Called!

Being the "on call" interpreter yesterday turned out to be a pretty exhausting experience. In addition to the additional early morning duty I mentioned in yesterday's post, I ended up having my work time during the afternoon (which was supposed to end at 6 pm) extended to almost 10:30 pm, although the additional time was basically "fire brigade" duty (i.e., keeping myself available at the полтинник in case I was needed).

Regrettably, I did not take my VAIO with me to work after dinner, which meant I could not Skype home. (I did try to use the special phone code I was given to call home via the conventional phone network - what hams call "land lines" - but experienced nothing but a series of busy signals, as in previous campaigns.) I will endeavor to connect to the LAN from the hotel this morning and Skype home before it gets too late back there.

Today represents the first "full" Tuesday spent away from home. Last week, Monday morphed into Tuesday during my transatlantic flight, so I really didn't do my "one day fast" last week (it may be merely an excuse, but life is stressful enough when you're sitting in a cramped space for a long time, engaged in an activity designed - among other things - to screw up your body's circadian rhythm, to worry about fasting); the best I could do was just not eat all that much.

This morning, I've had a cup of coffee and a couple of slices of some breakfast meat to get my digestive juices flowing and I do not plan on eating lunch or dinner. I then moved over to the exercise room to give the metabolism a kick start. (Owing to my hours yesterday, I didn't exercise at all.) For some reason, however, nothing that plugs into the wall (such as the treadmill) is working in the workout room, all of the bicycles out front are chained up, and it would appear the front desk staff is still napping, so I will give it another 15 minutes or so and then interrupt their rest to ask how to restore power to the outlets in the workout room.

There's a lot of talk going on about "critical paths" and "long poles in the tent" right now, regarding an issue that I do not feel comfortable saying too much more about here, for the time being. I'll just make a cryptic observation to the effect that there are a lot of phone calls being made on all sides, and speculation - to use a cliche - "is rife." Moi, I'm in it for the long haul, or for as long as the food and air conditioning holds out.

My assignment today will take me to Yubileiniy airport, where I will support the "backhaul" of the satellite container as it is loaded back onto the cargo plane for the long haul home to Toulouse. (The satellite, as you may have guessed, is destined to leave the territory of Kazakhstan via another route.)

Cheers...

Backhaul blues...

Baking hot in Baikonur,
Waitin' for a train...
Helpin' load containers on a plane.

Our group had plenty of time to think about things such as lyrics to go to the tune of Bobbie McGee this afternoon. The consist with the satellite container finally arrived almost two hours after we got to the airport. I was dressing for a hot, mostly standing-around assignment, so I didn't take my camera with me (I should have), and the battery on my Zire was on its last legs and thus did not allow me to take many pictures. I did manage a couple, though.


The above photo captures the consist as it approaches its final position. I am standing in the forward part of the aircraft, an Antonov An-124-100 cargo plane, which has its nose cone raised above the cockpit level (on the "second floor") and its forward section lowered, and you can see part of the ramp that had been erected in front of the plane. There is a crane positioned directly in front of the ramp, between it and the railroad line.

The crane will lift the 20-metric-ton spacecraft container (the big grey box on the first car) and swing it around in basically one smooth move. The interior of the Antonov is huge. I suspect you could probably set up a couple of squash courts inside and have plenty of room for spectators. Here's a shot from the same position as the above photo, looking back toward the open tail:


As you may imagine, you don't rush these kinds of operations, and the French team involved in loading the container took particular care with their "baby," measuring distances down to the centimeter in preparation for hauling the container into the belly of the aircraft. As I stood on the tarmac, trying to avoid stepping in the seams between the concrete slabs (the seams are filled with very soft asphalt), the operation resembled a video I once saw of a python consuming an antelope.

Eventually, the container was secured in place and attention turned toward loading four industrial-sized containers that were lined up near the tail of the Antonov, along with a bunch of miscellaneous gear. As the giant forklifts maneuvered these boxes, everyone became increasingly aware of the wind that had been growing in intensity through the afternoon. By the time the last container was slung, the wind must've been blowing at a steady 50 mph, with occasional gusts. I had to plant myself firmly with my legs positioned in line with the wind to keep from being blown off balance, which could not be said for some of the smaller, lighter members of the loading team.

One thing that I noticed was that despite the wind, nobody seemed concerned about the raised nose cone section. Just over a year ago, during the offload of the Intelsat container from the Airbus "Beluga," operations had to be curtailed because the wind was gusting to 30 knots (and you could see the Beluga's raised door vibrating in the wind). The Antonov, on the other hand, just sat there like a concrete block. (I had an opportunity to go inside once the loading was almost complete and experienced remarkably little buffeting once I got out of the doorway.)

The whole operation, from departure from the hotel to arrival back home, took 6 hours. I am beat.

Cheers...