What Would've Been...

...the last day of the mission -- Day #9. Tonight was supposed to be the last night of the mission for me...but the extended day adds another day to my work schedule. Oh well...Tonight was supposed to be nice and relaxing. Not even 10 minutes into shift, we experienced a heart racing event. Well, it wasn't quite that bad, but it did race the heart rate a bit.
One of my jobs is to maintain the ISS's attitude control system. We have several different ways of maintaining attitude control, CMGs, Russian thrusters, a combination of the two, and orbiter control (when it's there.) We mostly use CMG attitude control because it doesn't cost us any limited resources (ie. propellant). Well today, we were on CMG attitude control and completing a small maneuver. The CMGs work by storing and dumping momentum that builds on the station. The maximum that the CMGs can hold is 99%. We tend to worry when our momentum levels start to approach high levels ... (high depends on the type of activity that we are doing). Today our momentum levels approached 91%...which is high. I think we're gonna start a new club at work: Near-sat club (which earns you a near-sat badge (Near Saturation is a term which indicates that you nearing that level of 99%...and for our system we set that at 90%))...a level up from that would earn you your LoAC wings (Loss of Attitude Control -- which will occur when CMG momentum levels reach 99%)...and the person that comes the closest to saturation without actually saturating will have an additional badge. Lisa gets the badge for the being the closest without saturating...she achieved the 98% level. It's not really something we strive for though...
Ok, i'm not sure you all understood that...and that's fine. So after a few minutes of trying to figure out what happened, i received a phone call. I figured out what caused our issues. Lisa. Yep, that's right, Lisa was still in the building. Most of our issues have occurred on her shift, so naturally i blame her for my experience last night...
Well, after that the rest of the night went really smoothly. I was able to get most of my work done and the plan for the next day was in a good configuration. Tomorrow will be my last shift of the STS116/12A.1 mission -- the most difficult assembly mission to date.

On another note, i'm beginning to feel like a vampire...except without the insatiable thirst for blood, the disdain for garlic and holy water, the pale skin, and the sharp incisors. I know it's time for bed, when the sun starts to come up. Today after our shift, we hit Taco Cabana and we knew it was time for bed when the sun started to creep up from below the horizon.