American astronaut Scott Kelly has gone into space four times and led the ISS three times: his last 340-day mission is by far the longest man has spent in space. In his new book, The Expedition, Kelly shares how he gave his body and soul to this revolutionary, risky and challenging experiment. In this adapted excerpt, Kelly describes the daily life of astronauts aboard the ISS, such as how the Russians convert urine into electricity, and talks about a space walk with American colleague Kjell Lindgren, which they took when they left the spacecraft in order to repair him and make various measurements and experiments.
I am soaring in an American airlock, wearing a 250 kg spacesuit. Air is gradually sucked out of the airlock. I can’t see Chell’s face, because we are no more trapped in space than a small car, and in a strange position: his head is somewhere at my feet. I've been wearing this suit for four hours. I managed to get tired and feel bad.
"How are you, Chell?" I ask, staring at his shoes.
“Great,” Chell says, and gives me a thumb. I can see it through the bottom of the visor. Any normal person, seeing how the air leaves the airlock, where he is, would experience something between alertness and panic horror. But Chell and I have been preparing for our first spacewalk for so long that we now feel confident and fully rely on the equipment and on the people who care about our safety.
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly.
During this spacewalk, we are in contact with Tracy Caldwell Dyson, who was my crewmate the second time I flew into space. We have devoted several hours today and all working days of the past two weeks to preparing for this spacewalk. We cannot start over, let alone risk damaging the $ 12 million spacesuits.
So downstairs in the Mission Control Center, spacesuit experts are endlessly debating whether we should continue and what needs to be done to get there. So we are asked to open the hatch and enjoy the view while they decide what to do next.
When I put my hand on the hatch handle, it occurs to me that I have no idea whether it is day outside or night. Release the lock, turn the handle down and loosen the dog. I shake and pull and push for a couple of minutes, until finally the hatch gives way.
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Strikingly clear and bright light from the Earth bursts in. On Earth, we see everything through an atmospheric filter that dims the light, but here, in the void, the Sun shines blindingly bright. Bright sunlight bouncing off the Earth is a stunning sight. From an annoyed grunt about equipment, I immediately move to awe-inspiring contemplation of the most beautiful picture I have ever seen.
Inside the space suit, it seems that you are more likely inside a small spaceship than in clothes. My torso dangles freely in the solid body of my spacesuit, and my head is surrounded by a helmet. I hear the soothing hum of a fan blowing air into the suit. Through the headphones built into the helmet, I can hear the voices of Tracy from Houston and Chell, who is right next to me, outside, as well as the strangely amplified sound of my own breathing.
The surface of the planet is 400 kilometers below me; it is being carried away at a speed of 28 thousand kilometers per hour. Downstairs in the control center, they have about ten minutes to give Chell and me the go-ahead to exit the hatch. We can move around more freely, and I'll check Chell's suit for leaks. In the cold of outer space, the air leak will resemble snow coming from a backpack on the back of a spacesuit. If I don't see any snow, we will be allowed to continue.
Russian sailed away
During my previous long-term mission to the ISS, two Russian cosmonauts, Oleg Skripochka and Fyodor Yurchikhin, were supposed to go into outer space at some point to install new hardware on the outside of the Russian service module. When they returned back, both were simply shaken, especially Oleg. At first I thought it was his reaction to the first space walk, and only now, in this one-year mission, I learned all the details of that incident. During the spacewalk, Oleg lost his grip on the space station and began to swim away from it. He was saved only by the fact that he bumped into an antenna, which pushed him back to the station - close enough that he could grab a handrail. So he survived.
I have often wondered what we would do if we learned that he began to drift away from the space station irreversibly. We could probably call his family and connect them to the communications system in his spacesuit so they can say goodbye before he passes out due to high carbon dioxide levels or lack of oxygen. In anticipation of my own spacewalk, I didn't really want to dwell on this.
American spacesuits have simple fuel injectors so that if our cables break or if we make some mistake, we can maneuver in space, but, to be honest, there is no desire to try at all. I understand perfectly well that if my cable comes off, and I suddenly use up all the fuel, and only a couple of centimeters remain from the fingertips of my gloves to the wall of the space station, it will be the same as if it were a few kilometers away from me. The result is the same - I will die.
