An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth Read online

  On December 19, 2012, I went back to space for the third time, via the Russian Soyuz, along with NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko. Crews on the ISS overlap so newcomers have a few months to learn from old-timers; we joined Expedition 34, which was commanded by Kevin Ford. When his crew left in early March 2013, Expedition 35 began with a new commander: me. It was what I’d been working toward my whole life, really, to be capable and competent to assume responsibility for both the crew—which numbered six again in late March, when another Soyuz arrived—and the ISS itself. It was reality, yet hard to believe.

  As I got ready for my third flight, it struck me: I was one of the most senior astronauts in the office. This was not my favorite revelation of all time, given that I didn’t—still don’t—think of myself as that old. On the plus side, however, people listened to what I had to say and respected my opinion; I had influence over the training and flight design process and could help make it more practical and relevant. Twenty years after I got that phone call from Mac Evans, asking if I wanted to join the CSA, I was an éminence grise at JSC—I’d only been in space 20 days, yet I had turned myself into an astronaut. Or to be more accurate, I’d been turned into an astronaut; NASA and the CSA had seen to that, by providing the right education and experiences.

  That third mission, of course, greatly expanded my experience. I didn’t just visit space: I got to live there. By the time our crew landed, after 146 days in space, we’d orbited Earth 2,336 times and traveled almost 62 million miles. We’d also completed a record amount of science on the ISS. Expedition 34/35 was the pinnacle of my career, and the culmination of years of training—not just training to develop specific job-related skills, like piloting a Soyuz, but training to develop new instincts, new ways of thinking, new habits. And that journey, even more than the ones I’ve taken in rocket ships, transformed me in ways I could not have imagined when I was a 9-year-old boy looking up at the night sky, transfixed by wonder.

  See, a funny thing happened on the way to space: I learned how to live better and more happily here on Earth. Over time, I learned how to anticipate problems in order to prevent them, and how to respond effectively in critical situations. I learned how to neutralize fear, how to stay focused and how to succeed.

  And many of the techniques I learned were fairly simple though counterintuitive—crisp inversions of snappy aphorisms, in some cases. Astronauts are taught that the best way to reduce stress is to sweat the small stuff. We’re trained to look on the dark side and to imagine the worst things that could possibly happen. In fact, in simulators, one of the most common questions we learn to ask ourselves is, “Okay, what’s the next thing that will kill me?” We also learn that acting like an astronaut means helping one another’s families at launch—by taking their food orders, running their errands, holding their purses and dashing out to buy diapers. Of course, much of what we learn is technically complex, but some of it is surprisingly down-to-earth. Every astronaut can fix a busted toilet—we have to do it all the time in space—and we all know how to pack meticulously, the way we have to in the Soyuz, where every last item must be strapped down just so or the weight and balance get thrown off.

  The upshot of all this is that we become competent, which is the most important quality to have if you’re an astronaut—or, frankly, anyone, anywhere, who is striving to succeed at anything at all. Competence means keeping your head in a crisis, sticking with a task even when it seems hopeless, and improvising good solutions to tough problems when every second counts. It encompasses ingenuity, determination and being prepared for anything.

  Astronauts have these qualities not because we’re smarter than everyone else (though let’s face it, you do need a certain amount of intellectual horsepower to be able to fix a toilet). It’s because we are taught to view the world—and ourselves—differently. My shorthand for it is “thinking like an astronaut.” But you don’t have to go to space to learn to do that.

  It’s mostly a matter of changing your perspective.

  2

  HAVE AN ATTITUDE

  NO MATTER HOW COMPETENT or how seasoned, every astronaut is essentially a perpetual student, forever cramming for the next test. It’s not how I envisioned things when I was 9 years old. Then I dreamed of blasting off in a blaze of glory to explore the universe, not sitting in a classroom studying orbital mechanics. In Russian. But as it happens, I love my job—the day-to-day reality of it, not just the flying around in space part (though that is definitely cool).

