Monday- Fitness test day today.
Rode a stationary bike to determine my maximum volume of O2 in my blood, which measures my aerobic capacity. I don’t know what the number is but they use this information to determine how long and at what intensity I have to ride the stationary bike up in orbit to purge the nitrogen from my blood beore I go out on a spacewalk.
Met with pubic affairs on all the media events we will do on orbit. I am most looking forward to our Veterens Day message before we land. We will have Airforce & Army and Navy represented onboard between the Space Shuttle and Space Station crews.
Then had an interview with Mike Massimino, fellow astro, who is doing his own video documentary of this flight for NASA.
Finally, my annual fitness assessment. Yes another fitness test. This one measured my strength, flexibility, aerobic capacity and endurance- told you it was a fitness day today!
Tuesday-
Review of all of our 1000′s of pages of checklists we use during flight. We make our own little personal notes & comments on these lists. That was an all morning endeavour.
Afternoon was spent at the shuttle mid-deck mock up seeing how all our storage is set up and where items will be. Like a camping trip- need to pack things away carefully and then need to be able to find them again!
Wednesday- EVA Day.
Spent the morning with our big tools, pieces and parts. We worked with the foot restraints, which are like ski bindings, the rail cart and the big ammonia venting tool which I call the big silly snake. I am going to have to roll this thing up and fit in into a briefcase – while weightless- which means I turn into a big snake charmer.
The adjustable grapple bar was next. You sometimes have to attach a portable grapple bar in order to move a part around, move the part and then take the grapple fixture off again and store it. They had an actual space hardware grapple piece that we got to play with which was very helpful.
Then we went and looked at fluid connectors which basically look like the front of a fire hose. Instead of spraying water you are connecting to a spigot and moving toxic ammonia through it. We practiced working with this ammonia fluid connector so I can vent the ammonia from the tank while on orbit.
Final review of the docking system on the shuttle was next. We discussed the timeline and how cruical it is to get mated and sealed in 15 minutes before we have to deal with oscillations between the spacecraft attitudes due to tidal forces. These oscillations can prevent us from getting an airtight seal and put us behind schedule!
Then to wrap up the day Tim and I had to teach our instructors how our spacesuits work. That was fun and as all you teachers out there know it shows your level of understanding when you have to teach the concepts to someone else!
