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It's Friday again, dear friends! And while thoughts of Saturnalia - tinged with the flavor of Mardi Gras - bubble in the minds of many tonight, it's really all the same to me.
First, just as I pressed the button to post this evening's entry a few minutes ago, my computer informed me that it was entering "standby" mode, a euphemism for a slow, announced unrecoverable crash, which thereby sent my winged words to that great bit bucket in the sky.
I'm going to forget about trying to duplicate what I said...there's no time. It was really great, though. :^)
Why not try? Well, tomorrow is going to be a busy day for me, and I need my beauty sleep. As it turns out, there are a lot of things for the station crew to do tomorrow as they go about the business of moving the Soyuz space vehicle - the crew's "life boat" in case anything goes wrong - from one docking port to another (specifically, from the node that points out along the "plus X" axis of the Service Module to the node that points out along the "negative Y" axis of the FGB).
The maneuver, called a "redocking," is fairly straightforward in itself, but the whole concept is not as simple as it sounds, since effectively, the crew has to shut down the station, get inside the Soyuz, redock, and then reenter the station and start everything up again.
Why? Well, the Soyuz is the crew's life boat, and if they tried to redock it remotely (i.e., while they themselves - or any of them - were still inside the station) and then it turned out that some mechanical problem prevented the redocking from being accomplished successfully...well, you get the idea. SOL city for those left inside, especially if things were to go wrong somehow. So, everyone goes for a short ride tomorrow.
Anyway, today I finished working with the Execute Package folks for a while, and tomorrow, my job is to go and do some simultaneous interpretation of whatever is said on the space-to-ground channels. Borrowing a line from the character of Hannibal Lecter, "Goody, goody."
Originally, the plan was for me to show up at 7:30 am at the MCC, but then the plan changed. Now, it turns out I have to be ready to rumble at 4 am.
Ye gods.
Well, at least the umpteen versions of tomorrow's station timeline (a.k.a., the Form 24) that I translated while with the Execute Package folks will serve me well. After so much repetition, I now have an excellent idea of what's supposed to happen, and when.
On another comforting note, the flight surgeons at the JSC clinic pronounced me fit to do my work inside the MCC, at least for another year. I had the second half of my physical today, and all went well. I drew yet another doctor with a great manner from the pool of medics that work there under the auspices of the Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, so that's three for three.
I decided to extend my stay in Houston and go back around the 12th of March rather than go back for a week and then return to work the flight and stay to the end of the month. Galina is still intent on coming down (she is probably on the road as I write this, and I expect her to arrive in Houston tomorrow afternoon). I'm glad she's coming, as someone needs to deal with all of the stuff that's fallen by the wayside as I go to work, come home, eat, sleep, and wake.
Of course, this means that the store will be entirely in Drew's hands for a little while, but the fact is, I need to exorcise my tendency to be excessively a worry-wart. There will come a time eventually when his mother and I are going to have to put the store in his hands for a while anyway, so it may as well be now. Not that I'm planning to stray far from the phone, mind you, but at least this is a first step.
The "standby" incident has cut short the time available to do anything interesting tonight, or to think about anything other than going to sleep. Now is the time to go do some rack drill.
Cheers...
First, just as I pressed the button to post this evening's entry a few minutes ago, my computer informed me that it was entering "standby" mode, a euphemism for a slow, announced unrecoverable crash, which thereby sent my winged words to that great bit bucket in the sky.
I'm going to forget about trying to duplicate what I said...there's no time. It was really great, though. :^)
Why not try? Well, tomorrow is going to be a busy day for me, and I need my beauty sleep. As it turns out, there are a lot of things for the station crew to do tomorrow as they go about the business of moving the Soyuz space vehicle - the crew's "life boat" in case anything goes wrong - from one docking port to another (specifically, from the node that points out along the "plus X" axis of the Service Module to the node that points out along the "negative Y" axis of the FGB).
The maneuver, called a "redocking," is fairly straightforward in itself, but the whole concept is not as simple as it sounds, since effectively, the crew has to shut down the station, get inside the Soyuz, redock, and then reenter the station and start everything up again.
Why? Well, the Soyuz is the crew's life boat, and if they tried to redock it remotely (i.e., while they themselves - or any of them - were still inside the station) and then it turned out that some mechanical problem prevented the redocking from being accomplished successfully...well, you get the idea. SOL city for those left inside, especially if things were to go wrong somehow. So, everyone goes for a short ride tomorrow.
Anyway, today I finished working with the Execute Package folks for a while, and tomorrow, my job is to go and do some simultaneous interpretation of whatever is said on the space-to-ground channels. Borrowing a line from the character of Hannibal Lecter, "Goody, goody."
Originally, the plan was for me to show up at 7:30 am at the MCC, but then the plan changed. Now, it turns out I have to be ready to rumble at 4 am.
Ye gods.
Well, at least the umpteen versions of tomorrow's station timeline (a.k.a., the Form 24) that I translated while with the Execute Package folks will serve me well. After so much repetition, I now have an excellent idea of what's supposed to happen, and when.
On another comforting note, the flight surgeons at the JSC clinic pronounced me fit to do my work inside the MCC, at least for another year. I had the second half of my physical today, and all went well. I drew yet another doctor with a great manner from the pool of medics that work there under the auspices of the Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, so that's three for three.
I decided to extend my stay in Houston and go back around the 12th of March rather than go back for a week and then return to work the flight and stay to the end of the month. Galina is still intent on coming down (she is probably on the road as I write this, and I expect her to arrive in Houston tomorrow afternoon). I'm glad she's coming, as someone needs to deal with all of the stuff that's fallen by the wayside as I go to work, come home, eat, sleep, and wake.
Of course, this means that the store will be entirely in Drew's hands for a little while, but the fact is, I need to exorcise my tendency to be excessively a worry-wart. There will come a time eventually when his mother and I are going to have to put the store in his hands for a while anyway, so it may as well be now. Not that I'm planning to stray far from the phone, mind you, but at least this is a first step.
The "standby" incident has cut short the time available to do anything interesting tonight, or to think about anything other than going to sleep. Now is the time to go do some rack drill.
Cheers...
