Page 93 of Space Cowgirl: Houston, All Systems Go
I had a long, boring, and somewhat uncomfortable talk with a lot of people at NASAandthe police. They’d taken my phone, which I thought I would hate, but it was like a boulder had been lifted as soon as one of the detectives bagged my device.
No more photos, gifs, and texts conveying various threats. No more having to hide or lie to people I care about.
Like Holt.
I really need to tell Holt. But I didn’t know how to explain his place on the list of “need-to-knows.” He isn’t my husband or part of my support staff. He isn’t family, and now I’m not even sure I can call him a friend.
I mean, the cowboy definitely needs to own up and fucking apologize for a lot of the shit he said, but I realize that Imayhave exacerbated the situation. Just a bit.
And coming clean to him about the texts that pissed him off so much is something we both need.
But apparently not today.
NASA knew I was riding my last nerve after the fiftieth time the police made me go through all the details of my stalker’s contact with me. They decided to cut me some slack and scheduled some training time in the NBL. The pool, over two hundred feet long and a hundred feet wide, is going to be my sanctuary for the next six hours. Not even the feel of my maximum absorbency garment strapped to my ass (NASA never says “diaper”) can get me down.
Once Bodie and I are secured into the bottoms of our suits, multiple EVA support staff help us up off the floor. Including Ian. I have a feeling Jackie tasked him with babysitting me, along with Bodie, while Whipple is still out and about.
With some holding our hands for balance, others holding the slim metal hula-hoop-like waistband of our pants so they don’t fall down, the staff walks us over as a team to the two yellow pneumatic jib cranes where the tops of our EMUs are strapped.
“All right, up you go.” Ian braces one hand on the back of the platform where my suit is strapped, holding me under the armpit with the other.
“Easier said than done.” With his help, and a bunch of grunting, I squat down and duck walk in my gear until I’m under the opening of the upper half of my suit.
Considering these suits weigh over three hundred and fifty pounds, it isn’t like pulling on a sweater. In space the microgravity will make this easier, but here on Earth it takes a team and a hydraulic lift over forty-five minutes just to get two astronauts dressed.
By the time I can finally straighten my legs and push my head through the neck opening, I’m sweating.
“Good?” Ian asks, reaching in to make sure my tubes are lined up with the attachments running along the suit’s inner lining.
“Good.”
With a nod, Ian begins checking my quick-disconnects, the locks keeping my suit pressurized and air/watertight. A group of EVA support helping me and Bodie on the other side of the platform, soon we’re ready to roll. Or sink.
Whatever you want to call it.
I call it awesome.
Neutral buoyancy is how astronauts train for microgravity. The crane will drop us under water, forty feet of it, where, with weighted plates and a team of four dive specialists, we’ll float around life-size mock-ups of the International Space Station, doing run-throughs for the spacewalks we’ll have in orbit.
It’s kinda like the real thing. But now, what with having logged so many EVA hours, I can easily feel the difference. In space I float even while in my space suit. Under the water, gravity presses down on my body in whichever position I’m floating. Also, if I need to be “upside down” while working, I can only do that for so long in the pool before I get dizzy from blood rushing down to my brain. In space, that won’t happen.
And here at the NBL, we have to take into consideration drag time. Moving through the water takes more force and effort than floating in the immense vacuum of space.
But it’s the closest thing to microgravity that we have here on Earth, so we use it.
After Bodie and I are fully strapped onto the platform, back to back, I watch Ian jog over to the stairs leading to the control room above the pool. We stay suspended until Ian’s in position at the EVA console. Which only solidifies my guess that Jackie put him up to babysitting me, as he should’ve been in the control room this whole time. This is his show, after all. Ian came up with the idea for this mission with Jackie back when NASA was still flying high from hotwiring the station.
I hear a click, and then Micha, the EVA task group lead, begins the comm checks. “Flight lead?”
“Go,” Ian says.
“EV1?”
“Go.” My lungs, now adjusted to the nitrox being pumped into the suit through my LCVG’s umbilical, take a deep, mind-clearing breath. Nitrox is a higher mixture of oxygen than humans normally breathe in everyday life. It helps reduce the risk of decompression sickness.
“EV2?”
“Go.” Bodie’s voice sounds in my helmet.
