I returned from being with my family Monday morning. I arrived at JSC shortly after my afternoon class had begun. This was an all afternoon class on the entry checklist. The classes we had in the previous couple of weeks covered the big picture of a Shuttle landing. This class was a line-by-line discussion of the procedures - what switches are flipped when and why. Even though I had only been at work for half a day, I was ready for the day to be over by the end of class. I'd be lying if I said that my mind was fully focused on what was being taught.

There was no rest for the weary Monday evening. Next Monday we have our second written test. This test will cover the basic operations of the majority of the Shuttle systems - what the crew interactions are when and the rationale behind the procedures. Obviously, I did no studying over the previous weekend, so I started my studying for the test today. I have a lot of material to review in the coming week.

Tuesday was filled with non-technical lectures/briefings. We started the day with more space flight resource management training. Whereas in the class last week we discussed the theories, this week we reviewed some case studies on what is good resource management and what is not so good resource management. I found this very interesting because all the cases we examined came from the Shuttle program and I had been working at JSC when each of the flights happened.

The space flight resource management training took up the entire morning. Our afternoon consisted of a briefing on the Canadian Space Agency, a briefing on space law, and a briefing on the legal aspects of the Space Station. As you might imagine, the legal side of the Space Station can be rather tricky since there are so many countries involved. Following all those classes, I spent the rest of my evening/night studying. My plan for getting ready for this test is to review two or three systems a night. That way, I can cover all the systems during the week and do a final wrap up over the weekend. We'll see if I can pull off my plan (and still get a reasonable amount of sleep).

Wednesday we had a class on the ascent checklist. This class was the parallel of the entry class we had on Monday, a line by line discussion of the ascent procedures. In the afternoon we had a briefing of the Japanese Space Agency. Then it was more studying for the rest of the day.

I am not sure how it happened, but I was not scheduled for any classes on Thursday. It would have been nice to have been able to do some flying, but there were no planes/pilots available. So, I stayed home and studied. Actually it was really good to spend my day studying as I was getting behind on my study plan. I was able to get back on track (mostly). I was also able to watch a video tape of one of the classes that I missed last week. The class was on what is called the reference data book. This book, as its name implies, contains reference material - everything from what functionality is lost should an electrical bus go down, to what all the limits are for each item that the caution and warning system is monitoring, to how the Shuttle system status information is routed before making it to the main computers. The reference data book is basically used to determine what capability remains after certain types of failures.

Friday I had two single system trainer sessions. The first one was a makeup class from last week (I still have two more classes to make up in the future). Since it was a makeup class, it was just me and the instructor. No dozing allowed. . . This class was on entry navigation. I put into practice all the information we learned last week - when which navigation systems are used and how the crew interacts with them. The second training class was part two of the environmental control and life support systems procedures class - life support procedures from on-orbit to landing.

This week was fairly grueling since I did so much studying in the evening, so I decided to take the night off. I needed a break. I also took a large part of Saturday off, but I spent the entire day Sunday with my books. I hope I was able to review and retain all the information I need for my test.