My wife reluctantly and . . .

My wife reluctantly and generously agreed that I take a trip and says that the next decision of similar magnitude should be hers now.

It is interesting that all the 60’s or 70’s science fiction movies such as 2001 and the campy Moonraker all featured rotating space stations to create gravity, although the gravity was mostly needed to reduce film production costs so that weightlessness would not need to be shown all the time.

On my last trip the station had a schedule shifted by 8 hours or more, for some complex operational reason, and we had the same jet leg as if we had flown from Moscow to Seattle.

The Russians love tea of course (preferably from a samovar) but I do not seem to need it.

Or read his answer sent from space:

Dear Jozsef, yes the station is in better shape, with the board be . . .

Or read his answer sent from space:

Dear Jozsef, yes the station is in better shape, with the board better organized and of course three new large science labs, a new US module plus the European and Japanese modules. Having two toilets is also much appreciated.

As to making spaceflight more common and routine, humanity has to solve its energy problem at a higher level of aspiration than what is generally contemplated by the political classes. In other words, the goal of mere survival is not going to lift us to the stars; In fact in my experience, the lower you aim the less likely you are to reach even your low goals.

Frankly, as to wide access to space the key physical q . . .

Frankly, as to wide access to space the key physical quantity is energy. It takes a lot of energy to accelerate mass to orbital velocity, there are shortcuts known to current science. The only energy source known to us that meets the numbers (and that could meet all of our other needs as well) is nuclear energy. It is not a joke when Piccard in Star Trek asks the engineers for a few terawatts more to solve whatever problems they happen to have. We need to think big if we want to get there.

What changes from orbit for me is the appreciation how large the Earth is relative to what we see from the ground, or even from an airplane.

I cannot help but add: space is also for us without the right stuff, we bring other complementary skills to the table, whether we are called Payload Specialists, Research Cosmonauts, or Spaceflight Participants.

The IP phone, which is a commercial software product, really improved the crews’ ability to be connected with their families. It is not a service I use on the ground and I was amazed to see how primitive the user interface is: instead of simulating a cell phone interface, which most everybody knows, the designers give a soft button simulation of the old phones where you better dial fast and correct or else you have to start from scratch which is again painfully slow (there is no redial capability, or at least it is in no place that anyone up here knows.) I am amazed when the incredible feat of making multiple phone calls from a space station is accomplished, but the simple problem of executing one or two commands (CALL, END CALL) with one numeric parameter (the number to be dialed) is solved so poorly by a highly successful commercial corporation. And here it is not the case that the second problem is, in fact, harder than the first. Brrrr. Do not get me started…

On the Soyuz the official lang . . .

On the Soyuz the official language is Russian (and the official time is Statute Moscow Time). All signage and documentation are in Russian, although there are many translations for training on the ground.

Russian language was an important part of our training. The American astronauts that fly the Soyuz speak Russian extremely well. I enjoyed my study immensely although with less visible results, although I read well, especially technical stuff.

You can easily hold up you arm, talk, or work the instrument panel.

. . .

Weightlessness has many effects, some are not important for a shorter term visitor like myself. My face gets puffy especially for the first few days and there could have been some vestibular (balance) problems, but there were none for me this time. Otherwise it is quite normal.

I almost forgot the back-ache you get while sleeping. It is bothersome enough that there is a research program on it. It may have to do with the stretching of the spine as it is no longer compressed. It is not very severe and goes away once I get out of the sleeping bag. On a scale of 0-10, the pain during my first four nights was: 0, 3, 2, 1. Taking Tylenol for 3 and 2 helped.

I cannot say that the station experience is particularly relevant to programming, but the training, the detailed knowledge of the total system, and its use is very relevant. In some ways the flight just verifies that the training worked in this view. I see the need for intentional representations everywhere, in most every piece of software or documentation that I see. And I see also how people effectively take an intentional approach for problems, for example Russian documentation tends to starts with a section called “composition and purpose” where they introduce a nomenclature and declare their intentions for those terms. Also they tend to use very effective notations and illustrations.

The crew treats me very well – as a member of an integral team. I think I worked hard to earn this. Just to be able to take care of myself is already a big help for them – otherwise they would have to take care of me in addition to their other tasks. On the exam, the commander would be primarily in trouble if we did not succeed together. Yes, I have some simple tasks that I should do, there is also ways for them to do these but would be much more difficult.

We were . . .

We were concerned about the start of STS-119 for operational reasons. I was looking forward to visit with either Sandra or Koichi, both of whom I’ve met in Star City during training. And we watched the safe landing of Discovery just after we have docked with the ISS.

Or read the written answer received from space:

I've heard about this in our training courses. There i . . .

