CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts settled in aboard Space Station Alpha Friday, gearing up for the long haul -- and a spartan existence -- aboard the international outpost.
A day after arriving at the infant station, the so-called Expedition One crew was back at it again, setting up critical computer, communications and carbon dioxide removal systems -- all key to keeping Space Age pioneers alive in low Earth orbit.
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What follows over the next four months will be workdays that stretch up to 15 hours, six days a week. And the crew -- which includes Bill Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev -- essentially will be on call around the clock.
Theyll be living in what amounts to a cluttered three-room efficiency -- and one of the stations wings will remain off limits until early December.
There are only two bunks for the three men, and theyll wear earplugs at times to drown out industrial clatter created by station equipment.
Theyll have e-mail, but no Internet connection, and space-to-ground radio or video contact with family and friends will come weekly at best.
With no washer or dryer, theyll wear disposal clothes, and since taking a shower in weightlessness is more of a chore than a pleasure, theyll opt for daily sponge baths.
Whats more, theres no booze aboard.
"This is not the Hilton," NASA flight director Jeff Hanley said in perhaps the understatement of the early 21st century.
Still, the three veteran space fliers already are adjusting to the no-frills lifestyle.
"How do you feel, guys?" a flight director at the Russian Mission Control Center outside Moscow asked the stations inaugural tenants as they began their first full day of work on Alpha.
"Seems like everything is fine," said Krikalev, a consummate spaceman who already has spent almost 500 days in orbit aboard space shuttles and Russias Mir space station. "It feels like home by now already."
"Thats terrific," the Moscow ground controller replied.
Thats not to say, however, that the trios planned four-month stay on the station wont be hardship duty. The crew made that quite clear in preflight interviews.
~The daily grind
Take a typical day aboard the station. And forget the traditional wake-up music enjoyed by NASA shuttle crews.
Instead, a buzzing, alarm clock-like tone will blare out of station speakers at 1 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (06:00 GMT) every day, rousting Shepherd, Gidzenko and Krikalev from sleeping bags tethered to keep them from floating about during the night.
Their Russian-made crew quarters is equipped with only two closet-like "staterooms," so one of the station residents is staking out some personal space elsewhere in the module -- probably in front of one of its 13 windows.
Still unclear is exactly who is the odd man out.
The line then forms at the stations cramped bathroom at the start of a 90-minute period set aside for breakfast and morning hygiene -- cleaning up, brushing teeth and shaving. Some, however, prefer to let their whiskers grow.
"We havent had enough time to grow a beard yet," Krikalev told flight controllers Friday. "But well have our chance."
Then at 2:30 a.m. EST (07:30 GMT), the crew will check e-mail, catch up on news beamed up from home and review a "to-do list" of chores to be completed during the day ahead.
A half-hour later, the crew will chat with ground controllers about scheduled jobs and then work will begin in earnest each day at 3:15 a.m. EST (08:15 GMT).
All three of the station residents will squeeze two hours of exercise in between their household tasks -- a mandatory regimen meant to combat bone and muscle loss caused by long-term stays in weightlessness.
Its not unusual, though, for a station crew to fall behind the so-called "timeline."
Shepherd and company, for example, struggled to get all their work done after their arrival at the station Thursday. Then they faced a few more pesky problems Friday trying to get power tool battery chargers and food warmers working properly.
"We worked really hard yesterday, and we could not keep up with the timeline. And were way behind today, too," Shepherd told colleagues in NASAs Mission Control Center in Houston.
"Hooking up the food warmer was scheduled for 30 minutes, and it took us a day and a half to finally figure out how to turn it on," he added. "Youll just have to be patient with us."
The food warmers -- which resemble hot plates -- are instrumental for making the mid-day meal, which comes about 7 a.m. EST (12:00 GMT) each day. And then its back to the orbital salt mines until 1:15 p.m. EST (18:15 GMT).
