The first thing I had Monday was a briefing on Shuttle aborts. This class covered the types of aborts that you may need to do during a launch. For most problems that can prevent you from getting to the orbit you want, there are preplanned abort scenarios. In some cases you can still get the Shuttle into an orbit, just not the one you want. In other cases you will have to go around the Earth once and then land, either in California, New Mexico, or Florida. While, in still other cases, you do not make it very far and will either land in Europe or turn the Shuttle around and land back in Florida.

There are a variety of reasons that you may need to do an abort. Some of the reasons are performance related - the engines are not working the way they are supposed to - or systems related - you have a severe enough problem with one of the systems, say the life support system, which will prevent you from staying in space. The class went through all the different abort cases and when you would perform each one. This was a long and complicated class.

One thing I learned in this class that I never realized before was that when the Shuttle is going to rendezvous with the Station, the trajectory it takes is basically up the east coast of the United States. Actually, I did know that, since the Shuttle has to get in to a high inclination orbit. But, what was surprising to me is that when the main engines shut off, about 8 minutes after lift-off, the Shuttle is only off the coast of New York. I don't know where I thought it should be, but farther away from the U.S., I guess. And, given that, it is amazing that if you have a problem at that time, you can land in Europe twenty or so minutes later.

Following the abort lesson I had the evaluated single systems trainer class for which I had stayed up so late on Sunday night. This lesson was on malfunctions in the electrical system during the ascent and entry phases of flight. Remember that crazy class we had on these failures? Well, now I had the chance to try and work through these complicated procedures with someone watching over my shoulder and taking notes on how I am doing. No pressure. . . Actually, the class went fairly well. I did spend a lot of time last night preparing for it. Unfortunately, we did not get through all the objectives in the allotted time. But, as luck would have it, there was additional sim time available at the end of the day, so I was able to complete the evaluation without having to have another formal sessions scheduled. I was definitely glad to have this class behind me.

Tuesday morning, it was another class dealing with aborts. In this class, we went line by line through all the procedures for each abort case. As you might imagine, the procedures can be quite complicated in order to cover all abort scenarios.

Following the aborts class, I had a class on the storage of data and information on the Station. The Station crews create a lot of data that needs to be sent to the ground. While the ground constantly and automatically receives information on the health of the Station systems, other types of data, such as from some experiments or earth observations or even periodic fitness evaluations of the crew, is not automatically sent to the ground. The crew must save the data on the laptops in specific locations in order for the ground to retrieve it. And, vice versa - there is data that the ground needs to send to the crew each day, such as the plans and procedures for the day. And, of course, the most important thing - the daily e-mail exchange. The class covered the types of files used, locations that such information is stored, and how and when the ground will send and receive this data.

At the end of the day, our class had a review session for our next written test. Yes, it is test time again. The good news is that this should be our last written test. The training team is still mulling over whether or not we will have one additional test, but as it stands right now, after next week, we should be done with the written tests. Of course, we will still have more evaluated simulation sessions as well as our qualifying evaluations for each system in a simulator. For the qualifying evaluations, we will have to answer questions and run through procedures in response to nominal situations and failure scenarios.

While it would have been nice to start studying for next week's test to get ahead of the game, I was not able to do so. I still had two more evaluations to get through before the week was over.

The class we had Wednesday morning was quite interesting. It was on how you recognize and deal with failures in the smaller engine systems on the Shuttle. During the course of a flight, you will need to use these engines for a variety of reasons, such as to get into your final orbit, to rendezvous with the Station, and to get you home. It is critical that the "burns" (as they are called) happen how and when they are supposed to. Normally, you will use the two larger engines that are located at the back of the Shuttle. But, if something should go wrong, you can downmode to only using one engine or using the smaller jets that are normally used for attitude control on-orbit. So, the class covered how you determine what a problem is and whether the engine is completely failed or whether its propellant is available for use with a different engine.

