Tour of the Closet Sized Living Quarters On ISS

Phoghat writes "Who knew it could take almost seven minutes to get a tour of the teeny-tiny crew quarters on board the International Space Station? But Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly provides an engaging peek inside his personal living space, and an inside look at life aboard the ISS."

Comments

No one openly gay on the ISS

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there is no room to come out of the closet.

Re:No one openly gay on the ISS

[Anonymous Coward]

If the closets are that small, they're probably out most of the time.

Don't miss the Wikileaks video, "69ing in zero gravity".

More stories like this

[Anonymous Coward]

I know I tend to kvetch about useless stories on Slashdot. Just thought I would put in a plug for more stories like this. I know Slashdot doesn't write them, but this is definitely "News for Nerds".

- Posing Anon as my account has been modbombed to oblivion :) MyLongNickName

Re:More stories like this

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of those useless stories in my opinion. In over four decades of Space Nuttery, *this* is an important story to you? That we haven't gone any further? That's it? Wow, you have low standards for what passes as "News for Nerds"... How about some news on regenerating limbs? Or are the implications too scary and thus you prefer the same old stories about the same old technology doing the same old things?

BORING.

Youtubing from space?

[DigiShaman]

It sure would be nice to watch personal Youtube videos created by astronauts in their spare time. If they can read books, why not do this as well? Anyone have an idea how much that would cost in bandwidth to upload videos?

Re:Youtubing from space?

[John Hasler]

> If they can read books, why not do this as well?

Because they'd rather read books? PR is the NASA PR department's job. Why would an astronaut want to use up her limited personal time promoting herself? More money from endorsements? Fear of being cut from the team due to not having enough fans?

Re:Youtubing from space?

[DigiShaman]

Err, I dunno. Maybe because it's their personal time to do whatever they want. And as long as there's not conflict of interest, (like talking about specific work related projects and/or funded experiments) I don't see what the problem is.

I wouldn't know, but are they technically "on the clock" while they have spare time? I mean, does the Federal Gov employ them 24/7 while in space? Or just 8 to 12 hours a day? Make no mistake about it. Regardless of the occupation, a job is still a job.

Re:Youtubing from space?

[Anonymous Coward]

It sure would be nice to watch personal Youtube videos created by astronauts in their spare time. If they can read books, why not do this as well? Anyone have an idea how much that would cost in bandwidth to upload videos?

I doubt NASA would let them, even assuming there was enough bandwidth between ISS and Earth to upload videos all the time. NASA has always controlled, scripted, and directed the public side of the space program. They want clean, polished astronauts reading from the talking points.

Remember that "Astro-nut in a diaper" scandal a while ago? I bet, in the minds of NASA's top brass, that ranks second only to Challenger and Columbia as the all-time worst disaster in space program history.

I love and hate

[Dyinobal]

I love and hate all these videos. It gives me hope that perhaps one day we will truly travel the stars, and yet at the same time it reminds me how horribly primitive we are in our efforts to do so. I always imagine a space station to have well more space. Think the cheesy space station from the first fantastic four movie. Still maybe one day we will really have the motivation to travel the stars.

Re:I love and hate

[Abrisene]

Mass is the currency of space travel, and more space = more mass (for structural integrity). Unfortunately it doesn't look like this is going to be changing anytime soon, so it's doubtful we'll be seeing space stations with tons of unused space anytime soon, if ever. There's no problem with dreaming about it though.

Re:I love and hate

[eln]

Until we can figure out artificial gravity, I would think you would want to have as little space as possible between you and the walls, since the only real way to maneuver is to push off of something. This would lead to a design with a lot of small rooms connected by narrow corridors, such as you see in the ISS.

Re:I love and hate

[Lumpy]

Primitive?

His space is more than enough for it's needs. In fact humans can live very comfortably in small spaces. I know people that are incredibly happy raising their 2 kids and 2 adults family in a 2 bedroom 640sq foot apartment. They are quite civilized and less primitive than most people that have McMansion homes.

