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What You Don't Know About Living in Space
Ant writes "There are spectacular moments, as well as the mundane, in space. Over the years, living in space has forced astronauts to make a few concessions to things you would not give a second thought about when staying at a hotel/motel. The article lists a few things that people may not have known about living in space." Your iPod needs to be modified to use Alkaline batteries. And also, did you know... that in space... you only get one spooooon. And some people, are spoon millionaires...
1. Go to space 2. Take spoons and become a spoon baron 3. ???? 4. Profit
The seekers do no need truth, the seekers do find truth and the finding do be painful
A million spoons? It seems like there'd be better things to take up into space than that...
This guy's the limit!
Personally, I enjoy people being able to hear me scream at the Holiday Inn. :)
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[Insert Garfield joke here.]
When I was a kid, I really wanted to be an astronaut. When I was told though that they had a 6 foot tall maximum height requirement, I was devastated. (I'm not sure if this is still true, I've later heard of 6'2" astronauts). Regardless, now I don't feel so bad, as they do not have pizza in space. How do they cope?
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
Funnily enough a friend and I were recently discussing the interesting geometric possibilities which would be possible when cooking in zero g, one of the recipies we came up with was the sperical pizza, where the dough gets inflated into a sphere (you need the air because the pizza dough would want to shrink) and the topping get layered around the outside, all of course being stick to the dough using the sticky marinara sauce.
This could then be cooked in an oven with the 'inflation pipe' blowing hot air into the middle to cook the dough, and also acting to keep the 'space pizza' in the middle of the oven.
The result, pizza with no crusts!
if that's the kind of crap (even edited incorrectly) they're putting out.
It's really really really really really really big.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
"Their T-shirts, socks and underwear have a special silver thread lining that absorbs odor and keeps items wearable longer." "Now this is made from a space-age fabric specially designed for Elvis. Sweat actually cleans this suit!"
So they have laundry that is special treated to go for weeks without being washed. Is it a bad sign that my first thought is "Man, if I had that, I wouldnt' have to do my own laundry so often! Where can I order some?!"
According to the article, "There is also no ice cream in space. No freezer." But besides freeze-dried ice cream, according to this blog, they actually did have frozen ice cream on the ISS.
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When you want to custom-mod your Apple products, you just have to accept that everything is going to be expensive squared.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Carries a lot of implications for traveling to even near by planets, with travel time measured in months instead of days. It's tough enough to manage consumables, but traveling to Mars without a change of clothes or some way to launder them is a huge technical challenge all on its own. Maybe clothing becomes another consumable, dispose after using. And you have to pack enough groceries to sustain the entire trip, grow your own or starve if there's a mishap.
And those are our near neighbors, even living on the moon. Extended life in space is going to involve a lot of research. Let's face it, we're adapted for life on this planet. Trying to carry these living conditions across space is not only a technical challenge, it's a financial one as well. Who's going to pay for all this technology? All the lift capacity to get it into space and...then what? If we set up a moon base, we have to supply it. That's not going to be cheap. A Mars trip...even more expensive.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Worse... grammar... ever.
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you don't have to worry about who is gonna sleep on the wet spot that night. Though I didn't look from a female perspective; it actually might be frustrating to them.
When I was posted in Antarctica for a year they gave us all a questionnaire about what foods we liked/disliked, to determine what to put in my food parcel. When I got over there I found they had packed all the foods I didn't like ! It's supposed to stop you scoffing all your food quickly. I was thinking of killing and eating penguin within a week.
Bastards.
I imagine space expeditions such as a manned Mars mission will use a similar methodology - fussy eaters beware when you fill in the form !
