It's Not... Any Sort Of Battery Operated... Device!

Once in a while, this job is really fun. I don't want to say that I don't value what I do, or find it interesting, or attain some level of satisfaction from it. But fun isn't the word I'd use to describe it. There's usually a chance of death involved in any mission, on one side or the other, but because the chances on this one were next to none, I just got to sit back and enjoy it. After what happened, they are still not comfortable sending us deep into the fray, so I am learning to accept these cupcake assignments for what they are, and just relax.

The site: the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which, in the absence of MacDougal, proved surprisingly easy to find. The ESA just launched the Venus Express, a spacecraft designed to study the upper atmosphere of the planet Venus for the next five or so years. There's no point going into much more detail about it... just head over to space.com or the ESA's website and you can read all about it and probably download all sorts of pictures too.

The mission: generic security detail for the launch of the Venus Express. The European Space Agency, for whatever reason, decided to launch from Kazakhstan. I am not well versed in how the ESA does business, but I do know that Kazakhstan is quite decidely not in Europe, and I'm pretty sure there's someplace in Europe that they can launch things into space from. But the Cosmodrome is a veteran facility in such affairs, and ours is not the place to question. I've been told that the launches have revived the local economy, which was all but dead after The Fall. It's not the best place to visit, but it's not all that bad.

This launch had been delayed because of some technical problems... and there had been vague but credible threats of other types of problems. Most likely nothing, but worth being there for, especially since the type of security that they have for these launches is often somewhere between "lax" and "non-existent". The timetable for launch was "before November 24th". So it was entirely possible that I'd be there until the end of the month. Luckily, things went OK and they launched on Wednesday. I thought the security was more than adequate, and Abby agreed. But I enjoyed the vacation, and got a good view of the rocket firing off into space.

The funniest part of the entire mission, though, was the briefing. We were in the Fishbowl (our name for the glass-walled conference room) and Jennings mentioned the Venus Express. Gruber immediately interrupted him.

"Venus Express? Isn't that one of those battery operated sexual devices?"

There was a brief snicker amongst those in the room, immediately curtailed when Abby corrected him, "That's the Venus Butterfly." And as the words came out of her mouth, she immediately realized it wasn't the best idea to admit how knowledgeable she was about such things. A brief but awkward silence ensued, which Jennings summarily broke up. "It's not..." he flummoxed, "any sort of battery operated.... device! It's a spaceship! Now let's move on!"

Too late. He'd lost the room. It took a minute or two to die down, and the briefing continued with chuckles and watery eyes. I made sure to refer to Abby as БАБОЧКА (butterfly) for the remainder of the mission, for which I have a nice bruise on my shoulder from all the times she hit me.