Or read the written answer received from space:

I've heard about this in our training courses. There is no clear effect – some people reported this and even then it is not clear if they taste differently or simply get tired of the monotony. Right now we have mountains of food up here, for example the Shuttle, whose trip was cut short one day, left all of their remaining rations here fur us. These are short term rations so they are tasty, different, and we have to eat them before they expire.

My favorites are hazelnuts, lemonade, spaghetti with cheese, beef chunks in vegetables, chicken with eggs (!), and a spam like spicy dish called azu (07C).

And here is the answer written from space:

Dear Atilla: the theme is a continuation of the first one: . . .

And here is the answer written from space:

Dear Atilla: the theme is a continuation of the first one: support of space exploration, advancing civilian spaceflight, and involving kids in science, math, and engineering through the magic of space.

The motto of the flight is “Das ewig Weibliche zieht uns hinan”, a quote from Goethe, declaring the “eternal feminine” as a force that drives us to ever greater heights.

And an additional written answer:

I had a premonition on the last day of the first flight that it . . .

And an additional written answer:

I had a premonition on the last day of the first flight that it would not be my last day in space. But there was a confluence of events later that made me decide that if I do not do it now, I would not be able to do it again.

I hope to experience the same thing with much better preparation and maybe with greater ease so I can accomplish more. 

And here is the written answer from space:

Here it is:

10 Print “Hello World!&rd . . .

And here is the written answer from space:

Here it is:

10 Print “Hello World!”

20 End

The binder was the “On-board data file” which is a checklist and an algorithm of what to do in any given contingency. There are ten volumes for the 3 crew members and they are mostly on a shelf to my right. The green volume that I was reading from was “Insertion into orbit and return” and the red is called “off-nominal situations”. No, the checklists can be read at any phase of the flight, during my first return the shelf was full of return cargo and the commander asked me to hold the books all the way down – of course I could not read my part that way. I only lost them when we rolled on the ground being pulled by the parachutes and gravity yanked them from my embrace.

I described the checklists as the score that you take to the opera so you can follow it better – of course for the conductor – the commander in this case – it is much more serious. The checklist are written in a highly specialized – intentional – language with little pictograms and lots of abbreviations, almost like assembly language. There are a lot of goto’s: “continue work at page 12 point 3”. It gives me great satisfaction to be able to follow them even in the hectic environment of a spaceflight with poor radio communications and the like – OK I did miss a few things, but got most of it.

I love classical music as well as rock and punk – I am kind of old fashioned that way. My last musical experience was “Dr. Atomic” at the Metropolitan – I liked it a lot.

Drinking is through straws from a collapsible container. There is also a kind of water fountain where we spray a stream into our mouths directly; we always spill a little but it does not matter, you can just clean up with a towel. But we do not recommend this method for coffee, for example, it would stain everything.

Eating is made practical by limiting what you eat. Most dishes have a pudding-like consistency so crumbs do not separate and this way they do not float away. The food also sticks to the spoon enough to hold it as you eat: actually a fork or a spoon here would work about the same. We eat bread in very small portions, like portions of chocolate, so we can eat it whole and do not have to cut it or break it.

The 11 days on the station is quite sufficient for performing a number of experiments, talking to 6 schools and numerous other HAM operators as well. Also, it is about the limit that one can take without having to exercise vigorously for which there is not enough room in the station yet. Also, do not forget that we work on weekends, at least during this “handover” period when the crews are exchanged.

I will not do a spacewalk – if I did, that would be physically the most demanding by far. I have the greatest respect for the astronauts and cosmonauts who make what is practically an Olympic sport, look easy.

In some off-nominal situations there would be greater than normal loads which we trained for. Two extreme cases of physical challenge, that we did not practice for, would be an abort in the early stages of the flight which would hit us with a momentary 20-30G’s, and the most dreaded case of landing in the ocean. The Soyuz is a space ship, but would not do well in an ocean.

I consider all parts of the trip very enjoyable, including the training, and especially the quarantine period with the great crew in the “world’s most exclusive hotel”. A high point will be certainly the approach and docking with the space station. We are going to a different docking port than last time, but the docking time will be the “same”, namely sunset.

Space sickness is the popular name for SAS, the Space Adaptation Syndrome, something like a real bad case of seasickness that many people feel when first exposed to weightlessness. The symptoms are lethargy, nausea and even vomiting. There are very effective countermeasures: resting with the eyes closed and drugs that might be administered intramuscular or in suppository form. There are a lot of arguments about preventing SAS by training. I followed the Russian training regimen last time and did not get sick. This time I am again following the regimen, even more aggressively, and do not expect to be sick. I am showing on the site some of the exercises we do: the tilt table, the rotating chair, the Braslet tourniquet device, and sleeping in a tilted bed.

Why have more than one mode? Each mode has its comfort level, its needs for information and equipment working, and its failure modes. By having a mix of modes an incredibly robust system is created that is expected to survive and has survived a wide range of glitches and failures – failures of hardware and pilot errors as well.

