garlic), and a Coke drunk from a glass filled with ice.
Korzun had turned his return into a test that he looked forward to passing. Whitson had turned earth into a resort. In their own ways, both had found something to look forward to when they finally shared a last round of hugs, floated into the shuttle, and closed the hatch behind them. They had found something to soften the blow.
· · ·
Inside station, suddenly it felt as though a big party had finished and the revelers had emptied out, and all that was left in their wake was quiet and mess. Expedition Six had looked forward to this moment from their first seconds on board. Until that hatch had shut, each of them had worried that there might be a malfunction or a change of plans or some internal mutiny that would have seen their time on station end before it really began. Until the shuttle had undocked and disappeared from view—until Whitson was left looking back tearfully at her old home, having forgotten how beautiful it looked when the sun’s rays struck it, flashing like lightning—there was always that chance, however remote, that Bowersox, Budarin, and Pettit would be remembered as visitors instead of residents. Now, station was theirs, and they were station’s.
Even as tightly packed as they were, together the men of Expedition Six were more alone than they had ever been in their lives, more alone than most of us could ever even imagine being, adrift in the middle of a vacuum, almost 250 miles above the surface of the earth. For the next fourteen weeks, they could drop in on their families and the rest of the world by Internet phone, radio, and e-mail (they could even order flowers for their wives if they woke up feeling frisky), but if they wanted for genuine company, they would have only one another and the insides of this giant machine to turn to.
In time, they would come to know the International Space Station as well as anywhere (or anyone) waiting for them back in Houston. In time, they would grow to think of it as a living, breathing thing. They would learn its secrets, and they would be able to close their eyes and trace every detail of it with their fingers in the air in front of them. But in those first few moments after their friends had left them behind, they were strangers to the only place in the universe they had to call home.
At the Johnson Space Center in Houston, there’s a full-size mock-up of the station’s interior, and Bowersox, Budarin, and Pettit had spent some time in it, feeling it out, but really, it was the least effective of their simulations. Those hours had given them a sense ofthe scale of the place—inside, it is about 150 feet long and eight feet wide—but little else. Apart from a single, empty sleeping compartment, the mock-up had been undressed. The walls were lined with mural-sized photographs of the insides of the real thing, but there were no knobs or switches, no tubes or dials. There was none of the persistent background noise, no whirring fans or computers, no clicks or groans. There were no cables to get tangled up in, no bulkheads to bump into, none of life’s debris. Everything was smooth and clean, all perfect right angles; pacing off its length felt a lot like strolling down a brightly lit hallway with no doors.
Now there were still no doors. But neither were there floors or ceilings, nor was there any up or down. There was only the reasonable facsimile of walls, and just about every square inch of them was occupied with tools, spare parts, boxes of food, control panels, cameras, laptops, racks of scientific experiments, and personal effects—Nike sneakers bound behind elastic straps and photographs taped up, as well as sleeping bags, toothbrushes, shaving mirrors, utensils, portable compact disc players, an Australian didgeridoo (owned by Pettit), and one really ugly necktie (brought up by Bowersox).
Floating their way through this cluttered, closed-in tunnel, they now felt like actors
Korzun had turned his return into a test that he looked forward to passing. Whitson had turned earth into a resort. In their own ways, both had found something to look forward to when they finally shared a last round of hugs, floated into the shuttle, and closed the hatch behind them. They had found something to soften the blow.
· · ·
Inside station, suddenly it felt as though a big party had finished and the revelers had emptied out, and all that was left in their wake was quiet and mess. Expedition Six had looked forward to this moment from their first seconds on board. Until that hatch had shut, each of them had worried that there might be a malfunction or a change of plans or some internal mutiny that would have seen their time on station end before it really began. Until the shuttle had undocked and disappeared from view—until Whitson was left looking back tearfully at her old home, having forgotten how beautiful it looked when the sun’s rays struck it, flashing like lightning—there was always that chance, however remote, that Bowersox, Budarin, and Pettit would be remembered as visitors instead of residents. Now, station was theirs, and they were station’s.
Even as tightly packed as they were, together the men of Expedition Six were more alone than they had ever been in their lives, more alone than most of us could ever even imagine being, adrift in the middle of a vacuum, almost 250 miles above the surface of the earth. For the next fourteen weeks, they could drop in on their families and the rest of the world by Internet phone, radio, and e-mail (they could even order flowers for their wives if they woke up feeling frisky), but if they wanted for genuine company, they would have only one another and the insides of this giant machine to turn to.
In time, they would come to know the International Space Station as well as anywhere (or anyone) waiting for them back in Houston. In time, they would grow to think of it as a living, breathing thing. They would learn its secrets, and they would be able to close their eyes and trace every detail of it with their fingers in the air in front of them. But in those first few moments after their friends had left them behind, they were strangers to the only place in the universe they had to call home.
At the Johnson Space Center in Houston, there’s a full-size mock-up of the station’s interior, and Bowersox, Budarin, and Pettit had spent some time in it, feeling it out, but really, it was the least effective of their simulations. Those hours had given them a sense ofthe scale of the place—inside, it is about 150 feet long and eight feet wide—but little else. Apart from a single, empty sleeping compartment, the mock-up had been undressed. The walls were lined with mural-sized photographs of the insides of the real thing, but there were no knobs or switches, no tubes or dials. There was none of the persistent background noise, no whirring fans or computers, no clicks or groans. There were no cables to get tangled up in, no bulkheads to bump into, none of life’s debris. Everything was smooth and clean, all perfect right angles; pacing off its length felt a lot like strolling down a brightly lit hallway with no doors.
Now there were still no doors. But neither were there floors or ceilings, nor was there any up or down. There was only the reasonable facsimile of walls, and just about every square inch of them was occupied with tools, spare parts, boxes of food, control panels, cameras, laptops, racks of scientific experiments, and personal effects—Nike sneakers bound behind elastic straps and photographs taped up, as well as sleeping bags, toothbrushes, shaving mirrors, utensils, portable compact disc players, an Australian didgeridoo (owned by Pettit), and one really ugly necktie (brought up by Bowersox).
Floating their way through this cluttered, closed-in tunnel, they now felt like actors
Similar Books