After making sure my tether is secure, I detach Chell's tether from mine and secure it to the outside of the space station, carefully checking it twice as if it were my own.
Chell begins to hand me the bags of tools that we will use for our work, and I attach them to the round handle outside the airlock.
When we have everything we need, I signal Chell to leave. The first thing we do when we’re both outside is doing a "comrade check," that is, examining each other's suits to make sure everything is in order. Tracy leads us from the Mission Control Center in Houston, explaining step by step to me how to check Chell's suit for signs of frozen water from the sublimator. The suit looks absolutely normal, there are no snowflakes, which I am happy to inform the MCC about. Chell and I breathe a sigh of relief.
Risky spacewalk
Almost all the time that people fly into space, they are concerned with how to learn how to get out of the spacecraft. Partly - only in order to embody the fantasy of a man all alone floating in endless space and only by a thin umbilical cord connected to the mother ship.
But spacewalks are also of practical importance for space exploration. The ability to move from one spacecraft to another, explore the surfaces of planets, or, which is especially important for the ISS, perform maintenance, repair or assembly of something on the outer wall of the station - all this is important for long-term space travel.
The first spacewalk was performed in 1965 by cosmonaut Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov. He opened the hatch in his Voskhod spacecraft, floated out, attached to a safety cable, and told Moscow: "But the Earth is round!" - probably much to the dismay of flat earth proponents around the world.
It was a triumph for the Soviet space program, but after 12 minutes Alexei Arkhipovich noticed that he could not go back into the hatch. Due to a functional or design error in the device, the suit swelled and no longer passed through the small opening. The astronaut had to release a certain amount of precious air from the spacesuit, and only then could he squeeze inside. As a result, the pressure dropped so much that he almost lost consciousness.
Not a very promising start to the history of spacewalks, but since then, more than 200 people have managed to put on spacesuits and swim through the airlocks into the blackness of space.
View of the Earth from the ISS.
Now it has become easier to solve some problems in the process of spacewalks, but this has not made them less dangerous. Just a few years ago, astronaut Luca Parmitano's helmet began to fill with water during his spacewalk, leading to the terrible realization that one could drown in space. Spacewalks are still the most dangerous thing in orbit: there is an endless variety of different equipment that can fail, and a bunch of operations that can go wrong. Out there, we are immensely vulnerable.
Urine turns to water
Unmanned missiles are the only way to get us enough supplies here. SpaceX has had great success with its Dragon freighters so far and in 2012 became the first private company to make it to the ISS. She hopes that in the next few years she will be able to send astronauts into space aboard the Dragon. If it succeeds, it will become the first private company to bring people into orbit.
Right now, the Dragon spacecraft holds two tons of supplies that we can use. These are food, water and oxygen, spare parts and components for systems that support our life support, medicines, clothing and equipment for new scientific experiments that we must conduct.
SpaceX Dragon's space truck approaches the ISS.
One of the scientific experiments was different from the others: it involved observing 20 live mice in order to study how weightlessness affects bones, muscles and vision.
Each new supply ship also carries with it a precious shipment of fresh food that we only enjoy for a few days before it runs out or goes bad. It looks like fruits and vegetables are spoiling faster up here. I don't know exactly why, and contemplation of this process makes me anxious if the same is happening with my own cells.
A very important thing to get to Mars, or, for that matter, anywhere else in space, is a well-functioning toilet. We not only have a waste storage facility. Our treatment plants also convert urine into drinking water. For interplanetary missions such systems are necessary, because it is simply impossible to bring many thousands of liters of water to Mars. On the International Space Station, the water supply system is almost closed and only periodically needs to be injected with fresh water. We use part of the water obtained by purification to produce oxygen.
Of course, we get fresh water from supply ships, but we rarely need it. The Russians are sent water from the base, they drink it and excrete it in the form of urine, then give it back to us for processing back into the water. Astronaut urine is one of the methods of calculation in our continuous exchange of goods and services. They give us their urine, and we share the electricity that our solar panels produced.
Russian supply ship lost
Another supply ship, the Russian Progress, was launched from Baikonur today. The Russian crew closely followed the launch, constantly checking with information from the Russian Mission Control Center, and when the rocket entered orbit as planned, Anton floated in to tell us everything.
But less than ten minutes later, the command center in Moscow reported that a serious functional problem had occurred, and the spacecraft went into an uncontrollable tailspin. No attempts to solve the problem have been successful.