More space = a waste of space. Only badly designed things have lots of open space in them. Until we get a unlimited self renewing power supply that can lift 900,000,000 metric tons for zero cost, ALL space travel will be just big enough for it's needs... On a modern nuke sub even the captain does not have a giant spacious 3 bedroom suite with jacuzzi...

Re:I love and hate

[kybur]

artificial gravity is easy. Just keep the ship accellerating forward, or spinning around a convenient axis. The former case, of the accellerating frame should be indistiguishable from being in a uniform gravitational field.

Re:I love and hate

[rubycodez]

but real world objects don't have "uniform gravitational fields". Distinguishing your accelerating frame from being on a planet with 1 g is trivial. The force on a planet appears to come from nearly a point, the center of mass. The force on a planet obeys the inverse square law above the surface. Spinning around a convenient axis on a radius of hundreds of meters or less will have even more tell-tales that a human inner ear will notice.

Re:I love and hate

[Anonymous Coward]

I could live in a smaller space, but my minimum requirement begins with "room for a grand piano", and that doesn't mean I want to shove a piano in a too-small space, it means I need a large enough space for natural reverberation, and there needs to be room for a few people to sit.

Re:I love and hate

[aztracker1]

I think when we get to the point where say a 1/3 size Babylon5 style station is possible could be a worthy goal... Even in a planetary orbit... Of course, we'd probably want to see if we can mine resources from the Moon, Mars or Venus, as that may work out as a better motivator for such a station...

Re:I love and hate

[kybur]

If your inner ear can distinguish the difference between a uniform field, aka an accelerating spaceship, and the curved field of a point source 6300000 meters away, I'll eat my hat.

I agree that the spinning case would probably feel a little wierd to most people. That's why I only suggested the first case as being indistinguishable.

Of course you could devise an experiment to tell the difference between the first case and earth, but the parent of the thread is talking about artificial gravity!!! I guarantee you I could devise an experiment to prove that the gravitation field inside of the starship entriprise or battlestar galactica does not have an identical curviture to that of the earth.

The point of having artificial gravity is not to decieve instruments, it's to keep those instruments from floating away from their labs!

Re:I love and hate

[hitmark]

I may be shorter, but it needs to be at least a specific width to be usable. This because one would not want one part of the body to experience a different centrifugal force then another part (iirc).

As for mining, a better option may be the asteroid belt (tho moon mining would be a bootstrap for that). This as there would be less energy spent escaping gravity all the time.

Re:I love and hate

[syousef]

Sounds to me like you're jealous of people that have more space. More space means you're capable of more things. There's room for hobbies, there's room for storage of things you use less frequently. YOU may consider that a waste, but it's not your space to govern and rule.

I use my "McMansion" space to house all sorts of things that enrich my family's life. Telescopes. Musical instruments. Shelves of books. Remote control planes. Sleeping quarters for 2 dogs. A home theatre. Computers. Spare stuff that I like but that you can no longer buy because it's the 5 year old model. I really don't give a fuck what you think about how I use that space or whether you think it's wasted.

Re:I love and hate

[Engine]

I really don't give a fuck what you think about how I use that space or whether you think it's wasted.

I think someone hit a nerve.

I rather have a small apartment and use money for traveling or working less instead of paying to store seldom used stuff.

Re:I love and hate

[MichaelSmith]

Microgravity makes it easier to make use of volume as well. I was surprised he had so much space. I expected a coffin shaped volume or a sleeping bag attached to the wall of a corridor.

Tiny teen crew quarters?

[Rob Kaper]

Did anyone else read that or is it just me with a one track mind?

Re:Tiny teen crew quarters?

[ggambett]

For some reason I mixed Sized Living and ended up reading "Closet Lizard". WTF is a lizard doing in the ISS?

Re:Tiny teen crew quarters?

[rubycodez]

they are there, they just haven't come out of the closet yet

Re:Tiny teen crew quarters?

[thomst]

Did anyone else read that or is it just me with a one track mind?