Given the huge success of unmanned missions to the planets, it really is very tempting to ask, why don't we just stop doing this stuff. Either we are going to have a planetary energy crisis, and will have to stop wasting vast amounts of fuel on sending people to orbit, or we will find a clever fix, and so be able to do this much more cheaply at some future date. It seems pointless to do something not very useful at the limit of human capability when there are so many more interesting engineering problems to solve - energy efficient housing and vehicles, efficient and cheap solar power, all need the technologies used in manned spaceflight, but on a different scale and in different ways. A ten year moratorium on manned spaceflight with the effort entirely going into solving energy supply and global warming problems could have a huge payback.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
On earth, gravity striates your stomach contents so the heavier stuff is on the bottom and the gas is on the top. So when you burp it's mostly gas which comes up. In space, this doesn't happen, and burping is a lot like throwing up. So foods that make you burp, like carbonated beverages, are a no-no.
Okay, others seem to be talking about freeze-dried ice cream being available (blech). But in any case it seems like there'd be a way to design a freezer that takes advantage of the close proximity of outer space.
(Imperfect analogy warning) Back when I was in college, which was before the days of affordable small refrigerators, we used to take stuff we wanted kept cool and hang it in a plastic sack outside our dorm window. For a good part of the Seattle school year, it's cool enough outside for that to work...
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Among them are that pizza is a gravity sensitive food. There is an up side and a down side. The crust may be flaky or crumbly at times and that's a big problem in 0-G environments. But more than that is the possibility of liberated ingredients. I know it might seem funny to say it, but no one needs a "flying sausage in space."
I do like to say it though... heh... flying sausage...
But luckily, unlike Taco, you do get a spelling checker!
...why rechargeable lithium batteries aren't OK in space but alkaline batteries are? I can't think of any way gravity would affect battery operation or why the electrode material would matter.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Won't that void the warrantie?
What?
Listen, about the astronauts,
if you're wondering how they eat and breathe,
And other science facts.
Then repeat to yourself, "It's just a shuttle,
I should really just relax."
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
As the Endeavor approached the space station this week, crew members on board the station snapped this shot.
Saddle up: Riding with Robots
The universe has an atmosphere of -5.
What do they use for the really big onboard batteries then? (if you know) thanks in advance!
could fill some kind of infinite vacuum.
Do they use an FM transmitter, cassette adapter or did somebody modify the console with an Aux-in...
in a submarien; except we had real food on the boat. Non-smokers could make som egood deals near the end of a deplpyment when the smokers were out of smokes.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I bet the space station smells like old socks. Most B-52's do. Better that than perfume, though.
My question is: "How they survive without sex out there?"
I personally think that cosmonauts have to eat (or are fed) some type of chemicals to suppress the natural need for sex.
FTFA:
``But now the people who figure out just where to stow everyone on the space shuttle have to find space for spare double-A batteries, because the iPods tend to be battery burners!''
Compared to CD players? (mentioned earlier in the article) That surprises me.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
FTFA: ``There is also no ice cream in space. No freezer.''
What about outside? I imagine that, at least on the shadow side of the station, it's pretty cold out there.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
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Until we are able to download (and upload) our conscience in/from a solid state computer, life in space is going to be a lot uncomfortable. Our bodies are too much adapted to living in this planet. Trying to replicate such environment in space take just too resources, energy and weight. We should buy some licenses of that transfer technology from the Cylons.
But that is US politics, which I stay out of. The ISS includes European tax income, and as I pay Gordon about $40000 a year, I think I have a right to comment on how some of my taxes are spent. I'm afraid I actually support what our Army is trying to achieve in Afghanistan, where the problem there is partly caused by US funding of the Islamic fundies in the 80s. Somebody has to take a stand against people who oppress women.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
[quote]Their T-shirts, socks and underwear have a special silver thread lining that absorbs odor and keeps items wearable longer.[quote]
Like every other cloud, duh.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
The way I heard it, in microgravity, fluids accumulate in your respiratory tract. Being in space is like having a head cold, not exactly the best condition for getting good work done.
Hmmph. I try to humorously (?) point out that some moderators have missed the point by calling GP Insightful rather than Funny. The GP then gets Funny and I get Troll. Apparently said lunkheads were not amused.
What You Don't Know About Living in Space...
CAN KILL YOU!!!
Sorry, I've been watching the local news again.
Unknown host pong.
In space, no one can hear your ice cream.
That mp3 player with the "space songs" contests...was an iPod.
