The Vinay Writes

10/13/21 6:22 PM

The story was of Chris Cassidy and his journey with NASA as an astronaut.

There was a scientist having equipment, that detects dark matter in space – dark matter is named not because it is dark, but because it is unknown. AMS was to be placed on Space Station for Research.

AMS – alpha magnetic spectrometer – this was created by professor Ting – who was very assertive about his machine and didn’t want any chance that it will fail, the scientist won Nobel prize and it was his achievement that the device he created is going to be placed on ISS, and can be used for future research on dark matters. This project was running for 25+ years to be launched, if it failed all the 25 years would have gone to waste.

Chris and his friend Lucas were on the spacewalk where water started to come, into the suit of Lucas. It is fatal to have water inside the suit as intuitively they cant open their helmets and remove the water. The water can go into their breathing system and make them suffocate and die. Nothing bad happened they returned to the airlock and cleaned the water, while Chris completing the mission.

It was now the second time Chris has to go again to space for placing the AMS – since the US space shuttle was retired, they don’t have anything from their end to send astronauts in space, they used to buy the seats in Soyuz, Russian rockets. Each seat cost 80 million dollars – 600 crores rupees. All was set for Chris to go into the space and attach the equipment but in between, a trip with Soyuz failed, rockets blasted and went into the sea. That shook the whole staff. And they decided not to allow Chris to go into the space, thereby shattering his dreams. the other two astronauts were asked to go on the mission to fix the AMS, alpha magnetic spectrometer. Chris was given the duty to handle their training and ensuring they will be able to do the task well. Chris gave them training, their team developed the tools required to fix the AMS cooling system. While their demo testing Chris failed in cutting the right pipe by getting confused with 3 and 8. That was fatal for the whole mission as the device will be unfixable if that happened.

Cutting was fine, but a tool that swages the pipes, connects the pipe was not efficient. It was difficult for the astronauts in their suits to tighten them up. Then a person from the management team, that takes care of deadlines and tools went home. After reaching he went into his own laboratory workshop. There he said, it’s unfortunate that every time he joins a company he is given a management position which he hates, he wants to stay in the development part of the company but work is work. So he developed a new tool in his lab working day and night alone at home. He went to Germany as they had the best tools to make things he needed. and yes he got the tool he designed a prototype. Using the prototype of the tool they tested and great it worked, it was working for the team even with gloves on. and was giving tight connection to pipes as well. Now the responsibility for the tool came to him, as the connector was created by him so he has to ensure it works well.

The day came and 2 astronauts were launched with a rocket, yes Russian rocket from Kazakhstan. Chris was feeling bad as he had missed the chance which could be his last mission and spacewalk. But he did his best to train them and became part of the mission. He went into flying airforce jets to let out his emotions. Then the team went on spacewalks and started fixing the connections. It happened in multiple parts or can say multiple spacewalks. the first part was removing the debris cover – that was to protect the instrument while escaping from the earth. that was done properly, then cutting of pipes in which 90% of the time on earth mistakes was done by every human that performed the task was also done successfully. for fixing and joining the pipes the tool created by the management person was used and it was easy for them to connect. Connection successful, but wait – testing is pending – is the system working or leaking? for that, there were valves that turn red if leaking, and white if everything is fine. Some people were against checking the leak as it will take precious time of team in that. But they did. 

The first valve they checked was red. danger sign for the team. all were stressed, the management person was scared and kept on thinking what wrong did he did in construction. what went wrong. but as they went to other valves all were white, meaning no leak. Everyone was happy and sad too because of the leaking one. They tightened the knob by 1 more round and waited to see after an hour if the leak is fixed. and to scare them – no the leak was not fixed. they were about to drop the AMS as it is eating too much time of NASA. now they started to work on the fix, which was to create a jumper and cut pipe from 2 parts and joining it with a jumper. that will take time but nothing else was possible. in the meantime, they tightened it 1 more round, if it didn’t work they already had plan B for it. also, a techy thing, 1 more round of knob will make it 51 million times more tight which was cool. They came again to check the knob and — it worked. The leak was fixed, the device was working perfectly fine everyone on the NASA team was happy. The whole mission was completed. 

Chris also got a new mission to do spacewalk in the meantime, he was very happy that he got it. Not only that he was decided to be the commander of the ISS, International Space Station. Another level of achievement for him. He learned the Russian language for communication, got prepared with his teammates for the launch, probably the last launch of Chris. Before 2 weeks of launch, one of the teammates got an eye injury and had to drop out from the mission. along with him, the other person has to drop out too and both were replaced with another set of backup teams. It was new for Chris to work with them. Then they went to ISS. Covid was on peak during that time so family members were not allowed to bid on them during the launch. Chris recently got married he was sad and excited about his spacewalk. The task was to replace the power system at ISS, which was a critical mission as it controls the whole ISS. Chris got his old friend with whom he went on his first space flight. Both were very happy to do this mission. They went to ISS got the key from the old commander – meaning the command of ISS is shifted to another person. Finally, they did the spacewalk to complete the mission. The whole team on earth was very amused by seeing the ballet of 2 astronauts. They completed the whole thing 2 hours before the expected time. Chris was very happy with his task and completing it with his old friend was the cherry on the cake. The whole coordination was surprisingly amazing for everyone. All the battery packs were replaced and experiments were completed. Chris completed his 6 months into the space station and went towards the earth.

Deorbit part was very scary as even a slight wrong critical angle could create such heat that equipment or the astronauts will not be able to bear. Communication also was stopped during that time.

They went on missing but then the camera caught a parachute opening and landing on some other location than expected. It was Chris and his team. He landed successfully and based on the protocol he has to spend 14 days in quarantine and medical checkups. That ended and he met his family after this long workday. Later after completing the mission, he decided that Now what?. He took retirement from NASA after serving for amazing missions and decided to let the baton be with the young generation and handling them the space as his time is completed.

It was amazing to have this series watched. How specialized each was in their tasks displayed their dedications. The way people traveled to Germany just to get the prototype built displayed their way of thinking. Even the people at management positions stepped in and gave the company an amazing tool that fixed the issue shows how deep they are into their work. And even with losing a dream project, staying with the team and ensuring every bit of precision even if someone else working on your dream was true passion and devotion to the team. In the end, things literally set into place. If not settled, then it’s not the end 😉

Thanks for Reading, Hope it added something worth to your life. Have a Great Day 🙂