NASA scientists talk about the research taking place on station as falling into two large categories. The first comprises studies that might benefit life on Earth. These include research on the properties of chemicals that could be used in new drugs, combustion studies that are unlocking new ways to get more efficiency out of the fuel we burn, and the development of new materials. The second large category has to do with solving problems for future space exploration: testing new life support equipment, solving technical problems of spaceflight, studying new ways of handling the demands of the human body in space. All the experiments of which I am the main subject fall into this second category: the study comparing Mark and me as twins over the course of the year; the study on the effects of a year in space on Misha and me; the work being done on my eyes and heart and blood vessels. My sleep is being studied, as is my nutrition. My DNA will be analyzed to better understand the effects of spaceflight at a genetic level. Some of the studies being conducted on me are psychological and social: What are the effects of long-term isolation and confinement?
Science takes up about a third of my time, human studies about three-quarters of that. I must take blood samples from myself and my crewmates for analysis back on Earth, and I keep a log of everything from what I eat to my mood. I test my reaction skills at various points throughout the day. I take ultrasounds of blood vessels, my heart, my eyes, and my muscles. Later in this mission, I will take part in an experiment called Fluid Shifts, using a device that sucks the blood down to the lower half of my body, where gravity normally keeps it. This will test a leading theory about why spaceflight causes damage to some astronauts’ vision.
In fact, there is much crossover between these categories of research. If we can learn how to counteract the devastating impact of bone loss in microgravity, the solutions may well be applied to osteoporosis and other bone diseases. If we can learn how to keep our hearts healthy in space, that knowledge will be useful for heart health on Earth. The effects of living in space look a lot like those of aging, which affect us all. The lettuce we will grow later in the year is a study for future space travel—astronauts on their way to Mars will have no fresh food but what they can grow—but it is also teaching us more about growing food efficiently on Earth. The closed water system developed for the ISS, where we process our urine into clean water, is crucial for getting to Mars, but it also has promising implications for treating water on Earth, especially in places where clean water is scarce. This overlapping of scientific goals isn’t new—when Captain Cook traveled the Pacific it was for the purpose of exploration, but the scientists traveling with him picked up plants along the way and revolutionized the field of botany. Was the purpose of Cook’s expedition scientific or exploratory? Does it matter, ultimately? It will be remembered for both, and I hope the same is true of my time on the space station.
By the end of the day working with the mice, I have a collection of sample bags the scientists on the ground are itching to get their hands on. They will have to wait until we send Dragon back to Earth, but they couldn’t be more pleased with how the dissection went. Terry puts the samples in the freezer. I’m exhausted from the extreme focus and from being locked in one position all day with my hands in the glove box. But it’s satisfying to know my work will be useful. I clean up, putting all the tools and instruments back where they belong, remembering that a tool in the wrong place is no better than a tool we don’t have. I head into Node 1 to find some dinner. We don’t go out of our way to eat together, except on Fridays, because our schedules are just too crazy to allow it. I warm some irradiated meat, douse it in hot sauce, and eat it on a tortilla, floating alone while watching an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. While I’m finishing up, Terry comes by.
“Hey, don’t forget we got ice cream on SpaceX,” he reminds me. He goes to the tiny freezer in the ceiling of the lab and brings back a Klondike bar for each of us. It’s real ice cream, not the freeze-dried stuff that’s marketed as astronaut ice cream, which we don’t actually have in space. I’ve never had ice cream in space before—we usually don’t get to eat anything cold. It tastes amazing.
Back in my CQ, I look through my care package that came up on Dragon again. There is a poem and some chocolates from Amiko (she knows I crave chocolate when I’m in space, though on Earth I don’t have much of a sweet tooth); a bottle of Frank’s hot sauce; a postcard from Mark showing twin redheaded little boys giving the finger to the camera; and a card from Charlotte and Samantha, their distinctive styles of handwriting gouged into the heavy paper by a black pen.
I eat a piece of the chocolate and put everything else away. I check my email again. I float in my sleeping bag for a while, thinking about my kids, wondering how they are doing with me being gone. Then I drift off to sleep.
6
AT FIVE in the morning, when it was still fully dark, I slipped into the B Company dorm. I quietly opened the door of a room on the third floor, where two eighteen-year-old boys, Maritime freshmen, were sleeping soundly. The room smelled of unwashed socks and sweat. I stood over the boy on the left side, the bed I had slept in myself only two years earlier. On the other side of the room, another indoctrination officer stood over the bed where Bob Kelman had slept. When I gave the signal, we both started banging the garbage pail lids together while screaming, “Wake up, MUGs! Wake up, you lazy bastards!” at the top of our lungs.
I had been appointed the chief indoctrination officer for the class, in charge of supervising all those running the grueling period of drills and training the incoming freshmen. It was a demanding job but a huge honor—it meant I had done exceptionally well and that my superiors saw leadership potential in me. I was determined to prove them right. This was my first real opportunity to be a leader.
I had 250 new MUGs (Midshipmen Under Guidance) to train. I was responsible for teaching them the traditions and expectations of Maritime, as well as helping them adjust to life away from home. As the final authority on discipline, I had decided that I wanted to be the kind of leader who was firm but fair. I wanted to hold everyone to the same high standard, but I also wanted to approach each situation with an open mind and a willingness to listen to others’ points of view.
I once received an anonymous note from a MUG warning me not to get too close to the ship’s railing at night on our next cruise—a threat to push me overboard. This was an early lesson that a leader can’t always please everyone. I can understand why this MUG and the others I dealt with found the rules burdensome. But I had come to believe that shined shoes and polished belt buckles, however insignificant they might seem, helped us to learn the attention to detail required to safely and effectively operate at sea.