Counting Down Cady: What an astronaut does over the holidays

Editor's Note: Cady Coleman, Ph.D. is a NASA astronaut – a veteran of two space missions, who has logged over 500 hours in space. She is assigned to the Expedition 26 crew and is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz 25 in late 2010. Below is a blog written by Cady exclusively for CNN via NASA's Astronaut Office.

[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/01/08/family.apollo.art.jpg caption="Cady and family – Mark Hopkins, Conor, Garrett and Jamey Murray-Coleman, Josh Simpson, Kieran Murray-Coleman, Jamey Simpson, Ann Doty, Cady Coleman."]

By Cady Coleman, Special to CNN

Every couple of weeks, Josh and I go through our calendars to understand who has to be where and when. The Christmas holiday gave us a good chance to do that, but this time it was different: Our Expedition 26 launch (E 26) is less than a year away!

Usually when I make my entries on Josh’s calendar, I write things like “Cady to Houston – Cady to Massachusetts – Cady training in Russia or Japan or Europe, but on Dec 10th 2010 – I wrote in “Launch Day: Cady to Space.”

Then I wrote “Cady in Space” on all the subsequent weeks until June of 2011. Wow! Now THAT is cool. Now that the flight is less than a year away, I find myself thinking of what life might be like this time next year.

Let’s start with the holiday. As the mom, I wonder who will wrap the presents next year, and pack the car with the one million things that I think are necessary to bring to Grandma’s house on Christmas Day. It is not something I worry about though.

I know that Josh has all those things in hand and it isn’t as if the 9-year-old is really going to say: “Hey – how come I don’t have a very wide selection of clothes to wear at Grandma’s house?” I’m sure they will even figure out how to make Grasshopper Pie together – a Coleman family favorite. I’d like to think I’m indispensable, but Jamey and Josh are on their own a lot of the time while I’m training, and they seem to do just fine!

What does an astronaut in training do over Christmas vacation? The good and bad news is that we can’t do any of our formal training during those holiday weeks, so I get to spend time in Massachusetts with Jamey and Josh. I plan, of course, to get a lot of work done in addition to that family time, but, well, I’ll just say that I got some things done, and others not.

Follow Cady on Twitter @Astro_Cady

[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/01/08/cady.jamey.snowman.art.jpg caption="Cady and son Jamey snowman building."]

The gym had to be a priority because our crew will be practicing spacewalks in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory early in the New Year and I had some Russian lessons with my teacher Waclaw over the phone to keep my brain thinking on that front. As for cleaning out my e-mail, after 2 days of watching Jamey get faster and more skilled on the ski slopes, I’d say the Inbox is still way ahead…

Usually, I’d be skiing too, but within 12 months of flight, astronauts aren’t permitted to downhill ski. It is one of several activities on a list with different cut-off times for each. I’d like to think the management enforces this policy because they shudder to think of us all crumpled up on the slopes, but I think the practicalities involved in finding a replacement for the upcoming mission are more likely candidates.

I tried to convince them that I’d hang close to our 9-year-old, but they know Jamey and rightly suspect that he now waits for his mother at the bottom of every hill! If the people who made those rules had to go sledding with a 9-year-old, I suspect that sledding would be on “the list” as well… talk about terror on the slopes!! In my case, a little time in the lodge gave me a chance to add to my lengthy “To Do before Space” list and wage another battle in “The War Against the Inbox.” Some progress was made!

Vacation was great. Our home in Western Massachusetts is a long ways in many respects from suburban Houston, and I loved trimming our tree, baking with Jamey (with artistic consultation by his artist father of course) and playing outside in the snow. Lucky for us, Jamey has the same passion for shoveling snow as he does for raking leaves in the fall! He was also a whiz at figuring out our new vacuuming robot and teaching his Dad to use it. Like many families, we bought presents where “some assembly” was required. Eeek. My assignment: Sneak the manual for the Lego robot out of the box and figure out the software before Christmas morning.

I have this to say to those parents who found themselves with similar anxious moments, puzzling over the directions: “I AM a rocket scientist – and I still ended up on the help line!” The good news: Together, Josh and Jamey and I managed to build and program the robot to defend Jamey’s room against intruders. The bad news: Now Jamey knows how to program that little beast by himself and I’m afraid of what he will teach it to do before my next visit!

This year, we were lucky enough to get together with Josh’s immediate family in South Salem, New York for Christmas, and then later with mine in Dayton, OH. For all of us, being within of a year of my launch suddenly makes it seem like it is really real. During our Ohio visit, I was pretty thrilled to watch the IMAX movie “Space Station” at the Air Force Museum with my brother Jamey, my nephews and my mom.

Our Jamey was pretty jazzed to hang with his older cousins, and they all seemed to like getting a glimpse into my future home on the space station. I guess it is one thing to think of random astronauts up there floating around – but another to realize that your aunt will be one of them. “Where will you sleep Aunt Cady? Will you do a spacewalk? What do you think of drinking recycled pee?” Those questions and more.

Did I mention that I am the quietest and shyest of my siblings or their children? Scary, I know! I live in fear that we will manage to have a family reunion before I go, and that they are already preparing their roasting speeches and parting gifts. Knowing that I’ll be in space for Christmas next year, Josh and Jamey have a project of their own. They were inspired by that Christmas movie where Danny DeVito tries to put enough Christmas lights on his house that it can be seen from space… I can’t wait!

Now it is the New Year – and back to work here in Houston. In just 3 days, I’ve done a safety course for flying our T-38 airplanes, learned to take apart the docking mechanism for our supply ships, had a crash course in medical ultrasound for sending images of my veins and arteries back to the ground, plus the usual Russian lessons and time at the gym!

E 26 is 330 days or so from launching, but we are not the only game in town. Even more exciting is that we have five folks from the E 22 crew up on the International Space Station as I write, two space shuttle missions ready to help complete the station assembly in Feb and March, and the next ISS crew rotates up to the station in April!

Happy 2010!
Cady Coleman

Program Note: Watch CNN's American Morning as we follow Cady on her year-long mission to space, and check back here for blogs, photos and video updates from Cady as she documents the behind-the-scenes life of an astronaut.