Sandy's ISS Training

ISS Training

Years of training which takes place in the US, Russia, Japan, Germany, and Canada. All kinds of interesting things happen……

Russia

Cold Weather Survival Training And

Sea Survival Training

Our training day was on the coldest day they had had in 20 years. It was -30ish (who cares about the scale at that temp!). Our eyelashes and hair were icing over.

Our cold weather survival training team in Russia.

Mike and Oleg and I were a team for the 2.5 days of the actual survival exercise.

Simulating landing in the Soyuz. We start to get organized

Building the lean-to for the first night. We had to start a fire to thaw the ground.

Enjoying the fire in the shelter of the lean-to!

Breakfast time. We had the rations that are on the Soyuz.

Final day. Packing out to meet our rescue helicopter.

Sea survival at the Black Sea.

Russia

Soyuz training(Including Seat/Clothing preparation)

This is the outfit that you wear for the construction of your Soyuz seat liner. It has to be made to fit your form exactly because it works as a shock absorber in case of a hard landing. In this event you could experience up to 8g’s for a short period of time.

Me laying in the seat mold where they will pour the liner.

They start pouring the plaster into the mold while I am laying in it. Several people are holding me down so I do not float up.

Holding me down in the mold while the plaster sets.

Putting on the Sokol suit for a training exercise. It is the Russian launch and entry suit.

This is the Sokol suit Unlike our launch and entry suit, the Sokol has the helmet integrated into it. Otherwise the function of the two suits is the same.

I am doing a fit check with my actual flight suit in my actual seat liner. They want to make sure it all integrates well. Here it is pressurized.

When the suit is pressurized, as it would be in case of an emergency and the Soyuz cabin is exposed to vacuum, I kind of disappear into it.

Underwater Living

Off the coast of Key Largo in Florida lies an underwater research lab. We go

there to train for long duration space flight.

NEEMO 11

I had the opportunity to lead a team for a week as we lived 50 feet underwater in the Aquarius habitat.

We did “EVA’s” in diving helmets. The long yellow cord is our umbilical that brought us air and communications.

Working inside Aquarius.

We also worked with a rover, controlling it from inside while it followed the divers around.

National Outdoor Leadership School

NOLS helps crews bond together quickly. We are in an environment that puts you mentally in space flight mode and we quickly learn to work as an

efficient team.

We had to learn to work together to climb up….

..and down…

..agree on directions…

…when to go and when to stop…

Relaxing moments

NASA Training

Our training various between classroom work, where we concentrate on the theory, and simulator work, where we practice and do hands-on types of activities. For an ISS

flight you should expect to be in training somewhere between 2-4 years. For me it was 3 years and 4 months,

but who is counting!!!!

Expedition 18 and their backups

STS-126 Crew (my ride to ISS)

T-38 Training

On STS-126 I am helping the guys get suited and ready to go out the door for

EVA 3….

On Exp 18 I am training for EVA, just in case they need us

to go outside.

Training with Exp 18 crewmates

Emergency training…

Egress training in Building 9

TCDT tank driving

KSC training