Launch on Need by Daniel Guiteras (small books to read txt) 📗

unique other world of space travel, had fancy names and corresponding acronyms. The diaper was known as the Maximum Absorbency Garment, or MAG, and was essentially a disposable adult diaper. The Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment, or LCVG, which was worn over the MAG, bore a striking resemblance to long underwear, but was significantly more sophisticated. The LCVG combined long sleeves and pants in a somewhat-lumpy one piece. But hand-sewn between layers of spandex material were over 90 meters of plastic tubing. When the LCVG was worn by an astronaut in a powered-up space suit, water chilled to 37 degrees Fahrenheit circulated through the plastic tubing and whisked away unwanted body heat, thereby helping to regulate the astronaut’s body temperature.

“One-eighty-seven,” Shane Garrett called out as he stepped off the scale. The technician quickly wrote down Garrett’s weight, then busied himself with some calculations he’d use to figure the exact amount of ballast Garrett’s space suit would need in the pool. The goal was to have the astronaut neutrally buoyant, not sinking to the bottom or floating to the top, thus giving the best possible simulation of floating in space.

Mullen bent down and released the clips of his Teva sandals, then hesitated briefly as he glanced at the foot beds of the scale. It was a subtle pause, but Garrett saw it: Mullen’s concern about the cleanliness of the scale, his unspoken wish that a paper towelette or something could be put down on the scale before he stepped on.

“One-seventy-two,” Mullen finally said after the scale came to rest. He stepped directly from the scale back to his sandals, carefully and deliberately avoiding contact with the wet pool deck.

“Okay guys, while the suit techs are finishing up with your BC settings, I gotta go over a few reminders I know you’ve heard a hundred times before,” the test director said.

Mullen and Garrett had heard the warnings and precautions repeated more than they cared to remember. But their military training had taught them to respect the wearisome recitation of safety procedures. It was quite possibly the only time the two of them were serious about anything.

Microgravity simulations in the NBL were in fact fraught with danger. There was an unending concern for the astronauts that the unthinkable could happen while they worked at a depth of 30-plus feet. Their equipment was relentlessly checked by the suit team. Materials were refurbished, rubber seals replaced, metal latches realigned; no single piece of equipment made it to the pool deck without first being inspected and recertified. So it wasn’t catastrophic failure that anyone feared. Rather, it was a fear that, sometime during the methodic and tedious process of donning a suit, one metal part wouldn’t seat exactly with its counterpart the way it should, a piece of rubber would be pinched or cut, allowing water to seep in, slowly at first, innocuously, but then faster and faster as if the water itself were searching for the source of life.

The Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or EMU, was what NASA called the space suit astronauts used to perform spacewalks. The suits used in the NBL pool were of the same type and size used in space. The suits weighed upwards of 280 pounds, so entering the pool using stairs or ladders was not practical. Instead, EMU-suited astronauts were lowered into the pool by way of a large metal hoist-stand. To help counter the EMU’s weight, the torso portion of the suit, minus the helmet, was connected directly to the hoist-stand. First, an astronaut donned the pants of the space suit, and then was assisted by suit technicians onto the hoist-stand, where his or her arms and head were carefully directed up through the suspended torso section of the suit. Once all the suit joint-connections were checked (two ankle, two wrist, one torso), the helmet was locked into place and checked.

By 8:55 that morning, Mullen and Garrett found themselves fully suited and standing in the hoist-stand above the pool edge. Communication checks rang inside their helmets and camera flashes came from every direction.

“Okay, guys, you look good,” Mullen and Garrett heard the test director say. They each returned a thumbs-up.

The crane inched the hoist-stand out over the water, giving the astronauts their first good look at how the NBL’s engineering group had configured the mock-ups for the rescue-mission simulation.

“So that’s supposed to be Atlantis,” Garrett said to Mullen, pointing to the mock-up of a shuttle payload bay resting on the bottom of the pool.

“Right,” Mullen confirmed over the comm loop. “We’ll arrive on orbit for rendezvous, and sneak up on Columbia from below.”

A second overhead crane rig had been moved over the submerged Atlantis mock-up to simulate Columbia’s relative position in space after rendezvous. Attached to this second crane were ropes that hung down into the water to the depth of the Atlantis mock-up payload bay floor. On the ends of the ropes were weights that allowed the ropes to move freely from the light water chop created by the divers.

The method of transferring astronauts via ropes had never been attempted in space, and that was why Mullen and Garrett were going into the pool now—to test the procedure and identify potential hazards.

The hoist-stand finally broke the water. As if on cue from a Hollywood director, eight scuba divers entered the pool by falling back onto their tanks. They separated into two teams, four per astronaut. Mullen and Garrett each had his own cameraman and tool/equipment specialist, plus two others to physically assist him into the required positions for the EVA simulation. But the divers also were responsible for monitoring the astronauts for any physical signs of distress, suit leaks or respiration problems, and handling any communication problems.

The immersion continued, water creeping up over the toes of their boots, past their knees and then up to and past their waist connections.

The test director broke in during a moment of silence on the comm line. “Hey you two. Any wet panties?”

“I’m dry,” Mullen replied first, “watertight at my waist.”

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