I started my Tuesday bright and early with a session with one of the athletic trainers. I don't think I have mentioned that I have been lifting weights with a trainer two or three times a week. Whenever I have a hole in my schedule, I try and spend some time at the gym - helps to keep me from being so fidgety during our long classes. On the days I don't lift weights, I try and go for a jog (but, only if the weather is nice. . .). Following the workout, we had a class on data processing system malfunctions, i.e., failures with the Shuttle's computers. This was the first class that covered failures in any of the systems in any detail. The emphasis of the class was to be able to recognize/diagnose different types of failures. We will slowly be getting more and more of these classes; building up, of course, to being able to deal with multiple failures in multiple systems at once.

Our afternoon was filled with a couple of briefings by the flight medicine folks. They wanted to make sure we knew about all their services as well as to give us information on what is called the longitudinal health study. This study is one that has been going on for quite a long time. I believe it actually started back with the original seven, or at least sometime during the 1960's. At any rate, the doctors track all kinds of factors of the astronauts' health and compare them to the same factors in a control population, namely workers at JSC. For each astronaut they track two or three NASA employees who are of the same age and sex. They track both populations not just while they are working for NASA, but throughout the rest of their lives. Since there haven ' t been as many female astronauts, their data set on us is not quite as extensive. However, in general, they have found that the astronauts tend to remain healthier than the control group and there does not seem to be any higher incidence of anything serious, such as cancer. That is good to know.

Our last gathering of the day was to receive and review the results of our test last week. Once again, I am quite pleased with my results. My score was comparable to my first test. I had a handful of mistakes, but nothing that indicated that I did not understand the material. Whew!

I had another early morning on Wednesday with a 7:00 a.m. single systems training session on the operation of the closed circuit television system. We went through the powering up and using the cameras in the payload bay and routing the video feed to various locations - either on board or shipping it to the ground. After that hands-on training, I had a class on what is called the flight control system. The flight control system is the hardware and software that controls the pointing of the engines and solid rocket motors as well as the movement of aerosurfaces during a launch and entry. It is some complicated stuff. We covered how the system is supposed work and how to diagnose problems if it is not working correctly. This class was definitely a mind bender.

I was supposed to go flying late in the day, but I ended up not having a pilot. That is too bad, since the weather was nice. Oh well. Guess they are not going to let me take a jet out on my own.

Thursday turned out to be quite a full day. We had two classes in the morning. The first was a non-technical overview on payload operations. The second was on the ins and outs of what termed the flight plan. The flight plan is the minute by minute schedule for the crew ' s days during a mission. The class covered not just how to interpret the flight plan, but how the plan is developed, who reviews and approves it, and how changes are made. You can pretty much guarantee that there will be changes each day to the plan, since unexpected things will crop up during a flight. Flexibility is the key.

Immediately following the flight plan class, I had a single systems training class on pointing. You may recall that pointing is the term for how you position the Shuttle's attitude during a flight. This training class went over the actual pushing of the buttons to get the shuttle to move to where the procedures called for it to be, as well as how to come up with attitude solutions to various problems. I ended my day with a T - 38 flight. I got lucky and managed to get a last minute flight. It had been roughly two weeks since my last flight and I definitely felt rusty.

This week was a week of early morning starts. I had another T - 38 flight Friday morning. I had to be at the airport at 7:00. It takes me about half an hour to get there from my house, so I had to be out the door by 6:30. Ugh. We did the Arcadiana, LA circuit. We first flew to Lake Charles and did some approaches. Then we kept going to Arcadiana and landed. After refueling we cruised by Beaumont for some approaches before returning to Ellington. All in all, it was just under two and a half hours of flying time. That helped to shake off some of the rust. Plus, we had the added benefit of a minor in-flight problem.

I was flying with one of the instructor pilots. During our pre-brief I mentioned that it had been awhile since I had flown regularly and was feeling rusty. That is the main reason we did the path that we did - there are lots of different kinds of approaches and things happen fairly quickly. So, you have to be on your toes. It is a good backseat workout. At any rate, before our flight, we agreed that we would not be simulating any problems - just concentrate on doing the regular flying procedures to get back in the swing of things. The flights went well and we made it back to Ellington unscathed. We did a touch-and-go. After that, we decided to change our no simulated failures plan and he was going to practice a single engine approach. It was no big deal - the engines were running just fine - and we did not have any weather to deal with. From the backseat viewpoint there really was not anything different for me to do. We were on the downwind leg when he pulled one of the engine ' s back to idle. Just as he did that, we got a caution light - the right generator light.

A generator light means that for some reason the engine is not producing the electricity it is supposed to be producing. If there are no other problems, then the other engine can supply all the electricity that is needed and all the systems will keep working just fine. We heard no thumps or bumps and did not see any smoke and had no other lights. The pilot was quickly able to tell that all the systems appeared to be working, so we probably did not have a serious problem. We called the tower and told them that we were not going to make our landing; we were going to only do a low approach and sort out our problem. In a turn on a landing is not the time you want to be wrong on whether you have good systems or not. It is better to keep flying and make sure of things. So, I got out the emergency checklist, found the right page, and started taking the pilot through the steps. There is a step that checks to see whether the other engine is powering everything, which it was, so we were good to go. After a trip around the pattern, we landed and quickly got off the runway. Since it was not clear what the problem was, the maintenance folks wanted us to shut down the engines, rather than taxi back. We got a tow back to our parking area. This flight was a good example of why we do T-38 flying as part of our space flight readiness training. You have to be prepared for any problem at any time and you have to be able to run the appropriate malfunction procedures to methodically sort through the issue.

As soon as we got back to parking area, I had to scoot back to JSC for a hands-on class on how to use the toilet. This was a make-up class from when I was out a couple of weeks ago, so it was just me and the instructor. I guess if I were to sum up the toilet on the Shuttle, I would say that this is one system where you really, really want to follow the procedures. Unpleasant things can happen if you don 't. I wonder if the folks who are pursuing commercial space travel have thought about how the general public will take to using a space toilet. . . And if the flying and the, hmmm, toilet training, were not enough for a single day, I had one more class to go. My last event was a single systems training class on the flight control systems. Nothing like finishing the week with a little mental workout. . . The class was over at 5:30. We may have only had four work days this week, but by the time my last class was over, it felt like I had been at work for five days. Can't wait to do it again next week.