I’ve been a space case as long as I can remember. No, not that way, but a fan of the Space program and I am old enough to remember Walter Cronkite covering the Mercury missions. Then Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, and the whole Shuttle program, including the three disasters of Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia.
This morning, after the wake up music, some insipid, overly meaningful piece of pop-pap, I listened to the crew talking with the capcom, Shannon Lucid about some of the administrivia of flying people out of the atmosphere.
Their first bit of fun happened around 0840 EDT or so. The commander was looking for the eating utensils for the crew: They weren’t where they were expected to be in the pantry.
By 0854, the situation was resolved and one would assume that Cdr. Scott Kelly (RED) could have his A-meal of Grits with Butter, Seasoned Scrambled Eggs, Beef Pattie, Tortilla, Pineapple, Grape Drink and Coffee with Cream and Artificial Sweetener.
Their second bit of fun was printing the day’s work log around 0845. Mission Control in Houston had noted a log entry of a failed printing request, before the wakeup call.
Cdr Kelly was right on top of it. They had a printer jam, cleared it and have printed out the work log, so they know what they’re going to do today. Meanwhile they had to fiddle with a circuit breaker for an oxygen cryo-tank instrument on Tank 2, then swap over to Tank 4 and run some power cables from a different power source.
Incidentally, there is a Canadian along this trip. Dr. Dave Williams (ORANGE) is on his second flight. Since they found the food utensils, one would assume Dr. Dave is having his Dried Pears, Oatmeal with Raisins, Granola with Raisins, Chocolate Breakfast Drink, Orange-Grapefruit Drink, Kona Coffee with Cream and Apple Cider as his Day 2 Meal A
Yes, you can get all this hyper-trivia online at NASA. No, Dave Williams did not bring an extra-large, double-double from Timmy’s. Roll Up The Rim To Win is over. There are no drive-thru’s in low earth orbit and he can’t get a Dutchie or Apple Fritter.
What does this mean? Even in space, you can’t find your fork, printers jam up, circuit breakers go for vacation and you have to run some extension cords once in a while. Sounds just like life here on the planet.
I’m hoping I’ll hear one of the astronauts say either "Are we there yet?" or "Houston, Endeavor, Tracy took my Macadamia nuts! Over."
RoadDave 