Kimiya is one of seven active Japanese astronauts (there are approximately forty-five active American astronauts and sixteen representing the European Space Agency). When I first got to know him in training, he seemed very formal—though I had no way to measure that, never having been assigned with a Japanese astronaut before. He would call me “Kelly-san,” a formal (though not the most formal) way to address another person in Japan. When I kept trying to get him to just call me “Scott,” he started calling me “Scott-san”; eventually, he stopped calling me anything at all. Kimiya understands that Americans value informality and equality—at least in our interactions—and he tries to meet us halfway, even if it makes him uncomfortable. Yesterday, while using the water dispenser, he saw me floating toward him out of the corner of his eye. He greeted me and moved out of the way, acting as though he was busy doing something else. But as soon as I finished getting my water and floated away, I saw him going back to the dispenser to finish filling his water bag.
Oleg Kononenko is a seasoned cosmonaut and a brilliant and rigorous engineer. He is a quiet and thoughtful person, consistently reliable. He is the same age as me and has a pair of twins the same age as Charlotte, a boy and a girl.
Kjell and Kimiya got to know each other well while training for this mission, including a wilderness course through the National Outdoor Leadership School, meant to put us into high-pressure situations, somewhat like the ones we might face in space. I wasn’t on that training course, since we weren’t originally supposed to be on the same crew, so we’ll have to get to know one another up here. In the fall, I’m going to perform two spacewalks with Kjell, and our lives will depend on us working together.
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TODAY, Kjell, Kimiya, and I are all taking our blood, then separating it in our state-of-the-art centrifuge before storing it for eventual return to Earth.
The Russians are taking blood today too, and I go to their service module to pick up some of the samples they asked us to store in our freezer. As soon as I pass through the hatch to the Russian segment, the modules are smaller and more cluttered, the equipment is louder, and the ambient light is yellower. But this time it’s worse: the Russians are starting up their centrifuge as I arrive, and it sounds like a chainsaw. All three cosmonauts laugh when they see my reaction.
“Can you believe this?” Gennady asks, gesturing at the centrifuge, then at his ears. “Fucking blya.”
“That thing sounds like it’s about to blow,” I say, and the Russians laugh some more. If their centrifuge were to come apart, it could take the hull of the service module with it, and we would all die.
I float back to the U.S. segment, shaking my head, my ears still ringing. I feel awful from my brief exposure to the noise—like nails on a chalkboard, but much worse.
This is just another example of the differences between our countries’ approaches to equipping the station. The Russian space agency’s goal is always to get the job done as cheaply and efficiently as possible, and I have to admit their cost-saving solutions for some problems can be impressive. The Soyuz that gets us up and down from space is a great example of this: it’s cheap, simple, and reliable. But ultimately, because the Russian hardware is unsophisticated, they are limited in the science they are able to get done. And of course at times like today, I worry about the safety of their equipment.
Kjell and Kimiya are growing used to the strangely sterile life up here. But at least now we have some plants: we have begun an experiment in the European module growing lettuce in a system that uses LED lights to bathe a plant “pillow” of control-release fertilizer. We are learning more about the challenges of growing food in space, which will be important if humans are to make a journey to Mars.
Because I’ve already spent so much time up here, I’m able to tune in to the subtleties of the station. I can feel a slight temperature change from one side of a module to the other. I can feel the vibration in a handrail changing slightly. The sounds of the equipment—always whirring, humming, buzzing—vary almost imperceptibly. I’ll stop Kjell or Kimiya floating through and ask, “Do you hear that whooshing sound?” Often they won’t have noticed it until after I’ve pointed it out. This hypervigilance isn’t entirely a good feeling. It’s another symptom of not being able to detach and shut down, of never really being off the clock. But it might keep us safer—if something were to start to go wrong I might have an early indication of it.
I recently noticed that my brain has made a transition to living in zero g—I can now see things in all orientations. If I’m “upside down” relative to the module I’m in, instead of the environment looking foreign and disorienting, as it would if you stood on your head in an equipment-packed laboratory on Earth, now I immediately recognize where I am and can find whatever I need. This is a transition I never made last time, even after 159 days in space. This may have to do with the six weeks I spent by myself on the U.S. segment—without seeing another astronaut oriented in the normal “upright” way, I was maybe better able to adapt. Or it may be that this is a transition that takes the human brain more than six months to complete. If so, I may have found one of the answers, albeit a small one, that Misha and I are here in search of.
I’ve been noticing that Misha has a different philosophy of pacing himself through the year than I do—he often announces the exact number of days we still have to go, which bugs the shit out of me, but I keep that to myself. I prefer to count up rather than counting down, as if the days are something valuable I’m collecting.
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TODAY I AM doing a Twitter chat, answering questions from followers “live.” Because my internet connection can be slow, I’m dictating my answers to Amiko and another public affairs person, and they are typing them into Twitter almost in real time. I’m answering the usual questions about food, exercise, and the view of Earth when I receive a tweet from a user with the handle @POTUS44, President Obama.
He writes, “Hey @StationCDRKelly, loving the photos. Do you ever look out the window and just freak out?”
Amiko and I share a moment of being pleased that the president is following my mission. I think for a moment, then ask Amiko to type a reply: “I don’t freak out about anything, Mr. President, except getting a Twitter question from you.”
It’s a great Twitter moment, unplanned and unscripted, and it gets thousands of likes and retweets. Not long after, a reply appears from Buzz Aldrin: “He’s 249 miles above the earth. Piece of cake. Neil, Mike & I went 239,000 miles to the moon. #Apollo11.”