  If the only thing you really enjoyed was whipping around Earth in a spaceship, you’d hate being an astronaut. The ratio of prep time to time on orbit is many months: single day in space. You train for a few years, minimum, before you’re even assigned to a space mission; training for a specific mission then takes between two and four years, and is much more intensive and rigorous than general training. You practice tricky, repetitive tasks as well as highly challenging ones to the point of exhaustion, and you’re away from home more than half the time. If you don’t love the job, that time will not fly. Nor will the months after a flight, when you’re recovering, undergoing medical testing and debriefing on all kinds of technical and scientific details. Nor will the years of regular training between missions, when you’re recertifying and learning new skills, while helping other astronauts get ready for their flights. If you viewed training as a dreary chore, not only would you be unhappy every day, but your sense of self-worth and professional purpose would be shattered if you were scrubbed from a mission—or never got one.

  Some astronauts never do. They train, they do all the work and they never leave Earth. I took this job knowing that I might be one of them.

  I’m a realist, and one who grew up in a time when “Canadian astronauts” simply didn’t exist. I was already an adult, with a university degree and a job, when Canada selected its first astronauts in 1983. So when I finally did get to Houston in 1992, I was elated that it was possible for me to be there at all, but also skeptical about my prospects of leaving the planet. Crew time on the ISS was determined by the amount of money a country contributed; Canada provided less than 2 percent of the Station’s funding, so got less than 2 percent of the crew time—an entirely fair and inflexible arrangement. But even Americans who are selected for the astronaut corps have no guarantee that they’ll get to space. There’s always the possibility of a radical shift in government funding; when programs are canceled, it affects a whole generation of astronauts. Or a rocket might blow up and kill a crew, and then human space flight would be put on hold for years, until a full accident review could be carried out and the public could be convinced it was safe, and worthwhile, to resume. Or the vehicles themselves could change. The Shuttle was retired in 2011, after 30 years in service, and today the Soyuz, a much smaller vehicle, is the only way for human beings to get to the ISS. Some astronauts hired during the Shuttle era are simply too tall to fly in the tiny Soyuz. The possibility that they’ll leave Earth is currently zero.

  Changes in your own life also affect your chances of flying. You could develop a minor health problem that nevertheless disqualifies you (you have to pass the toughest medical in the world to get to the International Space Station—no one wants to cut a mission short and spend millions of dollars, literally, to bring an ailing astronaut home early). Or a major family crisis could force you to miss your one window of opportunity.

  Over time, even the qualifications required to get assigned to a mission can change. The Shuttle carried a crew of seven who were in space just a couple of weeks, so there was room for people whose skill set was deep but not wide. If 12 tons of equipment were being transported to the ISS and everything had to be painstakingly unloaded, reassembled and installed, and then the cargo bay needed to be repacked with a huge load of assorted bits and pieces to take back to Earth, being a fanatically organized loadmaster was qualification enough. On the Soyuz, there’s simply not room to fly someone whose main contribution is expertise in a sin
gle area. The Russian rocket ship only carries three people, and between them they need to cover off a huge matrix of skills. Some are obvious: piloting the rocket, spacewalking, operating the robotic elements of the ISS like Canadarm2, being able to repair things that break on Station, conducting and monitoring the numerous scientific experiments on board. But since the crew is going to be away from civilization for many months, they also need to be able to do things like perform basic surgery and dentistry, program a computer and rewire an electrical panel, take professional-quality photographs and conduct a press conference—and get along harmoniously with colleagues, 24/7, in a confined space.

  In the Shuttle era, NASA wanted people who could operate the most complicated vehicle in the world for short stints. Today, NASA looks for people who can be locked in a tin can for six months and excel, so temperament alone could disqualify you for space flight. A certain personality type that was perfectly acceptable, even stereotypical, in the past—the real hard-ass, say—is not wanted on the voyage when it is going to be a long one.

