![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Pitying Sam McGee...
Jan. 21st, 2005 08:12 pmI am beginning to take a strong dislike to any schedule that attempts to frame things in terms of days of the week. The intensity of work (and the lack of off days) has short-circuited the part of my brain that responds to that kind of logic. If I hadn't placed the mouse over the clock in the lower right-hand corner of the Windows desktop just now, I would not know that today is, indeed, Friday. There are just under two weeks to the scheduled launch.
I spent the better part of my 10 hour shift running around the полтинник like a trilingual chicken with its head cut off. By the time the day was done, I had spoken Russian with the French, French with the Russians, and English with pretty much everyone. Most of the morning was spent on the tilting stand, watching the French team take the "sling" off the satellite. Said sling little resembles anything I have ever seen described as such. Most of the afternoon was spent chasing after conversations to support the ever-necessary electrical tests that accompany spacecraft work.
At this point, I find myself with just under 24 hours of free time until I am to report to work again, for a shift that will take me into oh-dark-thirty territory on... Sunday. By that time, the mated satellite, adapter, and upper stage will be in a horizontal position, ready to be "encapsulated" into the fairing, waiting only on the successful completion of radio tests before work can proceed. What shall I do with this unexpected windfall? Sleep, perhaps?
* * * The day dawned with a clear sky, which meant that it had gotten cold during the night (clouds and fog hinder the desert from radiating into the night sky; clear skies don't). Little did I realize just how cold, however. It was -20°C this morning at 8 am (a lot more impressive, when you say it, than the equivalent figure of -4°F, don't you think?). By noon, it had warmed up to -14°C or so, but the brisk 20 mph wind made it feel as if it was much, much colder.
I found the rabbit-hair socks to be not only comfortable, but warm during my walk to the Russian side of the building (where the launch vehicle is being processed and where I helped support some French electrical technicians). At the same time, I found the wind-aided cold cut through my trousers like a chain saw through a down pillow. My torso wasn't exactly comfortable, either, and I could not help but recall the phrase "it stabbed like a driven nail" (referring to the cold) from Robert W. Service's poem The Cremation of Sam McGee, as I hurried along. The feeling is accuately reported, BTW.
On the way back from the session, I had a choice of either walking with my eyes shut (and risk walking into a wall or a hole in the ground), or keeping my eyes open and having them freeze over. I compromised by stopping every 20 yards or so and turning so my back was to the wind, to give my eyes a chance to thaw out.
I feel like the clampband holding the satellite to the adapter system. Time to go wind down.
Cheers...
I spent the better part of my 10 hour shift running around the полтинник like a trilingual chicken with its head cut off. By the time the day was done, I had spoken Russian with the French, French with the Russians, and English with pretty much everyone. Most of the morning was spent on the tilting stand, watching the French team take the "sling" off the satellite. Said sling little resembles anything I have ever seen described as such. Most of the afternoon was spent chasing after conversations to support the ever-necessary electrical tests that accompany spacecraft work.
At this point, I find myself with just under 24 hours of free time until I am to report to work again, for a shift that will take me into oh-dark-thirty territory on... Sunday. By that time, the mated satellite, adapter, and upper stage will be in a horizontal position, ready to be "encapsulated" into the fairing, waiting only on the successful completion of radio tests before work can proceed. What shall I do with this unexpected windfall? Sleep, perhaps?
I found the rabbit-hair socks to be not only comfortable, but warm during my walk to the Russian side of the building (where the launch vehicle is being processed and where I helped support some French electrical technicians). At the same time, I found the wind-aided cold cut through my trousers like a chain saw through a down pillow. My torso wasn't exactly comfortable, either, and I could not help but recall the phrase "it stabbed like a driven nail" (referring to the cold) from Robert W. Service's poem The Cremation of Sam McGee, as I hurried along. The feeling is accuately reported, BTW.
On the way back from the session, I had a choice of either walking with my eyes shut (and risk walking into a wall or a hole in the ground), or keeping my eyes open and having them freeze over. I compromised by stopping every 20 yards or so and turning so my back was to the wind, to give my eyes a chance to thaw out.
I feel like the clampband holding the satellite to the adapter system. Time to go wind down.
Cheers...
