Riding Rockets - Mike Mullane [108]
I forced myself back to the checklist as we configuredDiscovery for orbit. Steve Hawley and I disassembled our seats, and he floated them downstairs for stowage. During the Houston simulations we had nearly popped hernias while moving these 100-pound monsters. Now we pushed them with our fingers.
We loaded the orbit software intoDiscovery ’s brain; her decade-old IBM computers didn’t have the memory capacity to hold ascent, orbit, and entry software simultaneously. Next we opened the payload bay doors. The inside of those doors contained radiators used to dump the heat generated by our electronics into space. If they failed to open, we’d have only a couple hours to getDiscovery back on Earth before she fried her brains. But both doors swung open as planned, another milestone passed.
As I worked, I wondered if I would get sick. I questioned every gurgle, every swallow. Is that bile I taste? The rational part of my brain said I was okay, but my paranoia twisted every gastrointestinal sensation into something ominous. I checked and double-checked and then triple-checked that my numerous barf bags were ready for a quick draw. The veterans had warned us the sickness could come on very suddenly. They were right. The curse hit. Not me, but Mike Coats. He retched violently into his emesis bag. I felt something warm touch my cheek and reached up to wipe away yellow bile. Other tiny bits of the fluid floated in the cockpit. Mike was learning what we would all soon learn—it is impossible to completely contain fluids in weightlessness. Though he had his bag at the ready, some barf had escaped. The odor permeated the tight cockpit. Mike sealed his bag but, with work to do, he couldn’t leave his seat to stow it downstairs. I took it and floated to the wet-trash container. With somebody else’s emesis smearing my cheek, the smell in my nostrils, and a warm bag of the mess in my hand, I had every trigger in place to get sick myself but still I felt fine. I began to think maybe I had dodged the SAS bullet.
Downstairs I got my first view of Judy, who was busy activating the toilet. Everybody was anxious for that to be declared operational. The weightlessness had liberated her black tresses to coil about her head like Medusa’s snakes. She would have made a great cannon cleaner. I lifted the floor-mounted trapdoor to access the wet-trash container and shoved Mike’s barf bag through the rubber grommet. I mimicked the garbage pit scene fromStar Wars and pretended my hand had been grabbed by an alien creature living inside. I made a few jerking motions and screamed for Judy to help me. She grabbed my arm, pretending to assist my escape. We tumbled together like fifth-graders on a playground, laughing all the while. With the terror of launch behind us and the intoxicant of beingreal astronauts, we had been transformed into kids.
During a break in the work I went to my locker to change out of my coveralls and take off my UCD. I had often wondered how the privacy issue would play out when we finally got to orbit. In our training Judy had certainly seemed unflappable. She had not fled from the EVA simulation when Hawley and I had been standing naked in front of her rolling on condoms. Still, I wondered how the tight living conditions would affect her behavior. I waited until she