Travis and Michelle Fitzgerald's blog

Well, in case you hadn't figured it out, the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched successfully Friday night. Michelle and I watched it on our TV at home, because we can watch it in High Definition! (HDnet rules) With that launch, the entire Expedition 15 crew that I trained is now in orbit. Fyodor, Oleg, and Suni are on the ISS, and Clay is on Atlantis.

The Shuttle should dock early Sunday afternoon (Houston time). Clay will start moving his stuff in, and helping Suni move her stuff out.

There is a question that we get asked a lot, lately: What does Travis do during the Shuttle flight? The answer is: nothing official. Once the crew launches, my job is complete. My job was to get the crew and the flight controllers ready for the flight (although the flight controllers mostly take care of themselves...I just test them to make sure they're prepared). And, since I'm not assigned to this mission (the Shuttle part, that is), I would not be called in if the flight control team needs support from the instructors. That is Deborah's job for this flight.

Occasionally, the flight control team will want to start up the simulator and test out some scenarios or procedures that have come up during the flight. That's when somebody from my group will help them by running the simulator. It happens every few flights, and usually is not a huge deal, but everybody wants to be sure that the procedures do what they're supposed to, and that everybody understands the situation. We instructors tend to act as the devil's advocate in those situations, because somebody has to!

Michelle just left for her seconds shift on console, so I'm going to spend my Saturday night playing World of Warcraft (bwahahaha). Murlocs beware! Malgo's a-comin'!