Another chat with ground controllers comes at that point -- to review work completed and schedule jobs for the following day. Then the crew has about two hours free time to clean up, eat dinner and prepare for the next days onslaught -- in theory, that is.
~Twenty Four Seven
As a practical matter, a station crew is pretty much working round the clock, making certain that all outpost systems are humming along, keeping residents alive.
"We are staying basically kind of in our job site and offices for 24 hours a day," Krikalev said before the Expedition One launch.
"So even if you sleep, youre monitoring what is going on. If noise on the station changes -- it can be not loud, it can be not quiet, just change a little bit -- you wake up and try to see whats going on," he said. "Youre kind of on duty all the time."
Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev opens the hatch to Space Station Alpha and floats inside an hour after the crew docked their Soyuz capsule to the outpost on Thursday. Image from NASA TV.
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For the Alpha crew, that will mean keeping close tabs on all critical life support systems within the 13-story station, which now is made up of three habitable wings.
They include the stations crew module, which doubles as a command post; a Russian space tug now serving as a warehouse; and a U.S. docking module that ultimately will provide a pressurized passageway to all parts of the growing station.
The interior of the 80-ton station, however, is quite cramped.
Some 14,000 pounds (6,300 kilograms) of supplies and equipment were stowed inside the crew module and the Russian tug by four visiting space shuttle crews. The tug is particularly cluttered up, with stowage bags covering its floor and hanging from its walls.
Shepherd told flight controllers Friday that the advance moving crews did an admirable job.
"Theres a lot of stuff in there, but it is pretty ship shape," he said. "I think they made the best of a bad situation, trying to keep it all squared away. Its about as orderly as it could be in there."
The stowed supplies primarily are parts of the critical computer, communications and life support systems the Expedition One crew now is putting in place. Much of the mess, as a result, will be cleared away within the next few weeks.
That will free up some breathing room within the station, but the expansive American docking module is off limits until shuttle Endeavour arrives in early December with a giant pair of power-producing solar arrays.
The station now lacks the power needed to keep temperatures, humidity and other conditions within the $300 million module suitable for the crew.
~Little time to play
What little spare time the crew manages to find will be spent relaxing station-style.
Shepherd, a 51-year-old Navy captain, plans to read The Sand Pebbles, a fictional 1962 best seller by Richard McKenna. An accomplished garage mechanic, he also brought along an array of power tools to play with.
"Im planning on spending a lot of time trying to figure out how things work (on the station), and if they are not working, Ill take them apart and put them back together and see if I can at least not make things worse," the veteran astronaut said prior to flight.
Gidzenko, a 38-year-old Mir veteran, brought along his musical favorites: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and a selection of Russian folk songs. But the Russian Air Force colonel prefers to stay busy to ward away the blues.
Onboard Mir, Gidzenko discovered that the holidays could be especially difficult if he didnt keep himself occupied. And the Expedition One crew will spend Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and Valentines Day in space before a Feb. 26 return to Earth.
"Sometimes it was very difficult because all other days we had a lot of things to do, and thats why the time flowed very quickly," Gidzenko told reporters recently. "When we had a little bit of spare time, it was a time when I thought about Earth and sometimes we miss that."
Krikalev, meanwhile, expects to take full advantage of the view from above.
"I spent more than 15 months in space (aboard Mir), and I didnt read much in space," the 42-year-old aerospace engineer said prior to flight. "Every time you have a choice between just going to look outside or reading a book, (I think) you can read back here on the ground."
Theres one other thing that will have to wait until the crew sets foot back on terra firma: The cocktail hour.
An occasional shot of vodka or cognac is not out of the question aboard Mir, but theres always been an unwritten rule prohibiting liquor on American space vessels.
"Were a dry ship now," admitted Shepherd, a man who enjoys a tall, cold beer.
"Theres no authorized supply of alcohol on board," senior NASA project manager Jim Van Laak added before planting his tongue firmly in his cheek.
"It comes up when the handball court comes up."
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