Photo Training

Sandra Harris rubbed her eyes a bit as she swiped her ID card through the reader on the door of the Shuttle Mockup Laboratory. The jackal had been up entirely too late the previous evening, at the insistence of a few friends who had decided that Cards Against Humanity and nachos (which she suspected were bought during the Clinton administration) would be a winning combination to start the week off with. One of the behind-the-scenes tours had just entered; she dodged around them, waving at the docent and murmuring a slightly groggy version of "good morning". The guide grinned as a younger looking leopard in the group took her picture. Sandra winced a bit... Great. Just perfect. Her fur probably looked God-awful, and now it'd be on half the Internet by lunch. She sighed and looked around for a bicycle near the door. She didn't exactly feel like walking the length of this room in her sleep-deprived condition.

Building 12, which housed the SML, was one of the largest buildings on the campus of the International Space Agency's McGregor Space Center. Spanning the length of nearly two football fields, the building housed mock-ups of the Space Shuttle and some of the lunar modules used as part of the Phoenix Program, and contained a few large open areas where training sessions took place. Due to the sheer scale of the building and the almost identically sized facility next to it housing mockups of the lunar base and External Tank Laboratory, it had gradually become a habit among the astronauts and engineers who used the facilities to bring bicycles. The ISA had embraced the idea, and bought a few dedicated bicycles for the room for those who didn't want to lug one around in the mornings and evenings.

Sandra frowned a bit as she pulled a green bike out of a rack near the entrance of the room and hopped on, turning onto a small track that circled the outer wall of the room. As she did, she caught a quick glance of two of her crew members entering the Full Fuselage Trainer. The FFT had been given to the space agency by NASA in 2012 after NASA retired its remaining Shuttles, and the ISA had been quick to snatch up it and the other items NASA hadn't needed anymore. There was probably some significance to that, but the jackal didn't want to think about it this early in the day. Why they scheduled her training at 9:30 on a Monday morning was something she didn't know, but she severely regretted not stopping by the cafeteria as she biked further into the room.

"... There's a Starbucks in there," she muttered softly to herself before parking the bike at the halfway point of the room. "...God, I'm going to kill Jacob for dragging me to his place last night for freaking cards..."

She rubbed her eyes again and spotted a vending machine next to the bike rack. Well, it’s better than not having caffeine, anyway. She pulled her phone out and held it near the NFC reader on the front of the machine. The canine glanced quickly at the scuffed Omega Speedmaster with the black Velcro strap on her left arm as the vending machine ran her card information. She was a bit late, but hoped her trainer for the day would excuse her for that. The machine beeped and she quickly selected a Dr. Pepper before moving over to a small clearing where a middle-aged stoat stood. Sandra stopped and stared at him for a moment.

Most of the people who worked for the ISA at McGregor tended to wear the same sort of thing: business suits for the administrators, and almost universally button-down shirts or polos and slacks for the engineers, mission controllers and the various members of the organization that didn't fly missions, but did the ground work. She, on the other hand, almost always wore jeans and either a T-shirt or a polo shirt (usually one with the mission patch of her last flight sewn onto it) out of a desire to buck the trend.

The stoat in the open space matched part of it... he wore a blue button down shirt that clashed with his fur a bit and brown slacks... but he was also dribbling a basketball next to what looked like a chair mounted on a turntable. Something in her head told her that she was going to need far more caffeine than was in the soda for handling this situation. She walked up to him slowly and took a quick sip of soda from the bottle in her hand. "Hey, uh... Jim, right?"

The stoat stopped dribbling and nodded a bit before tucking the basketball under his arm. "Hey, mornin'! Jim Bridger, good to meet you." He extended a hand and Sandra shook it firmly. "Sandra, right?"

She nodded and glanced over at the chair a second before looking back at the basketball and its owner. "... uh. Yeah, yeah, I am. Why do you have a basketball and why is the Chair of Death in here...?"

Bridger laughed a little bit and pointed to it. "Ah. You mean the Groan Throne? Don't worry, I'm not gonna force you to be sick or anything. That's Dr. Tanner's job, not mine..."

Sandra moved a little closer towards the chair and frowned. Once, she'd seen a similar setup on Mythbusters as a test for seasickness. The chair rotated slowly and the subject (victim) was asked to tilt their head in a specific way while blindfolded to test their vestibular system and tolerance for nausea. The space agency had done it to her before her lunar flight and she had hated it after nearly throwing up in the chair twice. The one in the room today seemed like a different model though, and she didn't see a blindfold anywhere. The stoat patted one of the arms.

"This baby's part of the practice today. Got the camera with you?"

She nodded and placed her backpack on a table near the chair. A number of chairs and a whiteboard sat near it, evidently for training sessions slightly less hands-on than the one she suspected she was about to do. Reaching inside the bag, she pulled out a newer model Canon DSLR and took the lens cap off.

"Yeah, got it right here. Uh... no offense, but if you're wanting me to take your photo for Furballer or something, I don't think you're the kind of person they're looking for."

