79 DAY IN THE LIFE: THE MAKING OF A MISSION CHAPTER 4 (vehicle development for exploration missions after space shuttle retirement), and was surprised late that year to learn that I was headed toward another shuttle mission on STS-130. After looking closely at the manifest, it became clear that this mission would likely be during Increment 22 in the time frame I would have been on board the ISS, had my path continued on the Soyuz route 2 years earlier. As the rest of the chapter outlines, the assembly mission STS-130 and its associated hardware took a twisted route to its final incarnation, just like I did as a crew member. Over the years, the cupola was an on-again/ off-again part of the ISS. Certainly no mission would be dedicated to delivering it, and much of the space station’s primary function could be performed without it. But, in the end, the value of having an observation port for visiting vehicles carried it to orbit. Node 3 was relocated even before it was ever installed and, as described in the chapter, the number of little things that had to come together to make that possible is just amazing. The fact that they all came together on schedule to allow for module activation during the STS-130 mission was an added plus for our shuttle crew (although it wasn’t something we could have our hearts set on). At one point during the ammonia flex line development and test sequence, when the schedule seemed particularly challenging, the idea of delaying install and activation to a future shuttle crew was considered. Having trained dozens of hours for these tasks in NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) and assisted with the development of the hardware itself, both myself and my spacewalking partner Nick Patrick knew that this task would not be easy, even for us, and that it would be extremely challenging if someone else picked it up on short notice and tried to squeeze it into their already- packed mission timeline. Module activations for new parts of the ISS delivered by space shuttle generally involved the same basic steps. One: move module from payload bay to ISS. Two: connect power and cooling. Three: gracefully incorporate the new hardware into the rest of the ISS system. For Node 3, Step 2 was above average in difficulty, and it was the one being considered for transfer to a future flight if the ammonia flex line hardware was not available at launch time. The install required four stainless steel flex lines to be installed and then wrapped in a large insulating blanket. Normally it is pretty challenging if a spacewalk has to install something that is bigger than a crew member. In our case, this spacewalk had five big items, and keeping them under control simultaneously was even more challenging. After several months of development, Nick and I and the rest of our team had a pretty slick process for getting it all done and even looking graceful while we did it. Gone were the days of all the hardware falling to the floor of the NBL as the initial scene from our spacewalking show. As the lead spacewalker for STS-130, I remember being asked about the spacewalk content being moved to the next shuttle crew, and how some felt our crew should advocate to the ISS Program that we should keep the content. My input was that we should let the other crew try the install and see how they felt about taking this content on. As with the ISS training that I started years before for an uncertain mission, I felt we would execute whatever mission they eventually put in front of us whether or not it included ammonia flex lines and insulation. In the end, the follow-on crew members that attempted our “EVA 2” were the strongest advocates for STS-130 to keep the content. For them, 6 to 7 hours of wrestling ammonia lines and insulating blankets made it clear that this EVA had more than its share of blood, sweat, and tears to extract from the installation crew and, in their minds, they were happy to have it be ours! During my time on orbit during STS-130, I had a great appreciation for all that had gone into the development of the mission (Figure 14). My discussion with the ISS commander regarding how we could task his crew to assist with our spacewalking preparations really drove home all the alternatives for which we had prepared. Having trained for that crew years before, I really understood what they could do for us and what we could do for them. In the end, both the Increment 22 and STS-130 crews were really proud to be a part of the mission.