You mean "Tiny Teen Crews, Only a Quarter?"

Or is that just me?

Re:Tiny teen crew quarters?

[MichaelSmith]

WTF is a lizard doing in the ISS?

Somebody has to be in charge.

No wasted space

[PhxBlue]

Doesn't surprise me that it would take seven minutes, because while the living quarters might be small, the microgravity environment lets you use literally every square foot. On Earth, you can't use your floor and ceiling as shelves.

Re:No wasted space

[Anonymous Coward]

On Earth, you can't use your floor and ceiling as shelves.

So that's why I couldn't get that stuff to stay put on the ceiling! I was near the end of my patience yesterday with it.

Re:No wasted space

[camperslo]

One of these days someone will market viable velcro-like ceiling pads for sticking things up there. Students in small apartments sometimes do creative things like putting up hooks for hanging bicycles. Figure out how to park a car up there and you'll be rich. Not too many other options meanwhile. A fun but dangerous place for a mirror or a flat-screen? Spider-farming is safer.

A sky-light to see the stars might be cool if it never broke or let the sun fry you.
Sleeping under the stars in space could be a treat.

Re:No wasted space

[WeatherGod]

Doesn't surprise me that it would take seven minutes, because while the living quarters might be small, the microgravity environment lets you use literally every square foot. On Earth, you can't use your floor and ceiling as shelves.

Looks at floor... already done.

Looks at ceiling... hmmm, I will have to get back to you on that one.

Re:No wasted space

[houghi]

http://freshome.com/2008/01/14/ceiling-book-storage-idea/
http://www.multipleautomation.com/hidden_ceiling_bed.htm
http://gizmodo.com/365748/bedup-saves-space-by-storing-your-bed-in-the-ceiling
http://www.garagewerks.com/serv_ceiling_storage.html
http://www.instructables.com/id/GARAGE-STORAGE-SOLUTION/

I am sure you get the idea.

Re:No wasted space

[fred fleenblat]

i have one of these: http://www.homeorganizershops.com/PHL-1R.html

the rack is 16 sq ft but bulky stuff hangs over the edge so it probably frees up about 20 sq ft of garage floor space altogether. i took my time on installation (6 hours maybe) to make sure it was really solidly attached. i put some interlocking foam floor pads over the wire rack so smaller stuff doesn't fall through. i have one of the old hand crank ones, but you can get motorized these days.

Re:No wasted space

[MichaelSmith]

I have self adhesive velcro pads in my van. I use them for pens, torches, etc.

futurama reference

[Anonymous Coward]

kind on reminds me of benders appartment, minus the giant closet that is

Or as NYC residents call it

[GodfatherofSoul]

A one-bedroom studio apartment.

Re:Or as NYC residents call it

[hitmark]

i recall reading about a actual closet in SF that was rented out.

Re:Or as NYC residents call it

[Anonymous Coward]

My friend rented out a cabinet in the kitchen.

No, it's news more nerds need to see

[Moraelin]

NASA: because 40 year old technology is so fascinating.

Wow, look! A Russian Cosmonaut is eating a Twinkie on the ISS! FRONT PAGE STORY! Ooooh, ahhhhh, so exciting.

Hey, checkitout. An astronaut talks about how small his quarters are on the ISS. Whoa dude, that's hard-hitting news for nerds right there.

Shit man, how can you beat that?! They might even show you how they tie their shoes. It'll be somehow cool and exciting and newsworthy because it'll be tying shoes... IN SPACE!

Actually, no, it's news more nerds need to see. Especially the kind who grew up with a boner for space travel, based on growing up with various flavours of Star Trek and its luxury liner accommodations. Even Enterprise NX-01 (I know, I know, nobody wants to remember that one;) only toned it down to two-man rooms for the non-officers.

In practice, well, rent the movie Das Boot, and have a good look. That's likely how you'd live on an interstellar trip. Think a tube with beds on the sides and the main corridor running in the middle. Or ask someone who's on a submarine. Last I heard, even with the huge modern submarines, they _still_ hot-bunk. Not only you don't get a nice room all to yourself, you don't even get the bed all to yourself.