Bridger laughed a bit and held up his hands. "Trust me, I don't think this is the stoat they want. Anyway, no. Today you're going to be taking photos of this while I hold it to get your skills down for the ET Photo DTO." Sandra blinked a bit. The External Tank Photo Detailed Test Objective was carried out by one of the mission specialists on the Shuttle almost immediately after safely reaching space. The images would be transmitted to the ground and used to determine if any significant chunks of material had fallen off during launch and posed a threat to the thermal tiles on the bottom of the Orbiter or to the leading edges of the wings.

"Question: that doesn't look like the External Tank, and it's not the same size..." She turned and pointed at the chair. "... and what does that have to do with it?"

Bridger smirked and moved to stand near the ebony jackal. "Alright, fair enough. Okay, so, it's not the right shape, no... but the way we're going to do it is pretty simple. In order to take the photo of the tank, the commander's going to flip the Shuttle over so you can take a picture of it after ET separation." He pointed to the chair. "This is to help you get used to the idea of taking photos of something while you're moving without them getting blurry." The mustelid dribbled the ball again and smiled. "Specifically, you're going to be taking photos of something orange that'll be at the same scale as the tank will be following separation. It's a trick I picked up while I worked in Houston; worked for the Shuttle crews I helped train."

The jackal took the information in for a second and slowly shook her head. "Okay... this sounds like it shouldn't work at all. Why not just, I dunno... use a simulator or something for this?"

The stoat dribbled the ball and passed it towards the jackal. "This is cheaper," he said with a smirk as Sandra awkwardly caught the ball in one hand and passed it back to him. She missed her mark, but Bridger caught the ball easily enough.

"Okay. That sounds like NASA, yeah," she sighed. "Does it work?"

Bridger nodded a bit. "Reasonably enough. This is just to get started, at any rate. There's more sophisticated stuff we're going to get into, but... no offense, I've seen some of your lunar photos. Some are great, some aren't."

Sandra frowned and felt her ears wilt a bit. "Hey..."

Bridger held his hands up a little. "Hey, just being honest. Got to do my thing. My job, along with Mr. Basketball," he pointed to it to emphasize the point, "is to help you get really good at taking photos of the Tank, specifically, but also of Hubble and the ETL, in case you need to divert. Some of those are gonna require you to take photos while the scene shifts and if you don't compensate for that, it'll get blurry. Last thing you want is a blurry photo and you miss a big chunk of foam that tore loose or E.T. mooning you from a UFO or something."

Sandra shrugged and sighed, moving towards the chair. "To me, "Mr. Basketball" is a yapping fox from Seattle. He's orange, too. Why don't I use him for target practice with this thing?"

"If you're talking about that Turner kid on the Summit, then you're probably going to be able to see him from orbit, along with that bear they've got. Both of them are going to be moving under you at 18,000 miles per hour, though, so you've got to counter that for a good shot." Bridger smirked and tried to spin the ball on a fingertip. He failed after a brief attempt and fumbled to catch the ball before it bounced away as Sandra shook her head with a brief roll of her eyes.

"Okay, fair enough. Right. I'm guessing I'll be in the chair?"

The stoat nodded, returning with the basketball, and grabbed a tablet from the table near the chair, typing something into an app on it before turning it off. He picked up a device the size of a smartphone with an armband on it. Sandra recognized it as one of the cuff computers that astronauts used with Constellation EVA suits for storing maps and checklists, and for controlling some of the suit functions. She briefly wondered how Bridger had gotten one, but then thought better of asking. Bridger pointed to the device and smiled. "I'll control the spin from here. If you feel sick, though, just flap your arms or yell at me or something. Once had a guy just keep trying to take pictures even though he was about to hurl. The janitors hated him after he got out and barfed all over the floor."

Sandra nodded and settled into the chair, checking the camera quickly before turning it on to verify how much charge and memory it had left. "No problem, man. I'll just throw the camera at you or something."

Bridger shook his head. "I'd rather you didn't. We'd have to get a new one and start over, which'd be bad. Anyway, strap in. I'm gonna put this on the floor and talk you through the basics before we take this for a spin. By the end of the day, hopefully, you'll graduate to having your head turned to the side and you'll be getting some nice Kodak moments for the calendars in the gift shop."

Sandra nodded a little and sighed. Training kept getting weirder... and her day had just started. "You're the boss, Jim. Let's rock and roll."

Bridger grinned and moved to place the ball on an 'X' on the floor a few meters away. "Right." He swished his tail twice and walked back towards the jackal. "Lesson 1: Aperture and Shutter Speed..."

---

Just a brief glimpse at some of the training Sandra goes through for her mission. It ain't all sunshine and rainbows in the space biz. Besides, she's gotta be doing something when she's not haunting the FBA chat and Twitter, after all. Speaking of which, I snuck a few Furry Basketball references in there for kicks. Enjoy!

Sandra Harris is mine.
Jake Turner (aka the "Yapping fox from Seattle") belongs to  wendingo
Daniel Quvianuq (aka the "gigantic freaking polar bear in Seattle") belongs to  jakebe
And both the Furry Basketball Association and Furballer were created by  buckhopper