Space Travel Diary (Pedro Duque) – ESA Mission – Cervantes: Lost in Space October 26, 2003
Pedro Dueca. Translation: Eli Ben David
Direct link to this page: https://www.hayadan.org.il/duque4.html
In a neat and clean home or office, you can immediately see if someone has dropped something, a case for glasses, for example. Being on the floor, the object catches the eye, and anyone who passes by it will notice it. On the space station, several factors make it very difficult to find lost things.
Well, first of all, of course, zero gravity. A few days ago I had a ballpoint pen sticking out of one of my pants pockets and while passing by somewhere in the station I rubbed against something and lost it but I immediately felt that something had happened. I quickly turned around to catch him. is nothing. It just couldn't be found. He just flew on his way and I didn't know which way, up, down. It is nowhere to be found. I've already started to worry about the fact that I've lost him. I turned to continue my planned work at the station and then I saw him hovering in front of me, in the same direction I was moving. Apparently, while it was being pulled out of my pocket, it hit something and just jumped over me and continued without waiting for me.
The station is built using a modular method where the work area is more or less rectangular, but front and back, up and down and even to the right and left there are ancillary facilities with many adapters and openings. As a result, there are many corners where a certain thing can hide.
In addition to this: what is a wall and what is a floor? And which side is the ceiling? In many places the four walls of the "tube" from which the module is built are the same. So, basically anything is hard to find.
For example: I do a lot of work in one of the modules that is not in the main "tube", but is connected to it. You have to make a 90 degree turn to enter this module from the others. Until then, everything is fine. When you enter, everything below you is called "floor" and everything above you is called "ceiling". But sometimes you enter from a different direction on your journey along the tube, and then make the turn. Now you will find that the ceiling is the floor and vice versa. Because of this, if I left the computer running and plugged into the wall, when I come back to the room I always have to make a full circle to find it.
And finally, there are so many things attached to the four walls that it can be described as an organized mess. Everything stands in your way, but everything is due to the need of the hour. For example, it is impossible to put the camera aside because we take many pictures of the work we do in the various experiments and also of the Earth. All cameras are held in place with Velcro (an adhesive bristle material used as a substitute for zippers and buttons), along with a variety of lenses, flashes, etc. Sometimes you have to go around three times to find the camera you need.
Other items visible above are spare parts, food packages, bags full of clothes, etc. It's not like we use these things on a daily basis, but there's no more room in the cupboards. The construction of the station is not finished yet and there will be no spaces to store all the things until all the planned modules are finally connected to the station.
One of the things I use a lot is my notebook that I take with me everywhere to write down information about the experiments I conduct. I record in it the exact time when I changed the samples, the results, things to pay attention to, etc. This notebook needs to go back to DHA with all the data. It will help the scientists reconstruct exactly how everything happened. For the first few days, this notebook drove me crazy. I taped it, of course, with a large sheet of velcro to keep it from floating around the station. But at the end of the day, if I didn't find it in the first place I looked, then it took me a really long time to find it.
Now I've gotten used to putting the pad in one of three different places but at first it was quite unsettling because I never knew if I had dropped it somewhere else or if it had come loose from Holcro's grip and was just floating around, which in fact could have been anywhere in the station.
While making the famous turn (described above) towards the work area with the notebook on me, along with several other books and various items, I felt that the notebook was no longer with me. I assumed it was gone when I bumped the corner slightly, so I immediately returned to the spot. It is nowhere to be found. After a few "nervous" minutes - afraid that I would pay the price for the delay at the end of the day - I found him hidden in a corner. thank god
I forgot to mention the importance of the loss factor (of items): the air current. Since everything floats, and because the air is regenerated and cleaned using fans and filters, anything that floats tends to ride on the air current. The airflow actually helps more than hinders, contrary to what one might think. If you lost something small all you have to do is wait about two hours and then you will know where it goes: to the filter where the air enters the circulation of the system. We are already used to checking there sometimes for cash: you can find all kinds of interesting things there.
to the corresponding page in the original journal
They knew space operations outside the US
Yadan International Space Station
For the first part
The second part
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https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~684058712~~~264&SiteName=hayadan