Heck, even in surface ships, on early British destroyers the officers slept in armchairs on the deck. (Which would probably be a better explanation for why Picard is always in his chair when someone hails.) Or a lot of the ships that hauled colonists to the New World actually packed them like sardines under the deck, because space really was that limited.

Face it, when every ton hauled costs a bunch of energy, and especially on a (part time) military ship like the Enterprise, you're not going to encumber the actually useful ship with a luxury hotel bigger than the former. I mean, look at TNG, because they even showed you the separation in the first episode. That's one tiny actually useful warship, and the whole dish is a luxury hotel for the crew.

It's not going to be like in Star Trek.

Even the ISS is probably painting a too rosy image. It's got years of adding modules and it's not going anywhere, so it has a lot more space than you'd actually expect on an early space exploration ship. Still, I'm glad they're showing even that. Might knock the glamour of some people's heads.

Re:No, it's news more nerds need to see

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think quite that many people are interested in space exploration because of glamour, instead, there is a simpler reason, space is hugely interesting.
I would love being able to colonize and explore part of a planet or moon, maybe even a particularly large asteroid.

Re:No, it's news more nerds need to see

[Anonymous Coward]

What nerds who are not you want to see is new technology.

The problem with 40-50+ year old chemical rockets is that they are never going to get us out of the Solar System and won't even do a good job of getting us to Mars. If they have something a lot more advanced than this, maybe even something that implies new physics like the kind of thing Tesla kept trying to tell us about, the military would be all over it and it would be classified. If they don't have something more advanced than this, well, it's cool that American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts can get along after all but nothing interesting is going on.

Nobody but nobody is doing a better job of "knocking the glamour [out] of some people's heads" than NASA itself. Just same old shit, nothing to see here, please move along, and that's been the deal for a long time now. That was my point that you so thoroughly and thick-headedly missed.

Re:No, it's news more nerds need to see

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

In practice, well, rent the movie Das Boot, and have a good look. That's likely how you'd live on an interstellar trip.

"The boat will need more than a can of vaseline!"

"You filthy boy! You've got crabs! A whole army of them!"

I remember an SF story - maybe in one of Brian Aldiss's Galactic Empires anthologies from the 70's - where a derelict spaceship is found. It seemed wholly alien to the humans inspecting it, owing initially to its shape, devoid of any concession to aerodynamics - instead of being sleek it was just a huge collection of cubes connected by tubes. Perhaps this story inspired the design of the Borg ships? Tried to find some info on that but about all that came up was a post on Streamlined Starships, which has some info on Star Trek/Wars designs - apparently Roddenberry decreed that the Enterprise must "look powerful," thus the nacelles splayed back.

Perhaps in the Physics of Star Trek this is given more consideration. But we're still dealing with theoretical constructs for moving FTL; assuming space travel forever remains sublight why not employ a cube as a design? It would be that much simpler to construct, after all, and there would be no putative need to deal with drag at FTL. You could also spin a series of cubes connected to a central shaft for artificial gravity.

With any of these designs it seems a simple matter to maximize volume for living quarters. I doubt the stress on the frame from acceleration would be much of a factor; you could have a largely hollow cube with ample living space inside, huge empty "parks" for instance. Or a spinning O'Neill cylinder, ala Rama.

With short intersystem hops for mining etc your U Boat scenario would be more likely to take place. Indeed if we're stuck in the solar system that might be the rule. But space stations aren't committed to designs like the ISS, either. Marshall Savage's book The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps has a radical design for habitats in space that are simply big balloons, with walls largely composed of water, plus some transparent metal. The water blocks projectiles, radiation, etc. He postulates suits to deal with living permanently in zero G. Interesting book.

