» Best Job In Town

I love space. No, really, I do. That’s one of the reasons I write science fiction. Between “Inner Space”, the world’s oceans, and outer space, what lies outside our atmospheric cocoon, it’s hard to tell which one is the most “alien”, and the most fascinating for me.

But space … To paraphrase Douglas Adams, it’s big - mind-bogglingly big. The potentials for me, as an author, are obvious.

We didn’t “understand” the world itself much a few hundred years ago, and that gave rise to flights of fancy - “Here be dragons”. In modern times, we’re only just beginning to get a handle on the world we live on, and are discovering that it’s not just the tip of the iceberg - it’s a snowflake on a glacier, comparatively speaking. Out there, in space, there is so much we don’t understand, so much potential. It gives me the chance to say “There be dragons” - and to wonder.

Wonder because as vivid and fertile my imagination might be, it’s almost a sure bet that what is really out there will be even more spectacular, even more wild and wonderous, even more “alien”.

But, as much as I enjoy putting dragons on the celestial maps in the minds of my readers, it’s only imagination. For a lucky few, space is a reality. Whether they be astronauts or cosmonauts, men or women, these people get to go into space, to live and work.

They also get reminded now and again of Mr Murphy - That zany legislator that sits over the shoulder of everyone waiting for just the right moment to strike. The astronauts of STS-123 have been having long chats with Mr Murphy since they launched into space carrying part of Japan’s Kibo module, and the Canadian Dextre robot, to the International Space Station last week.

I’m thinking Dextre and C3PO of Star Wars fame both have an aversion to being in space. It began with power problems to the robot, then problems removing one of the massive “arms” from the special pallet the pieces were all attached to for shipping to the ISS.

I think space is one of the few places left where there are always challenges. Equipment costing billions of Dollars, billions of Euros, billions of Yen, and everything risks being brought to a screeching halt because Mr Murphy is feeling frisky. When the technology starts to fail, ingenuity, creative thinking, and sometimes simple brute force are brought into play.

A couple of the bolts holding one of Dextre’s arms to the pallet wouldn’t budge during the latest assembly segment of the flight. If the media is to be believed, nothing would get around the bolts - until someone had the bright idea of using a prybar.

All that money spent on all that equipment, and it was a couple of dollars worth of metal bar that fixed the issue (although, it being for a NASA contract, someone probably charged the government $600 for that prybar).

When I read it, my mind went back to one of my copious reminder “Musings On Matters Spatial”.

An object in motion tends to remain in motion until it bumps into your protagonist

Remembering that in free fall, pushing against something usually results in you moving in the opposite direction, I wonder how many raised eyebrows the prybar idea raised. After all, the only thing up there to hold on to, to gain leverage from, is the station itself - or, more likely, standing on the end of the Canadarm system.

Now, I’ve seen pictures of astronauts standing on the platform at the end of Canadarm. It looks really thin and flimsy. I’m sure it’s perfectly safe, but still, standing on the end of a robotic arm whilst trying to lever recalcitrant bolts?

Hell yeah
When I was a kid, I made myself a promise that one day, I’d get to go into space, which even back then had captured my imagination. It might take a while yet, NASA has yet to discover that a lack of working legs isn’t necessarily a handicap in free fall it seems, but I’ll get there. In the meantime, I’ll just watch NASA TV online, and dream, and sigh at those astronauts who have the best job in town.

Source: NASA ¹

1. S123-E-006101 (13/14 March 2008) — Astronaut Rick Linnehan, STS-123 mission specialist, participates in the mission’s first scheduled session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station. During the seven-hour and one-minute spacewalk, Linnehan and astronaut Garrett Reisman (out of frame), Expedition 16 flight engineer, prepared the Japanese logistics module-pressurized section (JLP) for removal from Space Shuttle Endeavour’s payload bay; opened the Centerline Berthing Camera System on top of the Harmony module; removed the Passive Common Berthing Mechanism and installed both the Orbital Replacement Unit (ORU) tool change out mechanisms on the Canadian-built Dextre robotic system, the final element of the station’s Mobile Servicing System. [back]