In the first two of the last three returns, ballistic re-entry was executed because of a very peculiar failure of the module separation system. The failure was peculiar because the system is quad-redundant, yet it failed the same way twice in a row. I had a long discussion with Sergey Krikalov about the analysis and I am very confident that this won’t happen again and somewhat confident that we know the reasons for the failure. In the remote chance that this or some other problem were to arise, it is super reassuring to know that the backup modes are available and work well. The reentry will be less comfortable for about one minute, but that would be a very minor consideration in the scheme of things.

As to the urine processor. I was not trained on this and maybe I should reserve comments until after the flight. In the abstract it does not bother me that the water has been distilled from urine, just as it did not bother me when the drinking water originated from the air conditioner and before that the wet towels. I suspect that much of this water will be processed into oxygen for breathing. But I offer a slogan to be posted on the urine processor: “Non olet!”

One is that some things just have to be done on ho . . .

One is that some things just have to be done on hope (or faith, or heuristics if you will.) This is why I chose as the motto of my flight “Das ewig Weibliche zieht uns hinan”. This avoids the problem of having to provide other clumsy, possibly wrong, or vulgar explanations. I do not know how we could go for four light years – or even just to the moons of Saturn, for that matter. But I know how to go to ISS for 13 days, and for now for me that will suffice.

My other comment is that when people compare “hard” thing (A) with “simple” thing (B), as in “if we can go to the moon(A), how come we cannot do (B)?” the answer may well be that the labels are wrong, (A) is in fact relatively simple while (B) is devilishly or impossibly hard. In other words, food may be harder than space.

Bruce, special thanks to you for curating the artifacts of the digital revolution, especially the software artifacts that seem to be more fragile than anything ever collected. I was just visiting the museum here in Baykonur again and paid my respects to the URAL-1 and the BESM there.

I am personally very cautious about asking the government to take any action, especially in areas that I do not understand well. Covering whole states with wind turbines or solar cells seems to me a serious matter and calls for even more contemplation than drilling in a tiny corner of far away Alaska. In other words, low-density energy sources raise even more issues than high-density technologies.

I am very glad that you enjoyed these notes in the spirit that they are offered. I believe that spaceflight is a privilege and with it comes a duty to share the experience, especially since I have more free time for observation and description than the other spacefarers.

A Szojuz TMA tipusu urhajon fogok repulni az urallomasra. Ezelott tobbe kevesbe 100 ilyen urhajo repult mar.

A Szojuz TMA tipusu urhajon fogok repulni az urallomasra. Ezelott tobbe kevesbe 100 ilyen urhajo repult mar.

Az urben nagyon jo, de a foldon meg job, itt van a csalad, a jo etelek es a finom zuhany.

Az urben nagyon jo, de a foldon meg job, itt van a csalad, a jo etelek es a finom zuhany.

In addition to the experiment I will also communicate with schools with the help of Amateur Radio (HAM) and communicate the fun and excitement of science, mathematics and engineering from this unique vantage point. I will also take a lot of pictures inside and outside of the station and answer questions from the internet during the flight and in this way share the experience with other space enthusiasts.

I’ve written about zero-g in other answers. BTW – you can get a bit of zero-g on glider airplanes, too, and feel it for yourself.

Second. The ISS runs two kinds of software. The control of the station is entrusted to a quad-redundant system of computers that runs proprietary Russian software. Without knowing much about the problem, by gut feeling is that the degree of redundancy is unnecessary and creates tremendous complexity and costs. Now the system has been remarkably reliable, but it is worth noting that the most serious challenge to the system came when a problem during a power system extension caused a complete failure of all the four computers and associated equipment. Certainly the reboot and recovery would have been much simpler had the underlying system been simpler. I would have gone with a double redundant system and with independent backups which the Russians pretty much have for all the critical functions – sometimes the independent means is “analog” – which is again unnecessarily conservative IMHO – or it is manual. The main purpose of redundancy is to protect against crashes and support hot replacement of components. Self testing does not really require component redundancy.

The other kind of software on ISS runs on a bunch of identical “laptops” that are connected with Ethernet. Most of the laptops run Windows, but two that run the user interface to the station systems run on Linux. These user interfaces (there are different programs for the Russian and American segments) are in part similar to industrial process control systems with nice diagrams graphically showing the status of systems, valves, hatches, airflows, and like. Other parts of the interface are very simple, more like a test-rig to exercise something. So you may have to scroll down on a long list of programming mnemonics (not in Hungarian) and select something like O23_TVLGT_OF and then go through some dialog boxes to execute this command to turn the TV lights off. Not the most user friendly, but fortunately the emergency response dialogs are better, so I am not worried about safety. On the Windows laptops people run the various utility programs, the most important being the program for the schedule, the program for inventory control (the station inventory consists of hundreds of thousands of items), and the program that shows the path of the station over the surface.