Re:No, it's news more nerds need to see

[Angostura]

Just in case you haven't seen it:

mms://a1709.l1856953708.c18569.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/1709/18569/v0001/reflector:53708

Might interest you. Live streaming from the ISS. Usually it shows the earth rushing below the space station, but yesterday they had the internal camera on and Commander Kelly was busy pottering around the place.

Re:No, it's news more nerds need to see

[syousef]

Heck, even in surface ships, on early British destroyers the officers slept in armchairs on the deck. (Which would probably be a better explanation for why Picard is always in his chair when someone hails.)

That explains it! Grandpa needs his naps!

Re:No, it's news more nerds need to see

[lennier]

I don't think quite that many people are interested in space exploration because of glamour, instead, there is a simpler reason, space is hugely interesting.
I would love being able to colonize and explore part of a planet or moon, maybe even a particularly large asteroid.

Are you sure about the "interesting" part?

Day 1: We have landed on Rocky Asteroid 1034565. Go the United Space Foundation! USF! USF! Whooooo! Ate spam.
Day 2: Scouted the south face from our inflatable tent. Excitingly made of rocks. USF! Ate spam.
Day 3: North face is also made of rocks. A good day. Claimed rocks in name of USF. Ate spam.
Day 4. West face. Rocks, again. USF, etc. Ate spam.
Day 5. East face. Wow, was that a glimmer of CO2 ice? Nope, rocks. Ate spam.
Day 6. Struck out for the northeast cravasse. Brought the synthetic aperture gamma-ray crystallography lidar. Verdict? Rocks all the way down. Ate spam.
Day 7. Dreamed I ate a cockroach. It was a good dream. Nope, still just rocks. Ate spam.
Day 8. Reached edge of asteroid 1034565. Rocks and vacuum! Now that's a find. USF! USF! Ate spam.

Re:No, it's news more nerds need to see

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

We had an entire TV channel or three of ISS feeds at one point. "In space no one can hear paint dry."

Re:No, it's news more nerds need to see

[Moraelin]

ROFL.

Very funny, I'll grant that, but if early Earth sailing is anything to go by, and considering that it'll probably start around the point where we can actually get anywhere in a couple of years, it'll probably be more like:

Day 1: we left Spacedock! There's an exciting galaxy out there for us to discover! Woohoo!
Day 2: we've stopped on an asteroid for exploration. Woohoo! Rocks!
Day 3: just passed Jupiter. How exciting to see it up close!
Day 4: just darkness out there. Spent half the day doing drills and the rest looking out the window trying to spot anything. No luck.
Day 5: still nothing out there. Boy, space sure is big.
Day 6: Today it was my turn to peel potatoes at the mess hall. At least it's something to do other than hear the ensign scream at us and watch the dark out there. ...
Day 127: I could have sworn I saw a rock out there. Sarge says that's stupid: we're doing Warp 1.5 and even something Moon sized outside would go from being a speck in front of us to a speck behind us in a nanosecond. ...
Day 191: you'd think at least the milky way would look a little different from another angle. Nope, same stars, same picture as back home. Are we even moving?
Day 192: asked the science officer why aren't we seeing it from a different angle. Showed me the galaxy on the highest resolution monitor. Says this pixel is Earth, us, and 50 other stars, because the galaxy is really that big. We moved about 1/100 of that pixel. Not gonna change the perspective or angle much. ...
Day 365: we've been out here for a year, and still just darkness out there. Space exploration sure is exciting, huh?
Day 366: We had a drill loading and unloading the torpedoes and Jacob dropped one and broke his leg. I'm ashamed to cheer for a friend's injury, but HELL YEAH, at least SOMETHING's happening.
Day 367: asked Jacob if he isn't getting bored alone in the infirmary. Said not half as much as the poor sod who picked his shift as lookout. Had a laugh remembering those hours spent at a dark starry sky where nothing ever happens. ...
Day 400: it must seem strange, but I'm starting to get nostalgic about that asteroid. I'm starting to even forget what a rock looks like.
Day 401: asked the science officer to show us the rock sample we took. He said it's against regulations. I hate the guy.
Day 402: Adam took a photo of the rock when we took it. We thought he's crazy but now we took turns at looking at it. If we ever get somewhere, I'm buying him beer. ...

