ESA Astronaut Samantha stars in "A day in the life of a Cyborg"

On March 5th ESA Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti had her first suited EVA training event in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Houston. Here are some of her impressions from that special day.

 
Days like today do not happen often.

Days when you experience something radically new.

Days where unusual stresses force you to rethink your interaction with the environment.

When your brain learns to give a new meaning to sensory information, when your muscles acquire new patterns of movement to overcome obstacles hitherto unknown.

Days when you learn to be a cyborg.

These days, even your eyes can betray you for a moment. While the crane I was in the water of NASA's NBL, it takes a few seconds for me to adjust and make the focus.

The effect of the shield is such that objects appear to be farther than they actually are. Consequently, the enormous size of the giant pool of 12 meters appears even greater.

At the bottom is a metal creature dormant: a faithful replica of the International Space Station, set in its outer contours. The shells of pressurized modules, the truss segments, antennae, cables.

This and many other details are reproduced in this underwater world to provide astronauts a realistic environment in which they train for extravehicular activity (EVA).

I was widely informed about all aspects of work today and I explored the station under water several times during dives underwater. Yet this seems different, almost surreal to watch it from inside the suit.

Before the end of my training I will become the EVA very familiar with the station, with paths of travel, the workplace, hazards but three hours today to get used primarily with the EMU, the pressure suit which allows astronauts to make spacewalks.

In orbit, the combination is a life support system provides closed-circuit oxygen, ventilating, cooling and removal of CO2.

In the basin, the backpack life support is inactive and survival under water is guaranteed by an umbilical cord that connects us to the surface and provides us with nitrox breathing.

To prevent overheating, water flows through tubes 80 meters woven into our clothing full liquid cooling and ventilation (LCVG: Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment).

When we talk about the speech circuit, the entire building we mean: the other astronauts in combination in the water, divers support, the test director and course instructor in the control room.

The latter is typically the one who speaks with us, because following our every move broadcast on four cameras: two cameras mounted on our helmets, the two cameras for divers who are assigned to each of us.

"We", in fact, it's me and the veteran astronaut Tracy Caldwell, who is determined to make this both an enjoyable and effective for the first time for me. I would not have asked for a better coach.

For the next three hours, my main task is to explore the limits of the combination, to identify areas of my movements in it, to get used to its size and limited field of view, to practice moving and reorienting of my body, to identify areas of possible improvement to the fit of the suit.

There is no rotation of the arms outside the limited space allowed by the shoulder joints. There is no rotation of the neck to look up or down on the side: the whole body must rotate.

There are no quick movements: an application to change its orientation deliberate effort and patience. "Do not fight the combination!" Is the common currency. If you do, you will only exhaust you.

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