Free Out of Orbit by Chris Jones

medical paraphernalia.)
    Across from and next to Pettit’s bedroom, there was space for as many as thirteen racks of experiments. Running along the module’s two “sides,” they helped manufacture an artificial sense of ceiling and floor—with top and bottom further defined by Destiny’s few patches of white space and hand- and footholds painted electric blue. They helped the astronauts orient themselves in a world otherwise without landmarks. The racks had the added advantage of being interchangeable, their function dependent on the interests of the current residents and the wishes of government and civilian scientists on the ground. Each of the experiments had inaccessible names like the Fundamental Biology Habitat Holding Rack and the Materials Science Research Rack, but really they were just the boxes in which the rats were kept, or where dishes of proteins and crystals were seeded.
    Jumping out from the clutter was also something called the Microgravity Glovebox, which Expedition Five had installed and quickly broken. Like an incubator for a premature baby, it was a sealed container with built-in gloves, allowing the crew to handle more exotic experiments—those involving fire, say, or gases—without having to worry about poisoning themselves or turning their home into a nebula. Whenever Pettit floated past this dormant, precious thing, he let out a little sigh, hearing the echoes of the stern orders from the ground: DO NOT TOUCH. He wondered how theycould ever find out if he ignored their demands—and, more important, how they might punish him if he did. That broken glove box gave him the resolve to earn his way into a longer leash.
    In the meantime, Destiny offered plenty more to occupy his time. In addition to the bundles of experiments, the module housed a series of IBM ThinkPads that monitored and controlled the health of station. (Rather than running things with old-timey switches and buttons, Bowersox, Budarin, and Pettit could issue commands through on-screen tabs.) There was also the joystick that was wired into the robotic arm, as well as the means to fire up cameras that could scan the station’s exterior and project the images on a collection of monitors, making it look like the security guard’s desk in the lobby of a high-rise.
    But Destiny’s architectural highlight was a huge, beautiful, circular window near the center of the module, surrounded by rows and rows of silver bolts. (A break in that seal would release a high-pitched, ultimately heart-stopping whistle.) Almost two feet wide and an optical gem, that window offered the clearest views of earth from station. More often than not, someone was next to it, unblinking, open-mouthed. Through its perfect glass, astronauts had taken pictures of avalanches and plankton blooms that looked like high art.
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    At the end opposite to the hatch, Destiny tapered into an open-ended cone, through which Expedition Six kicked into a small space called the Node, or Unity, because it helped bridge the American segment and whatever modules Russia chose to send up—Zarya and Zvezda, thus far. In some ways, it was a neglected space, more of a way to get somewhere else than a place of its own. But for some of the station’s past crews, and soon for Bowersox, it became a favorite sanctuary. There wasn’t much in it: a few large white bags filled with laundry and supplies, a wall of water-filled containers, and on the “ceiling” there was a resistive exercise device, on which the crew could do upside-down squats using giant rubber bands. But there was something more to it. Whether by accident or by design,it was somehow more welcoming than the rest of station, warmer, more homelike. It was a kind of cocoon. The lighting was soft, and it was usually quiet, and its interior had been painted a different color from the rest of station’s stark white—almost a shade of pink, closer to coral. Astronauts who hadn’t visited the International