Time for Grandpa to Retire

 

The Rocket Team, like any big organization, has developed traditions over time.

Maybe our most solemn tradition is retiring a spacesuit. It's almost like a funeral.

Spacesuits are made tough, and we take ridiculously good care of them. We have specific maintenance inspections every 25, 50, 100, 150, and 600 hours.

But they eventually run out of usable safety margin. At 1000 hours (or 10 years, whichever comes first), a spacesuit goes into "orbital use only."

The orbital environment is usually less damaging to the suit's material outer layers. A planet like Mars has rocks and soil that wear down a suit, and the moon is even worse.

Without any kind of meaningful atmosphere to make them rub against each other, moon rocks have jagged edges like shark teeth. Even moon dust is jagged.

After 2000 hours, even the orbital environment will take it's toll on a spacesuit.

And that's the end of the road. Time to retire that magnificent piece of equipment.

I was the 10th owner of my orbital-only suit. It had 1900 hours on it when I got it issued from the Rocket Team inventory. I named it Abuelo (Spanish for Grandpa) since it was just about as old as a spacesuit can be.

Abuelo and I had some great adventures, and I secretly thought it could keep on ticking way after 2000 hours. Maybe it could, but safety was at stake.

So, on June 25th last year, we performed the solemn retirement ceremony on the Polar Reef orbital station.

I quietly cleaned Abuelo's outer layer, and my friend Siddarth helped me stuff the suit with bags of rubbish intended for removal by the next resupply drone.

We snapped on the gloves and helmet and floated Abuelo to the airlock.

Ten minutes later, station astronauts and a few onlookers gathered without speaking. The senior officer read this:

"This spacesuit has served its purpose well and long. It is now worn to a condition in which it should no longer be used to continue the dangerous work of space exploration.

The honor we show here this day is not for a lifeless piece of gear. Rather, this suit represents all of explorers who have come before, paving the way for us today. And those are who we honor."

I gotta say, I was a little misty-eyed when I pulled the "Discharge" handle on the airlock.

The bit of air left in the airlock puffed into space, carrying Abuelo with it. I watched the slowly rotating suit float away as the others returned to their duties. A few patted me on the shoulder as they left.

The suit was programmed to use it's tiny emergency jets to adjust its orbit lower and lower until it burned up in Earth's atmosphere, leaving no dangerous debris behind in orbit.

Yeah, it was sad. But it's ok. Saying goodbye is part of life.

That night, I called my real Abuelo in Honduras, and we talked about baseball for an hour.