Would anyone object if I just start with shit going wrong?

So, there I am, minding my own business, Artemis I was happily cruising towards lunar insertion, and I’d woken up a half hour earlier than NASA wanted me to. Thirty minutes away from the NASA farmer-accountants tabulating every second of my time: heaven. I’d just started on one of the science-fiction books I had very much expected to be half way through at this point, and an alarm went off.

In retrospect this might be why they train astronauts so much. Desensitize them to an alarm so they can get right to the business of dealing with it. In the movies the crews always look so instantly professional, all evaluation, no fear. Like a bank manager scrutinizing a letter of credit.

In contrast, my reaction to the master alarm going off for the first time in my life was more… instinctual.

“No, no, no, no, no, god no, no, no, no, no, please, no, no, please, please, no…” would be the verbatim quote as I literally bumped into every bulkhead on Orion making my way from cot to console.

All I’m saying is that if this were my second, or third, or fiftieth alarm, I’d have been a lot cooler. I think for the proper astronauts who’ve done thousands of these in training that alarm is probably the sound of them being given an opportunity to show what manly men, and womanly women, they are by how calmly, and efficiently, they can deal with it.

I was just scared for my life.

“There’s an alarm! What do I do?” In retrospect it was a surprisingly efficient radio message back to NASA. Help me farmer-accountants, you’re my only hope.

The command console’s LCD display was flashing red and, this is embarrassing, it took me a minute to read through the different flashing bits to find what the actual emergency was. The whole console’s pretty scary when you get right down to it, especially when it’s flashing red. “Warning: cabin pressure loss.”

“Alex,” Mark’s voice came back over the radio a few seconds later, the guy was as cool as ice cream. “We need you to get your flight suit on. Expedite.”

I stashed the flight suit I’d pilfered off Moonikin in a storage hatch designed just for them. I’m sure there would be a proper, by the book, way to have folded up all the components and tucked them away. I’d packed it like a teenager going to college.

As soon as I start pulling stuff out, bits of the suit start drifting away. Zero gravity is horrific for making a mess. Everything is moving. I’m moving away from the compartment and cartwheeling slowly. The pumpkin colored flight suit’s outer layer is wobbling around and spinning like it had a ghost inside it. Bits of the rubber pressure underlayer are spinning and coasting away in random directions through Orion. The alarm is still blaring, and the only bit of good news is I got the first piece of the flight suit I need to put on - a pair of what really do look like rubber underwear.

Trying to pull them on in zero-G is a whole world of fun. I’m pretty sure my thighs have swelled a little in space, because while they fit - barely - on Earth, I’m having a hell of a time forcing my thighs through the leg holes. This is mandatory. The orange outer layer of the flight suit doesn’t hold pressure. This inner layer, a multi-piece rubber pressure bladder is what’s going to save my life - if I can get it on.

My thighs are stuck in the rubber legs of the underwear and it really, really, doesn’t want to slide up as much as I need it to. This thing was made to fit Moonikin - who I stole it from - and while I luckily ended up having a similar upper body physique, I’ve got big legs. Back on Earth I’d left the suit’s rubber thighs, calves, and booties behind. There was no way for me to get my legs and feet into the things.

Now I’m going to die in space because I have swollen thighs. The weirdest part though, maybe the worst part, my brain really likes to make connections, and this feels a lot like the horror of pulling on pants you need and discovering you’ve put on weight, and they won’t fasten. It’s like, 60% that, and 40% I’m going to die.

I’ve got this terrible image in my head: Orion’s internal cameras capturing me floating around, wildly trying to pull up my underwear as I asphyxiate. For the rest of human history that video would get shown in safety briefings as why you fit your gear correctly. Everyone will be laughing, at me dying, forever. I can’t even blame them, I know I look like an idiot.

I do get them on, thank god.

And I move on to the belly piece. It’s managed to spin and bounce and wobble itself all the way to the other side of Orion and I have to go diving through the ship to get it. Then I put it on, but upside down. This is horrific. The safety training video just keeps being recorded.

I get a flashback of some of Jess’s clothes where it wasn’t always obvious how she was supposed to wear them. She just always seemed to know - and as soon as they were on, they looked spectacular.

I get the belly piece on with my second attempt and the chest piece is firmly stuck over my head, my arms pointing straight “up” as my body rotates around Orion, when the alarm stops.

“Alright Alex. That’s enough,” Mark’s voice comes back over the radio.

I manage to lever the rubber chest piece down. It’s bunched up in my armpits, but at least my head and arms are free, and get to the radio. “Did you guys fix the problem on your end?” I ask. The console’s back to a non-imminent death mode and I realize my heart is absolutely racing and I’m coated in sweat.

“Just a drill. We’re going to need to work on dawning the OCSS though. Getting proficient at putting it on could well save your life up there.”

They’re actually pretty good sports about it. They don’t bother me at all for the next fifteen minutes while I drift back and forth in Orion swearing to myself. Initial feelings aside, I eventually have to admit that this is exactly what I signed up for, and what I’d wanted. Surprise drills are actually full-on NASA astronaut stuff. How many times you think Neil Armstrong died in simulations? More than me so far.

I really could have just died. If there had actually been a leak in Orion and I’d had to get that flight suit on in time to save my life, that would have been it for me. I imagined myself blown up on launch or dying on re-entry. Things I had no control over. I never imagined dying because I was too incompetent to save my own life. What if I die up here because I’m an idiot?

“What are you thinking Mark? Step 1 is us going through how I should be stowing the flight suit? Or you guys want to do a few more practice runs of just putting it on?”

We spent the next two hours - two hours - going through how the OCSS should have been stowed. You know, so that all it’s pieces don’t go exploding out of its locker when you try and take something out. Then four hours about how to put it on.

“Mark…” I say into the radio, “the video of me from the drill…”

“Don’t worry about that buddy, I took care of it already.”