Warbird Information Exchange

Yes, Andy. It's weird at first, to get a phone call from space. We had a conversation a couple of weeks ago that went about a third of the way around the earth.

Here's Chris and I hanging out before the launch. To get into the same room as him I had to record my body temp for a week, and make it past 2 doctors. In fact, as I walked to the quarantine building at -25 below, I took off my hat and froze my head since I knew they'd be using an ear thermometer.



Here are the silly moustaches and helmets we wore when Chris could see us -- they were wonderfully effective at reducing tension. (Chris wasn't tense. For pilots, it's always easier to fly a difficult machine yourself than to watch a loved-one do it.)



The Soyuz is minimalist. It's like crammming 3 people into the front seat of a volkswagon. Here's a shot of the simulator.

We were extremely serious.



Here's one of Chris getting his suit checked just before going out to the pad to climb into the rocket. The tester machine has big old round dials. The technician watched them closely, and from the other side of the glass wall, so did I.



Here they are walking out of the suiting-up room to the bus that takes them to the rocket.

For the Launch, things are quite different than the Cape. In Russia you have to be an invited guest, but once you are, you get much closer access than with NASA. We were standing in concrete bleachers about a mile from the rocket, with nothing between us but a cheap fence and a bit of frozen brown Kazahkstan steppe.



I looked around for a Countdown board. I wanted to see if a "hold" took place. With the Shuttle there were always holds. Turns out, there wasn't one. The Soyuz very rarely has one -- it just goes.

Not very formal.



Our "handler" was new-hire Canadian Astronaut Jeremy Hansen -- a great guy. He'd downloaded an app that had the launch details and used his speakerphone to keep us aware of the events.

When the thing lit up, at first I thought there was a problem. The flame was reddish. I'd never seen that before. The Shuttle flame was pure white. Was something wrong? But it soon clicked that this is a kerosene-burning rocket (kero and liquid O2), and that's just the colour they produce. A big long toungue of orange-red flame.

Up she went. From where we stood it was loud -- your chest rattled -- but smooth. On the Shuttle, when the solid rockets fired you could tell it was rough. You winced, as you imagined that whole assemblage being shook-like-hell. But that wasn't so with the Soyuz. From what I could detect there was less vibration, and when I asked Chris about it, he said yes it was true. But he also said that it didn't track exactly straight, and that he could feel the gimbals changing the thrust vector in a repetitive cycle all the way up.



The visibility was superb. Miraculous. The sky was dead-clear, and the launch happened at dusk. So the rocket climbed into the darkening eastern sky. We could watch it all the way up. Again, I had a tense moment when the smoke suddenly changed colour. It became a lot whiter. But then I realized they'd climbed up into the sunlight. Big sigh of relief!

We could see, easily with the naked eye, separation of the 4 booster rockets, which are the same engines burning the same fuel as the main engines (again, that wonderful Russian practicality).

In fact, we could see the rocket until it got into orbit, 250 miles above, although by that time it was only a dot of light. Then, main engine cutoff, and they were there, safe in orbit.

As we walked to the bus, stirred and excited, we looked up and saw the Space Station racing overhead. Of course. The orbits have to be the same or they'll never rendezvous. But it was till cool.

It took them 48 hours to get there. In the meantime they had a bit more space. Here's the spacecraft.



The front section has supplies and various things, including a very small chemical toilet they don't want to have to use. They launch and land in the middle. The back section has fuel and an engine. In the photo, that's Chris' wife Helene and daughter Kristin.

Here's a link to the launch, filmed by Robin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI5I23TPGMQ

And once he was there, just before Christmas, he took the Station guitar and recorded a song -- the first song ever recorded from off the planet. And the song he chose was one I wrote in 2000 for the first crew of the Station, a Christmas "Space Carol" called "Jewel in the Night". It went over well. It's posted on soundcloud and has had about 300,000 listens, which pleased us both.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YufsbE4-jmY

Dave

What an awesome adventure, for Chris and all the family and friends in attendance.
Thanks for sharing that Dave. The launch photos turned out great!
I find it just fascinating to try and wrap my head around watching the vehicle go from launch, all the way to orbit! WOW!

Andy Scott

Yeah, thanks a million man! I have lived less than ten minutes from NASA Johnson Space Center for over 50 years and never had that clear a report of a Soyuz launch carrying westerners to ISS. Sometimes I think NASA would do well to hire a Hollywood PR agent - and lissen to them. I can't imagine this stuff failing to excite larger audiences except that it's just plain presented poorly.

Oh well. Mighty happy to see 'em arrive safely ..... each and every time.

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Cheers,
Kurt Maurer
League City, Texas

PIC, Ford 6600 pulling Rhino batwing up and down the runway

Thanks, Pogo, Andy.

Now that I've been there, and seen how well the Russians do space travel, I wonder if NASA isn't a little jealous -- that they don't want to admit how well their former enemies do things.

There are a couple of major accomplishments here...

1) Russians kept their manned space program going even when their country came apart

2) The Soyuz has had 1800 launches and has never blown up with people aboard

3) It doesn't cost all that much, as these things go

4) They still have the only heavy-lift rocket on the planet, as well

5) The USA won't have a human-rated spacecraft until at least 2015


I tell you, the Russians are fiercely, enormously proud of their space program, and they deserve to be.

Dave

I just saw your brothers photos taken from the ISS on my YAHOO opening news page-simply breathtaking stuff!!!!!!! He's got a heck of an eye!!!!

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Dude! now Chris is an intergallactic rock star too? Cutting a song he helped write with 'The Barenaked Ladies'.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Yes, that was fun for him. I was at the taping too. Big CBC production, but still a good time for all concerned.

Ed Robertson BTW is a pilot -- he's got a 206 on amphibs. Plus he's got a harde strip near his cottage -- we're going to take the Fairchild there next spring.

Anyway, it's a great thing they did, and will involve a lot of school kids.

But what I can't wait for is when Chris starts recording his album. He's got about 20 songs to choose from, and will be recording from space -- this will be the first original work of Art ever completed by a human being while off the planet earth.

"Jewel in the Night", which was the first song ever recorded from space, will be on that album.

His Mission Patch is a guitar pick:



Dave

Dave, thanks for this inside look during Chris`s launch. I have really enjoyed following Chris on Facebook and reading his Reddit AMA`s. He truly has brought space to a new medium. Maybe its time for an AMA for a certain P-40 pilot?
Really liked reading about your Fairchild as well, I will have to keep my eyes open for ya when time I am downhill biking at Blue Mountain this summer

I just watched a video of your brother making a peanutbutter and honey sandwich on a tortilla on YAHOO

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

The beauty of soft tortillas is that they don't make crumbs.
You'd probably never stop finding crumbs from a piece of toast.
It would be a big deal on the ISS.

Andy Scott

In case you're wondering where Dave is right now. Panama Canal behind, the chaos of Limon Bay ahead, a container ship doing a Crazy Ivan in front of him, 10 foot swells, 1300 HP in his hands and the power to pull two aircraft carriers at the same time, Commander Hadfield of the IOS (Inter Ocean Ship) Seawolf, grins with boyish joy. (from the Vintage Wings Facebook page)

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“Try to fly in the middle of the air. The edges are filled with mountains and oceans and rocks and it’s much harder to fly there.”