An Cosantóir

www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE | 23 02 on 19th October 2016 at 03:05am. Watching the Soyuz dock with the ISS live was a little surreal to be honest as it was like watching a Hollywood blockbust- er it felt as if I was there in mission control watching the monitors and ensuring that the trajectory was right and the speeds were aligning in geosynchronous orbit in the moments before the connection was successfully made. After an hour of checks and pressure equalisation the hatches were finally opened and the current resi- dents welcomed on board the new resi- dents of the ISS. The now expanded crew all worked together to unload the fresh supplies from home and restocked the stores on board. Once all their personal gear was packed away in their quarters work began on the multiple experiments that each of the three would be focussed on for the duration of their mission. I found out that the ISS operates on GMT so I was able to stay in fairly easy contact using the link and a few apps that tracked the orbit of the ISS. I logged in regularly to watch the team go about their business and how they were getting on and I was able to email Shane regularly and was very pleasantly surprised to re- ceive fairly quick replies. All was good and the flight up there went perfect and he loved his new home and was very excited about the next few months. One of the most surprising things about Shane's mission happened when I was in the Aviva Stadium on the 19th November 2016 watching Ireland play the All Blacks. My phone rang and while I normally don't answer numbers I don't recognise I was intrigued to see the number was from Houston, Texas. I couldn't believe it when I answered and heard Shane Kimbrough's familiar voice at the other end of the phone. Shane was calling me from the ISS. Honestly it was a rather surreal moment, standing in the Aviva cheering on Ireland after their historic win in Chicago speaking to my friend who was in a space ship orbiting the planet. We had a great chat for about ten minutes and while Ireland wasn't victorious that day I had a smile from ear to ear. Shane continued his planned mission experiments; one included growing let- tuce in space for the first time and four spacewalks. We stayed in touch via email and it was great to catch up and who knew the much maligned and often varied Irish weather would be of such interest but it was a topic of great interest. While up there Shane took some amazing pho- tographs of our planet and one he sent to me was of my unit flash floating in the viewing cupola on the ISS. Shane also took an amazing night photograph of Dublin that he tweeted. We spoke on two more occasions once on Christmas day and once more in Febru- ary 2017 when he told me that his return date was being pushed back due to a tech- nical issue and he would land back home in April. The preparations for the return home began in March and Shane, Sergey and Andrey returned safely to earth land- ing in the vast steppes of Kazakhstan on 10th April 2017 at 06:20am. I watched the farewells being given by the team on board the ISS and the undocking on NASA TV and caught the not so smooth landing more like a con- trolled crash on the same channel. I was delighted to see all three had returned home safe and sound and spoke to Shane a few days later after he had returned home to Houston. Later that year I received a wonder- ful Christmas present from Shane of one of his mission patches and a certificate from NASA stat- ing the journey my old unit flash had made. In early November 2018 Shane was over in Ireland again to speak as part of National Science week. I had the honour of being invited to the US Ambas- sador's residence in Dublin to hear Shane speak and also seen him inspire a room full of school children in the Helix. Who knows there could have been a future Irish astro- naut in there who was inspired to work hard and pursue their dreams of be- ing an astronaut? Checking in with mission control and family after successfully completing the docking procedure. Certificate from NASA. The view of the Soyuz spacecraft from the ISS. Damien and Shane in the US Ambassadors' Residence.

• Cover