Work hasn’t been going very well lately. I find myself totally stalled in my training to be a rendezvous support flight controller. Fixing this is going to be difficult, because the fact that I’m currently treading water is no one’s fault.
See, the heart of any flight controller’s training is working integrated simulations, where the whole shuttle flight control team (and sometimes station too) gets together and pretends to fly the space shuttle. It’s good practice for already certified operators, and it’s good training for those learning new positions. There are flight-specific sims, where the team assigned to a particular mission gets together to practice their operations, but only certified flight controllers work missions, so only certified flight controllers work those sims. The other type are generic sims, where trainees get to play and learn. Everyone needs to work a number of generic sims before they can be certified. And right now, there simply aren’t enough generic sims.
My last rendezvous sim was at the end of September. I have one this Thursday, and then likely won’t have another one until January. That’s more than 3 months with only 1 generic rendezvous sim.
And that means I’m stalled.
I’m starting to get pretty worried that I won’t be certified in time to work my first flight as rendezvous support in April. And that thought bums me out.
On the bright side, I got selected to mentor another group of high school teachers for one of NASA’s many microgravity programs. They’ll be flying on the Vomit Comet in March, and hopefully I’ll be flying with them!
With that now on my plate, plus the pressure to get certified, plus the April mission, spring is shaping up to be quite busy. J and I had hoped to take a trip to Japan in late March, and I still hope to do so, but there is a part of me thinking that the timing may not be right. And I hate that thought. I hate the whole concept of “the timing’s not right.”
I’m just crossing my fingers that everything comes together.