The Iranian tourist that went up to the ISS a year or two ago took an iPod to help her sleep.
There have been famous photos of an iPod sitting on the "dashboard" of the Endeavour. It is required that the lithium battery be replaced, but that's hardly a Herculean task.
No, you're a troll because you live under a bridge and demand payment from travelers. It had nothing to do with your envious bitching about moderation, as we all know that it's important to knock others down, otherwise how would your mediocre attempts receive the gracious praise you so richly deserve.
If they can't have a freezer, couldn't they bring real ice cream (and other freezer kept foods) and keep it outside in the shade?
The bit about no padlocks reminds me of a head-thumping bit from an episode of ST:TNG (one written during the previous writers strike, in defense of the show's regular writers). The Enterprise has picked up a 20th century business executive, who in the middle of a tense military confrontation with the Romlulans is able to nag Picard using the ship's intercomm, because the Federation assumes that everyone on board will use the comm system responsibly, so it has no authentication or usage restrictions.
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walmart actually has this clothing -long underwear and socks-on the shelf in the sporting goods section. It has woven in silver wires, the silver kills bacteria constantly. Sharp has made a washing machine where the drum is silver coated as well, for the same reason. And a lot of water filters use silver, including the ones on space missions.
Ya, I know you were getting a funny, but the stuff is out there for anyone interested.
... wondering if they could introduce you to this wonderfull food product called Hot Pockets.
...you've played knifey-spoony before.
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
From TFA:
> On a previous mission many years ago a space shuttle commander was concerned about a crew member
> he considered potentially volatile. He requested a padlock to lock the hatch to keep someone from
> opening it unexpectedly during a mission.
Holy crap, if a commander is concerned that a member of his crew might actually kill people, why would he even allow that person onboard? Psychological screening seems like a better solution than a padlock.
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After all, a hoopy frood always knows where his towel is.
That's crazy lol Padlocks!
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If and ever artificial gravity is discovered, a hell of lot will change regarding our lives.
In the meantime, couldn't a rotating space station be constructed so as that there is some simulated gravity environment on board?
A backpacking trip to the back country...
No freezer, no icecream.
Few will pack a Dutch Oven or box oven, so no pizza.
Eat everything you can so there is less in the trash.
Compress the trash so it takes up less space.
No washing -- maybe rinsing the clothes.
Differences from backpacking:
No silver threads in the underware... we just stink.
No bears in space, so you don't have to hang a bear bag.
There is a toilet, so no cat holes.
I'll match Star Pizza and Fuzzy's pizza, both in HOuston Texas, against the best New York and Chicago have to offer.
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
Nope, not a fake. You can see the originals right here on NASA's site:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/217427main_iss016e032312_hires.jpg
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/217432main_iss016e032313_hires.jpg
Having broken the Prime Directive of /. by RTFAing, I wonder why they're surprised that astronaut's "goody stash" become a source of "trade goods" towards the end of a mission.
People in an isolated environment, with restricted access to status goods use a lower status material of restricted availability as a proxy for other items of value. Look in any prison at the trade in "contraband" tobacco. Look also at the submariner's tale (up-thread, look for a typo of "submarien", IIRC) of tobacco rations being treated similarly. Look back to the rationing in the war (any war), and what a GI could get for a pair of nylons. Come out to an oil rig with my colleagues and I for a couple of weeks and notice how the "can of coke and a Mars bar" becomes a local variant of a gold standard.
To be honest, I'd suspect that the mission planners DELIBERATELY included the sweeties etc. - in a "stashable" form - so that people would develop this sort of economy. It then naturally provides a (seemingly) self-developed social lubricant to minor awkward moments. Good psychology.
That's probably why the submariners had a "smokes" ration too. This isn't exactly a novel situation.
Which would you prefer - chocolates, smokes, or a good dose of Rum, Sodomy and The Lash (allegedly Winston Churchill's list of the traditions of the Royal Navy).
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
My god! You just betrayed that you also read TFA! Mods! Ask this man to leave his /. card at the door!
Huh?
Is "in a centrifuge" the next "over the internet"?
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