Here, at the top, we began to argue about what the disappearance of the Progress space rocket is fraught with for us. We checked what we have on board: food, clean clothes, oxygen, water and spare parts. The Russians will not have enough food and clothing, so we will share with them and eventually will also experience a shortage.
During the day, Misha, Gennady and Anton keep us informed and look more and more concerned. All three cosmonauts on Progress also had personal belongings, including gifts and jewelry. There is no substitute for them. Misha relies on me for some of the things on board, and there is concern in his big blue eyes.
“Maybe they’ll still take control of him,” I say and pat him on the shoulder, although we both know that this is becoming less and less likely by the minute. I really want to discuss this problem with our crew, but I need to fix and assemble a half-disassembled toilet.
While I work, we learn that the Progress spacecraft has been officially declared lost. With a heavy feeling, I float into the Russian compartment to advise something. Misha accepts me in the service module, and he obviously already heard the bad news.
“We will help you with everything you need,” I say.
“Thank you very much, Scott,” says Misha. I think I have never seen a person who exudes such despair. We usually don't worry about the scarcity of supplies, but with the loss of Progress, we suddenly realize how dependent we are on supply stability. We can survive one or two failures, but after that we will have to strictly limit ourselves.
Astronaut Scott Kelly's cabin on the ISS.
However, much more than supplies, we are worried about the fate of our colleagues who will soon leave here: the same rocket that decided the fate of Progress will also be used when launching Soyuz with people on board. The three new crew members are due to arrive in less than a month, May 26, and will have to rely on the same hardware and software. The Russian space agency should investigate what went wrong and make sure it doesn't happen again. This will affect our schedule here, above, and no one wants to fly in Soyuz, which faces the same fate as Progress.
It would be terrible to die, spinning uncontrollably in a low orbit around the Earth, knowing that you will soon die from carbon dioxide poisoning or lack of oxygen, and your body will fly around the Earth for several months until it burns up in the atmosphere.
I am finishing the work of installing all the cables of the urine collection device. Among the supplies on the Progress was drinking water, and if we don't have the opportunity to produce it ourselves, the six of us won't last long here. I carefully check all connections and send a signal to the control center to turn on the device. It works. They congratulate me, and I thank for the help.
Plains north of Mogadishu
When I go to sleep in my sleeping bag at night and swim in the air with my eyes closed, I have one of those experiences that sometimes happen when, when falling asleep, it seems like you are falling somewhere and trying to hold on. In space, this is even more impressive, because without the force of gravity to keep me in bed, the body begins to swing wildly back and forth. This time everything was especially dramatic, as it coincided with a bright flash of cosmic radiation.
Trying to fall asleep again, I wonder if cosmic radiation has caused this reflex reaction of mine. Or was it pure coincidence?
It's very strange to pack your things before leaving space. Many things are thrown away, that is, sent to the Cygnus ship, which will burn up in the atmosphere later that month.
I collect everything and take it under the Dome (module of the International Space Station with a panoramic observation dome - approx. Transl.) Opening the shutters, I can see reflections of brownish sand and I can tell from the color and texture of the surface which part of the world we are over - over the plains north of Somali Mogadishu. On the one hand, I feel satisfied that I know the planet so well, on the other hand, it suggests that I have been at the top for too long.
A snapshot of the famous structure Rishat or “ Eye of the Sahara ” taken from the International Space Station / Roscosmos / Sergey Ryazansky
It's hard to explain to people who have never been here how much we miss nature. Someday a person will come up with a special word for this type of nostalgia - for how we miss all living things. We all love to listen to recordings of natural sounds: rainforests, bird songs and wind in the trees. Misha even has recordings of mosquitoes buzzing, but in my opinion, this is already too much.
Although everything is sterile and lifeless up here, we have fantastic views of the Earth from our windows. It is difficult to describe the feelings with which you look at the planet from above.
I feel like I know the Earth closer than most other people: coastlines, terrain, mountains and rivers.
Parts of the world, especially in Asia, are so affected by air pollution that they seem sick and need treatment, or at least take time to recover. Our atmosphere on the horizon looks thin, like a contact lens on the eye. He is so fragile that he literally cannot do without our protection.
Scott Kelly