Tech column 2: The truth about…

Here my second tech column idea:

The truth about…
The Space Shuttle

Asked what his greatest fear was about being stuck in a small metal can in the outer reaches of space, veteran US astronaut Robert Peterson answered truthfully: “Beans.” It won’t be what most people expect but then life on board a space shuttle is as far from normal as you can ever expect to get.

As NASA’s latest venture to the edges of our knowledge goes on, it seems only fitting to cover what really happens in the dark crevasses of space, away from the glare of the world’s press and the all-seeing eye of Mission Control.

Petersen says he only remembers the mind-numbing tedium. “The reality is that the take-off is nowhere near as exciting as you’ll think it’ll be. It’s, well, horrible.” Being propelled at hundreds of miles an hour within minutes from standstill is akin to being “stuck in a washing machine on fast spin while it is thrown out of a four-storey building,” he explains. “The only thing I regret doing more in my life is telling the wife I couldn’t have sex for six months before the trip. It was only a joke but no matter what I said afterwards, she was scared she would be putting my life at risk.”

Once the take-off is completed, life just slips into one long bout of checks, explains Petersen. His fellow astronaut on the same flight, David McCool, agrees. “There’s some fun with zero gravity but we’ve experienced it all a dozen times before in the test aircraft. After a while you just wish the yoghurt would stay in the pot.”

“Yeah, terrible stuff that salty yoghurt,” snorts Petersen, causing both of them to fall about laughing. “Well,” says McCool, “it would be a lie to say we didn’t have some fun. And Kathryn was so straight-laced it wasn’t exactly difficult.”

Kathryn Scott, twice decorated for her services and another member of their team, remains at NASA Headquarters, heading an astronaut training programme. She refused to discuss her time on the shuttle, explaining it was strictly classified.

Did any of them ever have romantic leanings during their extended time in outer space? “Oh god, they gave us these pills that dampened your libido,” explains McCool. “Occasionally someone wouldn’t take one and you’d know about it soon enough, at which point the others would send them outside to go screw in a nut or something.”

Spacewalks are something else that Petersen was less than enamoured with. “I’m not kidding you, because of the spacesuit and because everything is so difficult out there you can be literally four hours putting in a single screw. All the time I was out there, I was just dreaming about get back to my local bar and sinking a couple of beers with the boys. Four hours putting in a screw.”

Even though such mundane tasks took so long, the astronauts spend most of their time floating around tying to find things to do. “Once you’ve done your morning checks, you’ve got an hour or so before your midday checks and then two hours before the afternoon checks,” explains Petersen. “We tried everything – cards, magnetic chess, hide and seek – it was hopeless.”

In the end, the two resorted to practical jokes. “We did this thing we’re we’d pretend we were losing communications. You know: ‘Command… sorry… hear… trouble… vacuum… alert.’ That would freak Houston right out. And because of the time delay, you’d just sit there waiting for their panicked response,” roars McCool.

The highlight of the trip for both was when they met up with a Russian crew at the International Space Station. “Oh wow it was great to meet up with someone new after weeks stuck in the can,” says Petersen, “and Orlov was great fun.” Cosmonaut Dmitry Orlov had kept back some vodka to toast the new arrivals and both crews, minus Scott and US skipper Ronald Ride, joined in the celebrations.

“I got so drunk I filled up my colostomy and nearly emptied it out an air lock,” says McCool. The meet-up resulted in an unseemly punch-up however. “Well the Russians started going on about how they’d been in space first and then David started talking about being first on the Moon and we started singing the Star Spangled Banner and it all got a bit out of hand. The real crunch came though when the Ruskies started saying that they were called cosmonauts after the cosmos and we were astronauts, after astro-turf.”

“Orlov was a great guy but I draw the line at being compared to astro-turf,” explains Petersen. “Besides bones fix quicker in outer space.”

But it would appear that hangovers are worse and last much longer. Both Petersen and McCool were less than impressed with Ride when he decided the American contingent would leave first thing the next morning. “Can you imagine attempting re-entry with a steaming headache,” asks McCool. “I was not in the best of moods.”

“Yeah, if we’re talking consideration, Ride could also have eaten a few less of those vaccum-packed curries,” adds Petersen.

“That’s true,” McCool chips in. “You know they brought Ken Mattingly – the guy that fixed up the Apollo13 from the ground – out of retirement to come up with something that would filter Ride’s flatulence problem. He developed this ingenious system but after a dozen attempts in the test chamber dealing, and failing, with the real stuff, he quit. I don’t blame him. I was there and believe me, in outer space, it’s not like you can just open a window.”