The Zen of Decompression

I was feeling better about the radio. After trading dozens of emails with engineers and ground control and past MDRS crew members, it became clear that the system hasn't worked for months, and that it had been modified from any of the past configurations which were known to work. In addition, field measurements showed there must be a break on two of the cables four internal wires, although a visual inspection of this long, weatherbeaten, multiply-spliced monstrosity had failed to reveal it. When I finally got around to opening up the control panel itself, I discovered why: someone had deliberately broken several connections inside the box. Presumably they had a reason for doing this, but no documentation was left in the panel itself, and there was no clear indication where in this jumble the wires were supposed to connect. Whatever the intention had been, it had not resulted in a functional system, so whatever else may have gone wrong, the remote radio was very definitely broken before I got to it. By day's end I still hadn't figured out how to fix it, but there were good reasons for this which I'm eager to talk about. Simply put, being an astronaut is really, really time-consuming. And that's a good thing.

As the situation unfolded, I made three separate EVAs to inspect the wires, to strip and clip them, to twist and diagnose. It's hard, slow work with a centimeter of stiff padding around your fingers, but that's nothing compared to the effort involved in getting there. The longest of my sorties was about 2 hours and the shortest only 15 minutes, but each one involved 20 full minutes of decompression at the start and 20 more of recompression at the end. That's two solid hours spent staring at the airlock wall -- which is infinitely more strenuous than any mountain-climbing feats of reverse engineering.

Still, while it sounds painfully corny, having that kind of time on my hands really did give me a chance to reflect. On my life, on myself, on my approach to the sedentary act of equalizing pressure.

The first EVA of your life is jangly and exciting, but the second is just as difficult and uncomfortable, and nowhere near as rewarding. It's kind of demoralizing, truthfully, as the airlock door slams shut like the bars of a prison cell and the arrow of time -- normally rushing you toward old age and death -- slows to an agonizing crawl. Some nerve! But by the third time out, you start to develop a rhythm about it. Radio chatter is discouraged, but you find little hobbies and habits to pass the time in the private world of your helmet. You have a sense of how long you'll be there, and what it's going to feel like. As with a lot of things in life, the hardest and most critical decision is to surrender your dreams of comfort. You won't find a good way to sit, a good angle to rest your head, a good corner to scratch your nose on. You can't. It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

For me, this dumb little epiphany brought a sense of genuine inner peace. I think the Amida Buddha put it best when he said, simply, "Be here now." It's good advice, as pertinent in a 21st-century airlock as on an ancient rice paddy. Surrender comfort, surrender desire, surrender the future. Just be. Eventually, the airlock will open and a new phase of life will begin.

If I learn nothing else from this expedition I'll still count myself -- however slightly -- a wiser man.