With the space shuttle grounded following the 2003 Columbia accident, the ISS had to go from three-person crews down to two. Jeff Williams and Pavel Vinogradov flew the last of these short-handed missions in 2006. When we were assigned to Expedition 13, Pavel and I had not even met. Training went very well, but my Russian is still very mediocre, and his English wasn't that good. Once we were up there, his duties were mostly in the Russian segment, and mine were in the Node and the [U.S. Destiny] lab. We spent most of the time separated. But in those days, with just a crew of two, and even later with three, we would have every meal together. Partly it was because there was only one galley, in the [Russian] Service Module. I'd go down there in the morning. Pavel was usually up when I got there. We'd have coffee and eat breakfast together. Then maybe we'd have a mid-morning break, where I'd go back and have a bag of tea and just see how he was doing. We would check on each other.
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