  Getting to space depends on many variables and circumstances that are entirely beyond an individual astronaut’s control, so it always made sense to me to view space flight as a bonus, not an entitlement. And like any bonus, it would be foolhardy to bank on it. Fortunately, there’s plenty to keep astronauts engaged and enthusiastic about the job. I relished the physicality of working in simulators and in the pool, while others thrived on carrying out scientific research and still others liked having input into space policy and helping run the program. Sure, we occasionally grumbled about rules and requirements we didn’t like, but “take this job and shove it” are not words you’re ever going to hear coming out of an astronaut’s mouth. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t feel it’s a job full of dreams.

  Taking the attitude that I might never get to space—and then, after I did get there, that I might never go back—helped me hold onto that feeling for more than two decades. Because I didn’t hang everything—my sense of self-worth, my happiness, my professional identity—on space flight, I was excited to go to work every single day, even during the 11 years after my second mission when I didn’t fly and was, at one point, told definitively that I never would again (more on that later).

  It sounds strange, probably, but having a pessimistic view of my own prospects helped me love my job. I’d argue it even had a positive effect on my career: because I love learning new things, I volunteered for a lot of extra classes, which bulked up my qualifications, which in turn increased my opportunities at NASA. However, success, to me, never was and still isn’t about lifting off in a rocket (though that sure felt like a great achievement). Success is feeling good about the work you do throughout the long, unheralded journey that may or may not wind up at the launch pad. You can’t view training solely as a stepping stone to something loftier. It’s got to be an end in itself.

  The secret is to try to enjoy it. I never viewed training as some onerous duty I had to carry out while praying fervently for another space mission. For me, the appeal was similar to that of a New York Times crossword puzzle: training is hard and fun and stretches my mind, so I feel good when I persevere and finish—and I also feel ready to do it all over again.

  In space flight, “attitude” refers to orientation: which direction your vehicle is pointing relative to the Sun, Earth and other spacecraft. If you lose control of your attitude, two things happen: the vehicle starts to tumble and spin, disorienting everyone on board, and it also strays from its course, which, if you’re short on time or fuel, could mean the difference between life and death. In the Soyuz, for example, we use every cue from every available source—periscope, multiple sensors, the horizon—to monitor our attitude constantly and adjust if necessary. We never want to lose attitude, since maintaining attitude is fundamental to success.

  In my experience, something similar is true on Earth. Ultimately, I don’t determine whether I arrive at the desired professional destination. Too many variables are out of my control. There’s really just one thing I can control: my attitude during the journey, which is what keeps me feeling steady and stable, and what keeps me headed in the right direction. So I consciously monitor and correct, if necessary, because losing attitude would be far worse than not achieving my goal.

  My kids are endlessly amused by what they see as my earnestness. For years now they have played a game they call “The Colonel Says,” which involves parroting sayings of mine that they find particularly hilarious. My son Evan’s personal favorite, which I barked at him from beneath the family car I was trying to fix: “No one ever accomplished anything great sitting down.” Recently, they’ve joked about creating a “Colonel Says” app that would spit out sayings appropriate to any situation. It’s a great idea, though I think you’d only need one: “Be ready. Work. Hard. Enjoy it!” It fits every situation.

  Think about Survivor, which Helene and I have been known to watch on occasion. The show has been on for years now, so everybody knows some of the skills you need in order to win: how to make a fire, for instance, and build a shelter out of branches. And yet, year after year, contestants show up without knowing the basics. I don’t get that. You knew you were going to be on Survivor—were you just counting on good looks and charm to catch a fish? Knowing that the stakes are a million dollars and a whole different life, why not come prepared?

  To me, it’s simple: if you’ve got the time, use it to get ready. What else could you possibly have to do that’s more important? Yes, maybe you’ll learn how to do a few things you’ll never wind up actually needing to do, but that’s a much better problem to have than needing to do something and having no clue where to start.

