Mark Shuttleworth: Karen Sharwood, the lead scientist on the cardiology experiment, has come to Moscow specially for the zero-g flight which we knew was scheduled to happen this week. The plan was to gather baseline data on heart rate during the zero-g flight using the Polar equipment that her land-based research has used. Then, on a subsequent flight, we could gather the same data using a version of the Russian equipment that is on the ISS, and which will be used to gather the experimental heart rate data during the space flight. This way, we'd have a link from the Polar equipment to the Russian equipment which could be used to help calibrate the results of the experiment.
Originally there were four zero-g flights in the training program, but apparently this has now been cut to three, and I'd already had one. So we only had two flights left, and needed to get data on both flights. This is critical to the cardiology experiment project plan.
Sure enough, the program for the week included a zero-g flight on Tuesday. But to our surprise, it also included the final zero-g flight on Thursday. And we hadn't yet had a chance to arrange for the use of the Russian equipment for the subsequent flight, which wasn't expected to occur for a few weeks. So now we had to get the Polar data on Tuesday and arrange for the Russian equipment to be included on the flight on Thursday.
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