Miles High -- Today, the three-man crew of ISS was severely chastised
for
juvenile behavior, complete with threats by Houston to send "adults up
there
in about one minute."
Commander Jock Dearth, according to one Mission Control engineer (a
really
pissed off anonymous desk jockey), was overheard screaming into his
headset:
"If I have to come up there MYSELF to open that door, mister, you'll be
sorry." That expression, well-used by American dads (screamed at a
painful
130 d
, seems to tag the American rocketeer as the listener.
Ever since the dust up over marijuana (see Doobage in Space), the ISS
crew
has been, well, rather cranky. They have enraged Houston numerous times
in
the last few weeks for such pranks as smearing Vaseline on camera
lenses,
engaging in food fights, playing Grateful Dead music to squelch radio
transmissions, speaking Pig Latin to the Command Center and making bong
references.
But Dearth had reached his limit, apparently, and began issuing
warnings to
the three when they refused to let an unmanned Russian supply ship
fully
dock, demanding that before docking could complete they should "give
the
password, wads".
Though there is some unknown measure of secrecy about the incident, we
can
patch together from audio chatter between Houston and ISS what seems to
have
occurred. And the source (that angry desk jockey, of course) also gave
us a
tiny glimpse of the exchange:
HOUSTON: Is there a problem up there?
ISS CREW: No problem, man. What's your gig?
HOUSTON: Open the door. The supply ship has docked, and now you need
to...
ISS CREW: Supply, man? That better be code for you-know-what, Dude.
HOUSTON: Open the door.
ISS CREW: No way.
HOUSTON: I SAID OPEN IT! RIGHT NOW!
ISS CREW: Does it have the password, man? You know, P.A.S.S.W.O.R.D.
Here, the Command Center turned it over to Dearth for a series of
threats
and ultimata, such as, "This is the last time I'm gonna tell you" and
"Grounding will be the least of your problems if I have to come up
there,"
and so forth.
The crew eventually relented and opened the door when (source said)
Dearth
rather offhandedly mentioned that the ISS crew is NOT exempt from
waterboarding "when you get down from there". The source didn't say,
but we
can all remember that our dads always added, "you little shit" to his
threats; it is alleged Dearth barked this down the intercom.