is going to be actually smaller than Mir but still
it has very different and I will say advanced…control system;
it's not only flight control, I was going to say flight control
system, but it's not only for flight control, because even simple
things like switching lights on and off would be done through
computers also. Many life support systems would depend on feedback
from computers and computers will work in several layers, actually,
to get information on different layers and feed it to highest
tiers and then send commands and process all information together.
So each module [will] actually add a part of this computer network,
and we need to hook up basically several networks together. And
check it out and be sure that everything work in synch and computers
understand each other, every part of this system will send information
they supposed and other information get information it expected.
So…
During
those shuttle missions, the shuttle crewmembers will be performing
space walks to attach these new pieces of hardware that you've
described. What do you folks do on the inside? Do you get to just
watch them, or do you have tasks that you must perform during
those times?
In many cases
support starting from…support nominal behavior of the station
in general because a lot of EVAs depend on specific position of
the station so we need to be sure that attitude control will be
proper, and configuration of jets which hold attitude will be
proper because if crew is working somewhere close to jets we need
to be sure that jets wouldn't fire on the shuttle, on the arm,
on the crewmembers. In many cases, at least 4A would be a good
example, when after installation of solar arrays we need to reconfigure
system to get power from the solar array, and actually start activate
computer system which control cooling and power supply. So in
many cases we will do this job in parallel: crew will work outside
and we will work inside making all internal connections. In many
cases like 5A task, wouldn't be done on EVA, although shuttle
will take big module and attach it to the station, it wouldn't
be done manually, it would be done with shuttle arm so even this
assembly task wouldn't be done outside immediately. And also as
we talk about it, many times we don't know exactly what we are
going to do but we need to be ready to do a lot of tasks. And
this is one of the challenge of long-duration space flight training
in general. Because we are training, we are not able to rehearse
all flight flow in preparation to the flight; but main purpose
of this training, to get ready to do everything. And then, when
we ready, doesn't matter what happened on what day. And part of
training we did and probably we will continue this training even
before flight to do some deferred task from shuttle EVAs. So basically
everything what shuttle crew are going to do which is not required
shuttle arm-because obviously when shuttle leaves we wouldn't
be able to replace shuttle arm-but a lot of tasks which crew is
doing outside, we also went through similar kind of training,
and if on some reason they don't complete this task, if they need
to leave early, if flight plan change and they leave some tasks
for us, we are trained and we need to be ready to do this tasks
in our flight. So, it could be another EVA, kind of cleanup after
shuttle flight.
It
sounds like it's [going to] be a very dynamic and ever-changing
environment. It's one that has changed a lot for you on the ground
during the time that you've prepared for the mission and it will
continue to do that as you head off to a brand new space station
in a brand new millennium. What are your thoughts about the impact
of having human beings in space and why you think it's important
that we continue to be there.
We need to
continue space exploration anyway, because it's…it's path
we choose and there's no other way. We can delay space exploration,
if we wish, but sooner or later we will do it anyway. So, continuing
space exploration, there are many different point of view what
we need to do and how. And, of course…many, different reasons
bring you to different way how to do space exploration. But major
point I would say, people are discussing, manned or unmanned flight-this
is biggest decision. And as we discussed before, if we are going
to build something new and build something new, reliably, we need
to have a human on board. Automated systems are working; in some
cases they work better than humans, like if we want to point telescope
on specific star it's better to do it in unmanned vehicle because
humans continue moving around the station. We need to do exercise,
and microgravity is not as good on manned spacecraft than on unmanned.
But to test everything for the first time, to test new control
system, to test how we are going to do things is more efficient
on manned space flight We already saw that, from Mir experience,
that some systems as soon they arrive on station, we switched
them on and they don't work as we expected, and for manned space
flight is no big deal: we change mode, we test system in different
mode, find best way to do it. And then I know that similar system
was installed on unmanned spacecraft, to do space photography,
star photographies; similar for new station. New station is going
to be platform for testing, we're going to test some equipment
in new mode, and as soon as we sure that this equipment is working
properly, it could be used in unmanned vehicle; we are going to
use outside of Earth orbit sooner or later anyway, and we need
more experience on long-duration space flight We did a lot on
Mir space flights, but this new station is next step, and we need
to do it to be able to fly to the moon, to Mars and move beyond
Earth orbit. So, it…I wouldn't say we make something really
different from what we are doing for last thirty, forty years.
We make space flight, manned space flights, flights long and longer;
we involve more and more nations and experts and experience from
different countries' outer space program. We create more and more
complicated space programs and hardware because no one would rely
on something completely new in many cases. So, we need to add
complexity step after step to move reliably. So that's what we
are doing with this new station. |