I head back to the airlock, where I climb in first this time and get my tether secured so Kjell can follow. He crams himself in behind me. As he struggles to close the hatch, I try to hook up the oxygen and cooling umbilical to my suit. But my hands are so fatigued I’m fumbling. To make matters worse, my glasses are positioned in such a way that I’m peering at the connection between the umbilical and my suit through the very bottom edge of the lenses, and the distortion prevents me from seeing clearly. I struggle for a good ten minutes, by which time Kjell has maneuvered himself into a position where he can see my connection and help me out. Working together, we get it connected. This is why we do spacewalks in pairs.
Kjell gets the hatch closed, and the air hisses in around us. The carbon dioxide in Kjell’s suit is showing an elevated reading, so when the airlock finishes repressurizing, Kimiya and Sergey hurry to get him out of his helmet first. Through my visor, I can see that he is okay, nodding and talking. It will be ten minutes before Kimiya can take my helmet off. Kjell and I are attached to opposite walls, facing each other, held in place by the racks that secure our spacesuits. We have been in these suits for almost eleven hours. While I float there and wait to get out of my helmet, Kjell and I don’t have to talk—we just share a look, the same look you’d give someone if you’d been riding down a familiar street together, chatting about this and that, and missed by nanoseconds being T-boned by an oncoming train. It’s the look of realizing we’ve shared this experience that we both know was at the limit of our abilities and could have killed us.
When Kimiya lifts my helmet off my head, Kjell and I can finally see each other without plastic in between. We still don’t feel any need for words.
Kjell smiles an exhausted smile and nods at me. His face is pale and sweaty, bathed in the artificial light.
Hours later, Kjell and I pass in the U.S. lab. “There ain’t going to be no rematch,” I say, quoting from Rocky.
“I don’t want one,” says Kjell, laughing his big boisterous laugh.
We have no way of knowing it yet, but only one of us is done with spacewalks.
—
A FEW DAYS LATER, I wake up to find a public affairs event on the schedule with the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology for both Kjell and me. We’ve been given no preparation or warning, as we should have been for such an important event, and because my day is packed between now and then, I won’t have the chance to get ready. Even worse, when Kjell and I are connected we discover that we are being conferenced into a committee hearing, and that our participation will be considered testimony. I’m furious that the office of public affairs has not given me warning that I will be testifying before a committee of the people who oversee NASA and determine its funding. But I have to set aside that reaction and pretend to be prepared.
Kjell and I answer questions about what we’re doing on station—we describe the biomedical experiments we are taking part in and talk about growing lettuce. One representative points out that we are in a “difficult geopolitical situation” with the Russians and wants to know whether we share all of our data with our Russian colleagues.
I explain that the international cooperation on the space station is its strength. “I was up here as the only American with two Russian guys for six weeks this summer,” I tell him, “and if something had happened to me, I would have counted on them for my life. We have a great relationship, and I think the international aspect of this program has been one of its highlights.”
One of the representatives on the committee, Dr. Brian Babin, happens to be a dentist, and the Johnson Space Center is in his congressional district. He is very curious about our oral health; we assure him that we brush and floss regularly. The last question is about Mars—a representative from Colorado points out that the planets will be lined up advantageously for a voyage in 2033. “Do you guys think that’s feasible?” he asks.
I tell him I personally think it’s feasible, and that the most difficult part of getting to Mars is the money. He knows what I mean without my having to spell it out—we can do it if his committee gives NASA the funding. “I think it’s a trip that is worth the investment,” I say. “I think there are things tangible and intangible we get from investing in spaceflight, and I think Mars is a great goal for us. And I definitely think it’s achievable.”
—
A COUPLE OF weeks later, we are eating breakfast when a fire alarm sounds. Even though we have had many false alarms over the time I’ve been here, this is still a sound that captures our full attention. It takes us only a few minutes to trace the alarm to the European module, where a biology experiment with rotating incubators is showing a slightly elevated carbon monoxide level. We power down the experiment and confirm that there are no elevated readings anywhere else in the station. We sample the experiment to see if there are signs of combustion. There are. It’s a real fire.
I always find the alarms entertaining in a strange way, unless they happen in the middle of the night and wake me up. Then I hate them. Alarms are a good reminder of the risk we live with and also a chance to review and practice our responses. In this case, the fire alarm does reveal an error in the procedure, which we later fix.
—
ON DECEMBER 6, a Cygnus resupply launches successfully. This is the first flight of an enhanced Cygnus with an extended pressurized module, which allows it to carry 25 percent more cargo. The module is named Deke Slayton II after one of the Mercury astronauts (the first Deke Slayton Cygnus blew up on launch the previous year). In addition to the regular supplies of food, clothes, oxygen, and other consumables, Cygnus is also carrying experiments and supplies to support research in biology, physics, medicine, and Earth science. It’s also carrying a microsatellite deployer and the first microsatellite to be deployed from ISS. And, important only to me, on board is a gorilla suit sent by my brother to replace the one lost on SpaceX. Once Cygnus safely reaches orbit—a stage we no longer take for granted after all the disasters earlier this year—Kjell captures it with the robot arm, his first time doing so. This was supposed to be my turn, but I decided to let Kjell do it, which meant giving up my last chance to grab a free-flying satellite, one of the few things I’ve never done in space.
A few days later, on December 11, we gather to say good-bye to Kjell, Kimiya, and Oleg. I remember when they arrived here about five months ago, which seems like another lifetime. Kjell and Kimiya, who showed up like helpless baby birds, are leaving as soaring eagles. They are now seasoned space flyers who can move around the station with ease, fix hardware of all kinds, run science experiments across multiple disciplines, and generally handle anything that comes their way without my help. It’s a rare vantage point I have of their time here. I’ve known at some level how much astronauts learn and improve over the course of a single long-duration mission, but it’s another thing entirely to witness it. I say good-bye knowing I still have three months ahead of me. I’ll miss them.