Running the software on identical laptops is exactly the right thing to do. There are plenty of laptops, some are “dedicated” some are personal. If one were to fail, it is easily replaced. The main disks are in pluggable units, so often the replacement machine can be started right away. The protection of the system from viruses is still a challenge so it is not permitted to bring software to the station without a qualification process.

During public appearances many people asked me if I would go again and I – as all the other spaceflight participants I’ve talked to – always answered that I would. So when the opportunity actually arose, I thought that space research deserved my continuing support and I gradually decided to fly again. I like to think of the flight as a continuation of the first one. When I talked with Sergey Krikalov, who has been in space 6 times, about his experiences, he explained to me how much more efficient one can be on the second and subsequent flights. I found him very persuasive.

Some people who are up there for months report that their sense of taste changes – one who preferred tea for coffee on the ground is drinking coffee now, for example.  I did not notice any difference in tastes during my two weeks. I missed cold drinks, though. I understand that now we have a refrigerator (at least on the American segment) and I hope that I will be able to cool down some of the great Russian juice.

As to NASA director I have no views. I have advanced in the past some ideas of separating scientific space, private space regulation, and manned spaceflight, each of which require different approaches, scope, and temperament.

Best scouting wishes, Charles

If you do not mind, I will answer your questions here, and feel free to use these answer in your website!

I did not want to become an astronaut until it was pointed out to me and found out fo . . .

If you do not mind, I will answer your questions here, and feel free to use these answer in your website!

I did not want to become an astronaut until it was pointed out to me and found out for myself that it was a possibility both in terms of my health and the length of the training that was necessary. I would not have dreamt of such before.

I wrote a lot about my first times in various situations. Probably my most vivid memory in Star City was the first training session in the Soyuz simulator – that is when I started to feel what a spaceflight might be like for real, in a very tight space with my crewmates surrounded by equipment and cargo.

My favorite picture is the launch of a Mercury-Atlas rocket – it reminds me of a pioneering time for space and my childhood as I was learning English by trying to translate the captions. I was very privileged later on to meet Sen. Glenn who rode in that rocket.

My favorite object is the LSST – the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope – its mirror is cast, but the rest remains to be completed. Look it up!

My crazy dreams have a habit of coming true, so I have to be careful. I am still dreaming of a new way of programming – Intentional Programming, and I am confident that it will come true, too.

I remember the moon landing very clearly. I was a poor student in Berkeley California, and I rented a color TV for a week (I think it was $20 or so) to be able to watch the mission. It was an amazing milestone but somehow it was brighter both in the anticipation and in retrospect than in that very moment.

I am sorry but I cannot take more things to space – and especially I cannot bring them back. The spacecraft is one third the size coming down than going up so the cargo we can carry is also very limited.

The best moment of the first flight was the rendezvous and docking with the space station – a truly out-of-this world experience.

BTW, exercise on the station is quite complex and because of this I will not have the opportunity to exercise at all – none of my experiments require it and my health as a short time flyer is not endangered by the lack of exercise for the 13 days. To give you just one idea of the issues, when a cosmonaut is on the treadmill, he or she needs to monitor the state of the control gyros because they may be overloaded while trying to compensate for the shaking of the station by the exercise. If the gyros are overloaded, the exercise has to stop until the gyros can catch up.

As to “fly by wire”, I am naturally a fan of digital systems where there are sensors, actuators, and everything else is digital. An ink-jet printer is a good example, and today we see that miniature spacecraft or RPVs or UAVs are all organized this way. At the same time I am also in awe of old technologies such as mechanical computers or, for that matter, the Soyuz. They are robust and transparent – I think they are natural introductions for young people into engineering. I have no problems with the reliability of fly-by-wire. Mechanical systems also have many failure modes, and it is actually easier to increase the reliability of fly-by-wire systems than that of the traditional controls that use cables and pulleys. One big early issue with fly-by-wire was the lack of transparency: a clear intuitive understanding of the software that controlled the interaction between the sensors and actuators. This is now better understood but there is still a lot of room in software engineering to improve the description of the software, in other words to make the definition more “intentional”.

To me the most important and most fun training was the theory because it help me understand very thoroughly why the flight is safe and exactly why the crew does what they do. Har det rigtigt godt!

On the station I think my favorite activity will be to observe the earth and to learn to identify features on the surface. The last time I did not have much time for doing this, plus our sleep schedule was such that during our waking hours we could see only the Pacific ocean – majestic for sure, but a little bit boring after the first few dozen times. This time we will be over Europe more of the time. By looking at the computer and seeing where we are, I hope to develop a better eye for recognizing features – cities, rivers, man-made structures. I remember from last time so many interesting patterns, where I did not have the faintest idea of what I could have been looking at or where I was.