What Is The Everyday Life Of An Astronaut In Space Like?
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In space, there are a lot of things that are taken for granted, or not questioned until we actually get up there and figure things out for ourselves. Join me as we explore how astronauts live life in space.
(Everyday astronaut life Like)
8. From Earth To Space - Space exploration
On a certain level, I'm sure that some of you out there now, and a lot of people back in the day from before the times of NASA and such, think/thought that living in space would be a lot like living on Earth. After all, many of the basic needs that we require to survive are still a "must have" in space just as it is on Earth. We need food, we need water, we need exercise, we need stimulation, we need rest, we need to relieve ourselves, and on and on.
But what gets lost in the transition is that while those requirements are still needed, that doesn't mean that you can just jump into space and start doing them like you would anything else. And over the many years of the space program, scientists had to learn that. Both in the easy way, the hard way, and the surprising way.
Now, as for whether there are people living in space right now, that would be a yes. There are right now six people on the International Space Station, which is a literal station that is orbiting Earth right now and is orbiting the entire planet every 90 minutes. It's from that station that we've learned a lot about life in space, including some things that no one expected when they decided to up into space full-time.
After all, when you're on Earth and you're going about your day, you feel just fine, but when you go into space? You feel...light as a feather...
7. The Effects Of MIcrogravity On The Body
So let's get the elephant out of the room, shall we? The biggest difference between living on Earth and living in space full-time is that space doesn't have gravity. Or in the case of the people on the International Space Station, it has Microgravity (meaning that it's a very small fraction of gravity compared to what is on Earth).
Right there is a major thing that all astronauts have to get used to. Because while it may be fun and "freeing" to have no weight and just float in the air, when you're trying to move around a ship or station, and trying to get things done, even if that's just eating food, it can be a hassle. Astronauts have to basically retrain their brains and their bodies to deal with the effects of microgravity and how to do locomotion. Because in space, you can't get momentum by flailing your limbs around...well I guess you could in the way of doing spins and such, but to get forward momentum you need to propel yourselves off of something. So just moving around is a BIG change, and that's just one thing about gravity that you have to be careful of.
You see, because we're so used to gravity here on Earth, we don't think about what the gravity actually does to our bones, muscles, etc. So when we started to put the first groups of people on the International Space Station, we didn't think to calculate what would go on if we left them up there for a long period of time with nothing literally weighing them down.
Thus, when they came back, we were in for a shock. Because while they were mostly fine, their bones and muscles were much weaker. You see, with gravity on Earth, our bones and muscles are used to a certain amount of pressure, or resistance, and thus we get stronger by fighting through that. But in space, that doesn't happen. So thus, astronauts have to go through a rigorous training exercise every single day in order to help make sure that when they get back to Earth they aren't full of brittle bones and weak muscles.
It's so necessary for them to do this that the International Space Station actually has a full-on gym for them to work out in. How cool is that?
But as you can see, this was just one of the things that needed to be figured out via "hands-on" experiences in space.
6. Food and Drinking Water