A very physical day...
Nov. 12th, 2009 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpCrew training is generally a pretty sedentary activity, at least for the interpreter, because usually, it consists of a trainer explaining and showing things to a "student" who happens to be a cosmonaut. Today, however, I got a taste - through it was probably more of a soupçon, really - of what it's like to be on the ISS during a fire or a "depressurization" (which is what happens when the volume in which you find yourself, i.e., the station, starts leaking atmosphere into the vacuum of space through a hole).
The major trick in both cases is to find where the fire (or the leak) is located and then to respond to it in a methodical manner (aided by the emergency procedures book) while maintaining - above all - crew safety.
My role in today's exercises was to provide the folks running the show (the trainers) with insight on what was being said among the three cosmonauts who were working as a team - and speaking among themselves in Russian, naturally - to find and deal with the emergencies the training staff was throwing at them. For me to do my job, I pretty much had to keep up with the cosmonauts, and got pretty good at squeezing myself through the hatchways between the mockup modules.
One of the three cosmonauts, Alexander Kaleri, has actually had some practical experience with such emergencies, as he was aboard the Mir station back in February 1997 when a defective oxygen generation cartridge caused a fire to break out aboard the Russian station. He and Valeri Korzun fought the fire with extinguishers and put it out, but not before the atmosphere in the station had gotten so thick with smoke that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. (Afterward, cosmonaut Alexander Lazutkin, who was also on board at the time, recalled he had an almost overwhelming urge to go find a window to open and let the smoke out, but of course, that is not possible in an orbiting space vehicle.)
By the end of the day, everyone was pretty sweaty from all the physical activity, and you could still see marks left on the faces of the cosmonauts by the breathing apparatus mockups they wore. All involved declared the day's work to have been a success (my contribution included).
I went home and took a late nap. With any luck, I won't feel any aftereffects of all the stretching and flexing.
The major trick in both cases is to find where the fire (or the leak) is located and then to respond to it in a methodical manner (aided by the emergency procedures book) while maintaining - above all - crew safety.
My role in today's exercises was to provide the folks running the show (the trainers) with insight on what was being said among the three cosmonauts who were working as a team - and speaking among themselves in Russian, naturally - to find and deal with the emergencies the training staff was throwing at them. For me to do my job, I pretty much had to keep up with the cosmonauts, and got pretty good at squeezing myself through the hatchways between the mockup modules.
One of the three cosmonauts, Alexander Kaleri, has actually had some practical experience with such emergencies, as he was aboard the Mir station back in February 1997 when a defective oxygen generation cartridge caused a fire to break out aboard the Russian station. He and Valeri Korzun fought the fire with extinguishers and put it out, but not before the atmosphere in the station had gotten so thick with smoke that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. (Afterward, cosmonaut Alexander Lazutkin, who was also on board at the time, recalled he had an almost overwhelming urge to go find a window to open and let the smoke out, but of course, that is not possible in an orbiting space vehicle.)
By the end of the day, everyone was pretty sweaty from all the physical activity, and you could still see marks left on the faces of the cosmonauts by the breathing apparatus mockups they wore. All involved declared the day's work to have been a success (my contribution included).
I went home and took a late nap. With any luck, I won't feel any aftereffects of all the stretching and flexing.
