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

“Copy that, Mullen,” Garrett said. He’d kept him in his field of vision all along, leaning farther and farther back in his restraints. “Okay, if you turn one-eighty first, then I’ll be forward and below you.”

“Got it, thanks.” Mullen looked down at the HCM, flipped the toggle switch from “TRAN” to “ROT” and prepared to make his first turn home. “Alright,” he said, addressing Mission Control and Columbia’s pilot in tow. “Here we go.” He pushed the hand controller to the left and the two astronauts turned counterclockwise, perfectly in unison. “Garrett. Let me know when I get close to oneeighty.”

“Alright, you’re three-fourths there now, better back off.” Mullen had already slowed significantly. “Another foot and you’ll be there, buddy.” Garrett waited a second, “Now hold it. Good. Alright, now if you tilt down while still in rotation mode, you’ll be able to see us before you start down.”

With “ROT” mode still selected, Mullen pushed the control handle forward for an instant. The two astronauts began to rotate slowly, head first. “Okay, there you are,” Mullen said.

“I have a visual, too,” Columbia’s pilot said. “She’s a beautiful sight!”

Mullen looked back to his HCM and flipped the switch from “ROT” to “TRAN.” “Houston, we’re starting our descent.”

“This is Houston, we copy.”

Mullen pushed the control handle forward against the stop for a count of almost three. Atlantis grew steadily in their visors.

“How you doing down there?” Mullen said to Columbia’s pilot.

“I’m good. I just hope you’ve had your brakes serviced lately,” he said, commenting on Mullen’s near-light-speed descent rate.

“Be on the brakes in just a few seconds, hang tight,” Mullen assured him.

Garrett watched the approaching astronauts and could see that Mullen had already started to slow his closing rate with Atlantis. The plan to keep the two astronauts held tightly together via the tether cable seemed to be working well.

“I think I’ll fly this rotation out before we come down the rest of the way,” Mullen said.

“Okay, good.” Garrett said.

Mullen pulled back on the control handle a few times more until he had them stopped. Next, he switched modes to “ROT” and pulled back on the handle, now causing them to rotate to a vertical position relative to Atlantis. He switched back to “TRAN” mode and pushed down on the control handle. Slowly, they descended. Mullen’s plan was to deliver the pilot chest to chest with Garrett. When he’d dropped him down to what seemed like an even altitude, he pushed the controller forward to begin moving toward Garrett.

Garrett had his hands out to help secure the pilot. Mullen inched forward, 3 feet out now. One final, brief pull on the controller stopped the pilot at the mark.

“Excellent flying,” Garrett praised. “I got hold of him if you want to release his tether.”

Mullen reached below the SAFER HCM and disconnected the pilot’s tether clip from his suit. “Tether disconnect, he’s all yours.”

Still on his platform, Garrett connected the pilot’s suit tether clip to his own suit, then had the pilot maneuver over to Atlantis’s payload bay slide wire. When the pilot confirmed he had hold of the slide wire, Garrett released the pilot’s tether clip from his suit.

“Alright, now attach your tether to the slide wire,” Garrett said. “When the commander gets down here, we’ll help you both get in the airlock, depress once for the both of you.”

“Copy that,” the pilot said.

When Garrett looked up, he saw Mullen already halfway back to Columbia. He may just get this done in under a half-hour, he thought.

Mullen arrived at Columbia’s sidehatch a second time, having demonstrated to all those watching impressive efficiency of movement and greatly improved accuracy. He felt good, felt like his work today had seemed easier than on past missions, particularly in comparison to work he’d done on the International Space Station. He guessed it had something to do with the situation, how the uncertainty of the rescue had allowed for improvisation. EVAs were usually highly scripted events, with every tool and movement overanalyzed for efficiency and suitability for a given task. Today had been a wonderful break from all that. Mullen hoped that NASA had learned something today. Maybe NASA realized that astronauts were smart enough to figure some things out on the fly.

Ten minutes later, Mullen had the commander out of Columbia and in tow beneath him; they were ready for final descent to Atlantis.

“Okay, I’m inbound with the commander,” Mullen said.

“Got a good visual,” Garrett said. “Picked a good day to go flying. Almost have you guys home.”

“Amen to that,” the commander said.

Chapter 75

TO DETERMINE HOW EFFICIENT an astronaut would be while working in space, NASA created a work efficiency index. The index was derived from a simple equation expressed as total EVA time divided by total EVA overhead.

EVA overhead referred to the time required to complete activities vital to performing any EVA, activities such as the pre-breathe protocol, donning and doffing of the space suit, and airlock ingress and egress.

Even though Columbia’s commander and pilot were almost ready to close Atlantis’s airlock for repress, engineers at Mission Control were concerned with Garrett and Mullen’s growing EVA elapsed time. They knew that airlock ingress or egress took 15 minutes, airlock repress or depress took 15 minutes, and that it took another 25 to doff the EVA suit. If you started adding up all the time, Garrett and Mullen were, at the very least, still 45 minutes away from breathing cabin air aboard Atlantis.

“Atlantis, Houston,” the CapCom said.

“This is Avery, go ahead Houston.”

“When Columbia’s commander and pilot conclude their airlock depress, we want the crew to help them get the interior airlock door open and helmets off. Then we want the commander and pilot to egress the airlock before doffing their suits. We know it’s going to make it a bit more crowded in there, but we need to get the airlock turned around for a