parts together.'
'Yeah. Jim, I'll start suiting up and will be back online in about fifty-six minutes or so. Anson out.'
I made my way through the forward cabin to the flight deck. The air in the Shuttle was a little thinner today since an EVA was planned. I was trying to acclimate myself to it again. It was easier this time than before the EVA at the ISS. On the way to the forward section of the flight deck I bumped, and I mean that literally, into Tracy and Malcom Edmunds. They seemed busy. I'm not sure doing what. How could they have been training for a Shuttle mission while stationed on ISS for the past two or three months?
'What're you guys doing?' I asked.
'Malcom and I are working on the video equipment. We thought we would help document your EVA.' Tracy smiled, then turned back to her work.
'Have you guys seen the boss?'
'She's up front,' Malcom responded.
Tabitha was reading some flight data from a monitor and marking checks on a pad. I watched her for a second before I considered interrupting. I had a lot on my mind. An EVA, the first ever warp drive, and the woman I love— quite a bit to process while navigating close quarters in microgravity.
'Just a sec, Anson,' she said without looking up. How she knew it was me I will never know. I didn't even get to interrupt her. She finished flipping a switch or two and checking boxes on her pad. She stuck the pad to a Velcro patch on the side of her seat and turned to me, 'Ready to go outside?' She had a big girly grin and looked less business-as-usual.
'That's what I was coming to tell you. We have about forty minutes of sucking pure O2 to do,' I said.
'Yeah, don't want to get the bends.'
'But before we get to that . . .' I looked around and made sure we were alone. 'Can we talk for a second?' I asked. I felt in my pocket to make sure the reason for this conversation was still there.
'Sure, what's on your mind? We're about eight and half -minutes ahead of schedule. We've got time to burn.' She looked at her wristwatch.
I floated up close to her. 'Well, uh. You see, uh. It is like this-'
'Spit it out, Anson. We only have a few minutes.' Colonel Ames said.
'Boy! You can sure spoil a mood. Anyway, I was just thinking that we have been seeing a lot of each other over the last couple of years and all. And that I have really enjoyed it.' She seemed to soften slightly.
'I have also,' is all Tabitha said.
'Uh, I mean, I like your daughter a lot. And your parents,' I stalled.
'They like you too,' she added.
'Well . . .' I began again, 'Uh . . .' Major Donald stuck his head through the hatch into the flight deck.
'You guys ready for your EVA? You ought to be on oxygen by now.' Tabitha snapped to attention as if she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. I had to wait. The time would come. Maybe later. Maybe later! Damnit-all-to-hell!
'Yeah Ray. Take over the checklists here. Anson and I are going to suit up.' We left for the aft section of the Shuttle.
'So, what were you saying, Anson?' She asked.
'Never mind. I'll tell you later. Besides, we have stuff to do.'
Twenty minutes later we were in our Liquid Cooling-and-Ventilation Garments (LCVG) and had been on the oxygen masks for a while. The LCVGs are basically just white Spandex long johns with tubing running throughout them. Water flows through the tubes to keep the body cool. The water is handled by the Primary Life-Support System or PLSS. The PLSS pumps the coolant around the body and also accomplishes any air handling. The PLSS can handle up to a million joules of heat per hour. You have to be working really hard to generate that kind of heat. As an example, I like to tell students that if a postage stamp is burned only about 200 joules of heat is released. So, the PLSS is fairly robust. The major portion of the PLSS is housed in the backpack unit and interfaces to the LCVG through ductwork and ventilation tubes in the suit. Tabitha and I helped each other with the various parts of our suits.
The Hard Upper Torso (HUT) and the Space Suit Assembly portions of the suits were snapped in place and we began running diagnostics. Finally, we managed to completely suit ourselves into the Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs). I still prefer to call them spacesuits or environment suits. But when in Rome!
We did our final checklists for the EMU communications systems and then made our way into the airlock. The airlock of the Shuttle is just big enough for two fully suited astronauts to fit inside. The two D-shaped doors were closed and the pressure hatches were ready to be cycled. Tabitha and I did one last visual check of our suits. This being my second EVA, it was all old hat to me. The hatch for the outer exit has six interconnected latches with a gearbox and an actuator system. I looked through the polycarbonate plastic window in the hatch as Tabitha checked the actuators and then the pressure gauges on each side of the two pressure-equalization valves. Both the inner and outer hatches were sealed.
'Okay, Ray, I'm going to cycle the pressure.' Tabitha announced.
Depressurization of the airlock started. I could hear a slight hissing at first and then nothing. I checked my suit pressure one last time. Everything was A-okay at about four pounds per square inch.
'The pressure gauge shows zero. I'm going to open the hatch.' Tabitha called out each step by the book. She grabbed the latch mechanism and the dual pressure seals let loose without a sound. I didn't even feel it through my EMU. I could see the payload bay through the hatchway.
'Entering the payload bay.'
'Roger that,' someone from Houston responded.
'Houston, this is Clemons. I am following the colonel into the bay.'