  This isn’t just how I approach my job. It’s how I live my life. For instance, a few years ago I was invited to take part in an air show in Windsor, Ontario, that was scheduled to overlap with an Elton John concert. The organizers decided to try to get him to cross-promote the air show. I thought the chances of a superstar interrupting his performance to promote a regional air show were quite slim, but then I started wondering: What if he agreed? What if it turned out that Elton John was a fanatic about airplanes or, secretly, a space geek—what was the most extreme thing that might wind up happening?

  I’ve played the guitar since I was a kid. While I’m not the best guitarist in the world, I do love it, and for years I’ve played and sung in bands on Earth, including the all-astronaut band Max Q, and in space, too. A vision, not an entirely pleasant one, flashed before my eyes: Elton John somehow finding this out and inviting the guitar-playing astronaut from the air show up on stage to strum a few bars with him. The likelihood of that was almost zero, I knew that, but I’d performed with the Houston Symphony, so I also knew that unlikely things do occur sometimes. So my next thought was, “All right, let’s say that did happen—what song would he ask me to play?” There was only one possible answer: “Rocket Man.” So I sat down and learned how to play it and practiced to the point where I was reasonably confident I wouldn’t be booed off the stage. I actually started kind of hoping I would get to go up and play “Rocket Man” with Elton John.

  As it happened, I did wind up at the concert, and Helene and I did get to meet Elton John and we had a very nice, normal 10-minute conversation with him. But I never got anywhere near the stage nor, to this moment, is Elton John aware that I can pull off a respectable rendition of his song. But I don’t regret being ready.

  That’s how I approach just about everything. I spend my life getting ready to play “Rocket Man.” I picture the most demanding challenge; I visualize what I would need to know how to do to meet it; then I practice until I reach a level of competence where I’m comfortable that I’ll be able to perform. It’s what I’ve always done, ever since I decided I wanted to be an astronaut in 1969, and that conscious, methodical approach to preparation is the main reason I got to Houston. I never stopped getting ready. Just in case.

  If, when I was 21, someone had asked me to write a film
script for the life I wanted, it would’ve gone like this: fighter pilot, test pilot, astronaut. Happy marriage, healthy kids, interesting experiences. My life has followed that script, but there were so many “ifs” that could have changed the plot: if, for instance, I hadn’t seen the CSA’s newspaper ad soliciting applications—which could well have happened, since we were living in the U.S. at the time. However, I never thought, “If I don’t make it as an astronaut, I’m a failure.” The script would have changed a lot if, instead, I’d moved up in the military or become a university professor or a commercial test pilot, but the result wouldn’t have been a horror movie.

  I didn’t walk into JSC a good astronaut. No one does. The most you can hope for is that you’re good astronaut material. Some people who make it through the selection process turn out not to be, and what makes the difference is that quality I mentioned earlier: attitude. You have to be willing to sit in Russian classes for years, and willing to train repetitively on safety procedures on board the ISS even though you think you know them inside out. You have to accept that you’ll need to master a lot of skills that seem arcane, or that you might never even get to use, or both. And you can’t view any of it as a waste of time.

  Even better is if you can view it all as being fun or at least interesting. In 2001, I became Director of Operations in Russia for NASA, a job that, back then, was not coveted by most American astronauts. Historic tensions between the two countries were off-putting to some, while others simply weren’t thrilled about the idea of being immersed in a foreign culture, complete with a different alphabet, brutal winters and a dearth of modern conveniences such as dishwashers and clothes dryers. To a Canadian who’d managed to acclimatize to the drawl and humidity of Gulf Coast Texas, however, the chance to live in yet another foreign country for a few years sounded exciting, so I was happy to get the posting. Wanting to make the most of our time there, I took extra Russian classes, as did Helene (our three kids were all at boarding school or university in Canada); she telecommuted to her job in Houston so she could spend most of each month with me in Star City, about an hour outside of Moscow, which is where cosmonauts train. Instead of moving into one of the American townhouses that NASA built there, we decided to live in a Russian apartment building, figuring that would improve our chances of really getting to know the country and people.