8 awful things on the ISS

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Do you still want to become an astronaut?

Space travel is associated with romance, heroism and vivid adventure. But in reality, this is hard work associated with risk to life, health problems and a bunch of everyday difficulties.

1. Space smells bad

People who have been in space describe its smell in different ways, but no one calls it pleasant. The ISS is said to smell like "fried steak" and "hot metal". Astronaut Thomas Jones claims that space has a "distinct smell of ozone, faint and pungent," with gunpowder and sulfur.

Chemist Steve Pearce reproduced the scent of the Mir space station for the art installation Impossible Smells in 2008, and NASA found the result very close to the truth - it was a mixture of sweaty feet and stale body, nail polish remover and gasoline.

Astronaut Scott Kelly says the ISS smells like trash, antiseptic and unwashed body, like the Harris County Jail he once visited (not as a prisoner).

And another astronaut, Don Pettit, mentioned that he smelled notes of welding fumes.

Other areas of space may smell better. There is a possibility that gas and dust clouds around newborn stars, for example Sagittarius B2, are fragrant with raspberries and rum due to ethyl formate in their composition. But we are unlikely to be able to smell them: they are unimaginably far away, hover in a vacuum and, moreover, are poisonous.

2. Drinking water is obtained from processed urine and sweat

Since it is too expensive to constantly launch cargo ships with drinking water to the ISS and there is nowhere to get liquids in space, astronauts have to drink recycled water. It is made from the urine and sweat of the station's crew and tastes the same as ordinary water, so you just need to not think about where it came from.

During a year in space, one person drinks 730 liters of recycled sweat and urine.

The ISS water recirculation system costs about $ 250 million and works on the principle of electrolysis. It is interesting that Russian cosmonauts do not like to drink such liquid and prefer the one made from the condensate of exhaled air.

They only wash with water from urine. But they kindly provide their urine for processing for the American segment, when neighbors do not have enough of their own.

For women on the ISS, it is especially difficult because the recirculation system cannot process menstrual blood. Astronauts have to use drugs to suppress their periods, which may not be very good for their health.

3. Particles of human skin float in the air of the ISS

When the keratinized flakes of your skin flake off, they simply fall to the ground under the influence of gravity and mix with the dust. But in space, under microgravity conditions, particles of someone's dead epidermis are constantly plying through the station.

According to astronauts Mike Massimino and Don Pettit, especially unpleasant things happen when someone changes clothes. You take off your sock, and a cloud of dead skin, the so-called detritus, spreads in the air. The ISS is definitely not a place for squeamish people.

Scott Kelly, during the Q&A session on Reddit, admitted that during the first months on the ISS, all calluses peel off from the feet and the legs become smooth and pink, like a baby's.

After living in space for several months, remove your socks carefully, otherwise a stream of dead skin flakes will enter the cabin. And you will quickly become the least popular member of the crew.

Scott Kelly astronaut

4. You can change clothes on the ISS every 4 days

According to Don Pettit's recollections, the stocks of linen on the ISS are not designed to be changed often, so this has to be done once every 3-4 days.

The crew of six produces approximately 900 pounds (or 400 kilograms) of used clothing per year.

And since water is in short supply on the ISS, the astronauts do not wash their clothes. Generally. Clothes are worn as long as they can, and when they become uncomfortable in them, they are loaded into a non-returnable capsule of the Progress spacecraft, undocked from the ISS and de-orbited. As a result, these things burn up in the atmosphere.

5. Washing on board is not available

At the Mir and Skylab stations, the cosmonauts had a shower. And although it was impossible to use it often, it somehow made the hard life in orbit easier. On the ISS, however, they decided not to arrange a shower.

So the crew does not bathe there, but only wipes with wet wipes and liquid soap. The remains of the soap are washed off with a small amount of water, which is worth its weight in gold here. For hair, use a special shampoo,, which does not require rinsing.

Given that astronauts regularly exercise a couple of hours a day to prevent muscle wasting and sweat profusely, not being able to wash properly is a serious problem. However, people get used to this too.

6. Astronauts have a stuffy nose all the time

How do astronauts tolerate all of the above for many months while their watch lasts? Perhaps it becomes easier for them due to the fact that they almost always have a stuffy nose. The fact is that on Earth, liquid from the mucous membrane flows from the nasal cavity into the pharynx and is swallowed imperceptibly. But in microgravity, it stays in the nose.

Gene Hunter and Michelle Perchonok, who are in charge of NASA's food science program, have noticed that astronauts are particularly fond of highly spicy, sour, or sweet foods, such as Tabasco sauce. This is because the taste of ordinary food with a stuffy nose is not very distinct.

7. Crying in space hurts

Perhaps the above facts ruined your childhood dream of space and you are ready to burst into tears. But astronauts are deprived of such luxury: it is not impossible for them to cry, but it is undesirable. In microgravity conditions, tears do not flow out of the eyes, but remain there, causing severe pain and interfering with seeing.

As shuttle pilot Ron Paris said, when tears in space are large enough, they can still fly out of the eyes. Then they just float around you. So, if you can't help but cry at all, try, on the contrary, crying more intensely.

8. ISS is full of different bacteria

It is believed that space laboratories should be very clean. After all, astronauts go through quarantine before going on a flight. But in reality, the International Space Station is full of bacteria. Studies have revealed that there are more than 4,200 species. This exceeds the concentration on planes that you usually fly on vacation. And sterility on the ISS is simply impossible to maintain.