It goes around...and comes around...

Yesterday's early evening after work was one of those moments made for taking a walk, so I did.

Down Houston Avenue I went, turning left once I hit Broadway, and then down, down, down the road past the Old Alvin Road, and then past the next light for good measure.

On impulse, as a way of breaking out of the sleep-eat-work-eat-sleep cycle I'd fallen into since arriving in Houston, I signed up with the local video chain and rented Remember the Titans and U-571. On the way home, I called Galina in Pagosa and spoke with both her and Lee. The news of the day appears to be that Ming has disappeared (again), and that Lee will be coming down to Houston once Drew and Shannon return from the Left Coast.

Earlier, as I was on the outbound portion of my walk, I got to thinking about something that happened while I was in line at the book signing a couple of days ago. At one point, I turned around to see the extent of the line behind me and saw, a half-dozen people back, an astronaut with whom I had worked closely a couple of years ago.

For the life of me, I could not remember his name! (When our eyes met, it became clear to me that he didn't remember my name, either, but I digress...).

It reminded me of something that happened a couple of months after attending my first meeting at JSC, back when I was a new kid on the block.

That meeting included an astronaut among its participants. Though it may sound a little ludicrous now, I was pretty impressed with that development at the time, mostly because this was not a shake-hands-and-can-I-have-your-autograph kind of meeting, but one where I was setting forth some ideas on terminology management for the Shuttle-Mir program and engaged the other participants (including the astronaut) on a working basis. If memory serves, the meeting was fairly productive, as meetings go.

Imagine my chagrin, a couple of months later, when I again met this astronaut at a social function to celebrate the completion of increment training for the Shuttle-Mir crew that included John Blaha, and I sense that the astronaut's eyes are wandering down towards my badge to catch sight of my name! Oh, I wasn't devastated, but my ego was a little bruised (I like to think I make good first impressions and am not easily forgotten). Names recalled, the ensuing conversation was cordial, and since then I've had the opportunity to work many times with this individual (at least, to the extent where they do recall my name), but that's another story.

Only later did I realize that said astronaut probably meets dozens of people a week in the course of business, and can't possibly remember everyone. At least, I thought, the reaction to me was not, "Who are you? I've never seen you before in my life!"

And now I know what it feels like to be on the other end of the recognition/recollection relationship.

(The name of the fellow behind me in line popped into my head as I was headed back to Building 30. It was Jerry Ross, with whom I worked in connection with his flight on STS-74, so maybe the reports concerning the premature failure of my memory are, themselves, premature.)

Cheers...

Who'd a thunk it?

If you've been following the news (and assuming the news has been paying attention to the ongoing ISS flight), you probably know that there have been a number of failures during this flight that will likely cause the flight to go over by a day or two (the smart money on the third floor says they're going to try for two, but may have to settle for one).

One thing, at least, is clear: by and large all of the schedules I've been translating have been reduced to shreds by all of the problems. But that's my job, so it's a case of grin and bear it.

People like to think that space explorers are hard, calculating, realistic people. In fact, somewhere in the next day or so, the crew that's going to bring the replacement Soyuz up to the station (commanded by Talgat Musabaev and including Dennis Tito, the California "space tourist") will sit down and watch a film called (in English) White Sun of the Desert (in Russian, Белое солнце пустыни)

Why?

Because back in 1961, on the night before his flight, Yuri Gagarin is supposed to have watched this movie. (Kinda hard, though, since the movie was shot in 1969.)

Nonetheless, pretty much every Soviet cosmonaut crew watches it on the night before liftoff. It helps that the movie is very good (some people might even say it is the best movie of the Soviet era), but the key here is that pilots - and by extension cosmonauts - are both highly technically skilled people and superstitious by nature, and so I'm sure there will be an audience for this movie for as long as people fly into space from Russia.

The line between tradition and superstition can sometimes be rather thin. In addition to watching the movie, I am reliably informed that just before their flights, cosmonauts visit a reconstruction of Gagarin's office at the museum located at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. The reconstruction uses all of the original furniture from Gagarin's office, down to to his wall clock that is eternally set to his liftoff time (what time that is escapes me at the moment). The visit, I am told, includes sitting down at the desk and signing a log book of some kind, and provides an opportunity to leave behind any "to be opened in case..." letters, though I am told, as a rule, this is never done.

I am also reliably informed that the vehicle that takes cosmonauts out to the launch pad stops on the way to allow the travelers to relieve themselves against the right rear tire (if memory serves). This "tradition," too, is based on the historical precedent of Yuri G. having done so on the way to his historic flight. Go figure.

A one-day extension of the ISS flight will delay the Soyuz launch by a day. While it would be quite an event to have a Soyuz arrive for docking while the Shuttle was at the station, there is probably an unacceptable level of risk in performing such a stunt, with very little justifiable payoff. I suspect the Russian side will go along with a one-day extension with no problem; getting agreement on a two-day extension is going to be more difficult, as I understand there are some launch window constraints on the Soyuz...but those are dependent on the ability of Endeavour to raise the orbit of the station anyway.

Hopefully, Drew and Shannon will make it safely back to Pagosa tomorrow. Lee will then start to think seriously about doing a handover with them and then coming down to Houston. I am told that Ming was turned in to the local Humane Society, from where he was bailed out by the appropriate monetary contribution. I am glad for that, because I really am attached to that little smelly ball of fluff. I was thinking that maybe he had met up with a bobcat or something similar, but it turns out my worries were in vain.

Time to go to sleep, I guess...maybe do a little reading first. At least I do not have a telecon tomorrow morning...hoorah!

Cheers...