After that class, I had a Station class on the Russian caution and warning system. The basic gist of the class was to give an introduction on the hardware for this system that is in the Russian segment and show how it operates. Normally the Russian systems would be taught by Russian instructors over in Russia, but since this system is so tied to the U.S. caution and warning system, the American instructors worked with the Russian instructors to create the class. The reason this system is so intertwined with our system is because when a problem happens that the crew needs to be aware of, you never know where the crew might be - they could be on the U.S. side or they could be on the Russian side. Each side must provide the proper alerts to the crew, so each system shares information with the other so that the crew will always know what is going on no matter where they are. Therefore, we learned the operating basics of their system.

Finally, at the very end of the day, I had my second evaluated class for the week. This was a single systems trainer class on failures in the main engines. This was the second class dealing with these failures and we covered more complicated scenarios. In spite of my best efforts last night, it was a pretty rough class. There was a lot of material to review for the class and I stayed up very, very late Tuesday night trying to learn it all. I was definitely short on sleep when I took the class and it showed. I managed to get through it all, but I was not happy with my performance. The next time I see these procedures will be for my qualifying evaluation, so I think I will see if I can schedule a review session before I have that evaluation. Based on my performance today, I do not feel ready for it.

On Thursday I had practice flight for my annual T-38 check ride, which is scheduled on Friday. It was very good to go over things with an instructor. We not only did basic flying, navigating, and talking to the air traffic controllers, we talked a lot about things that might come up during the check ride, such as how the systems work and how various failures affect the plane. Unfortunately, it was a hot, hot, hot day. I was sweating buckets by the time we finally went back inside the hanger. So was the instructor, but he was very thorough and wanted to make sure I was completely prepared for my test. I think I am ready for it.

After my flight I had a Russian class. It was hard. I think I need to go back to the basics again. The last class I had today was scheduled fairly late - it started at 6:00 p.m. This was a class on the U.S. caution and warning system. Similar to the Russian system caution and warning class, this class acquainted me with the American hardware and its operations. After this class was over, I went home and had a quick bite to eat, and then hit the books to review the T-38 systems for my check ride.

Before I had my check ride, I had a class on the operations of the laptops on the Station. While the previous laptop classes covered generic basics of the laptops, this class covered the details of how you actually affect the Station systems from the laptops. After this class I headed out to Ellington for my check ride. When I arrived, the instructor told me to pick where I wanted to go and plan out the flight. Well, heck, I thought, why make it hard on myself? Let's just go to where I went yesterday. . . So, I plotted a flight over to Lake Charles. He wanted to do three different approaches during the flight, so I picked ones that would flow well together. Plus, I decided to stick to a single airport - when we fly to Lake Charles, there are two airports at which we can do approaches. They are pretty close together and quite often we will jump from one to the other and back again - this gives the "frontseaters" and the "backseaters" a good workout. But, you can also get yourself into a pickle if you get behind the curve. So, rather than set myself up for too much of a challenge, I stuck to a single airport - fewer frequencies to deal with and no risk of getting confused and calling the tower by the wrong name. The instructor did not seem to mind my plan of attack, which was good.

I have to say, that all in all, it was a very smooth check ride. The instructor seemed quite satisfied with my abilities and my answers on the systems questions we discussed. I managed to stay ahead of the game and have all the right navigation information for the pilot at the right time. I was happy with the way the flight went. After it was over, the pilot signed me off for the "duty day extender" designation, which was the classification I was hoping to get. This means I am a fully certified in the T-38 operations as a mission specialist and that the pilots can rely on me to share the load during a flight. Normally, our duty day is 12 hours - this means that from the time you arrive at work, be it the gym or the office or Ellington, to the time that you shut off the engines (assuming flying is the last thing you do that day), your work day can be no more than 12 hours long. This is obviously done for safety reasons. But, with a duty day extender status, a mission specialist flying with a pilot can extend the day to 14 hours. Normally, you would not want to be flying at the end of a 14 hour day, but there are situations where you might be in that position, for example, a late training flight for the pilot.

Whew! That was a long week of many tough evaluations. Unfortunately, I was not able to relax much after it was over. I did have a relaxing Friday night, but I spent a lot of my weekend preparing for my test on Monday.