Or in other words, namely the words of Douglas Adams, "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

Re:No, it's news more nerds need to see

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course people didn't spend very LONG on WW2 submarines, or on old-school warships (notice the new long mission nuclear warships have better accommodation) and they don't spend too long on the ISS either.

If your warships must spend literally years just getting from one place to another, with many people living and dying without leaving the ship then the priorities might change.

The Culture's main warships during peace time are heavily populated "cruise liner" type environments, the General Systems Vehicles. Only when a serious war breaks out are large numbers of uncrewed, ugly, Offensive Units built. Of course like Star Trek the Culture novels cheat and have FTL.

The Amalgam don't do space warfare, but if they did the crew would probably not be embodied, so their environment would be dictated by available CPU power not mass or volume of space.

It actually looks kinda roomy.

[teachknowlegy]

If you compare this to the quarters on a sub it's really roomy. If all you do is sleep, work on a computer, and read books you don't need lots of space. In fact, I'm taking up far less space than I have available to me to post this here, and that's after years of taking up far more space in my clothing than is necessary.

Re:It actually looks kinda roomy.

[boristdog]

Hot-racking will be standard on the military version of the ISS. You only get the closet for 6 hours out of 24.

Re:It actually looks kinda roomy.

[teachknowlegy]

That, my friend, is too little time. She usually isn't too worn out until the 7th hour!

Re:It actually looks kinda roomy.

[MichaelSmith]

If you compare this to the quarters on a sub it's really roomy.

A sub has to slide through the water. The ISS has plenty of space to expand in to, however mass is still an issue.

Ham radio on the ISS

[molo]

For more ISS geekery, check out this video. Col. Doug Wheelock operates the NA1SS ham radio station on board the ISS. Since they are using FM, all the different transmissions are interfering and he's having trouble picking callsigns out of the noise. It is impressive to hear all that traffic in a FM pileup. Contacts start around 11:30 mark. Before that is background and a tour of the station.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h73EYcyszf8

-molo

Re:Ham radio on the ISS

[k6mfw]

I think it was great Doug spent the amount of time chatting with hams. I scan 145.800 regularly and it seems whenever ISS passed over USA, he was calling for stations and he actually answered questions from us groundbound hams. Hey, he even replied to me! (Doug KF5BOC replies phonetically so you can confirm contact). I would have liked to ask if it becomes solid noise of all those calling on 2 meters (call ISS on 144.490, listen on 145.800. typical FM 25KHz channel). My antenna was a j-pole in the window, I used 10watts going up. I think ISS uses 10 watts going down but with pure line-of-sight, low power is crystal clear (with exception to pileups).

There is also packet on 145.825, I haven't tried that yet. I was monitoring it one time, a ham in Hayward, CA kept trying to get ISS to reply (an automated system) but it kept replying with another callsign from New Mexico (probably someone with beam blasting lots of power).

Boring

[houghi]

With boring I do mean the presentation. Why not live it up and make a Cribs spoof out of it.

Re:Boring

[mikestew]

In order to make the spoof, one must first have watched the show. People that spend their time sitting around watching Cribs probably don't end up on the ISS.

Windows! Windows! Windows!

[NicknamesAreStupid]

He has a Microsoft Windows PC! A MacBook Air would be so much more fitting. Steve Jobs needs to get up there and straighten him out.

Re:Windows! Windows! Windows!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lenovo/IBM have owned the NASA market for decades.

Re:Windows! Windows! Windows!

[rubycodez]

the standard issue ISS thinkpad 61p and A31p run Windows.

Re:Windows! Windows! Windows!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yea, basing the computing infrastructure of the space station on a company that doesn't release product timelines. What could go wrong?

Re:Windows! Windows! Windows!

[Anonymous Coward]

so lame.

Re:Windows! Windows! Windows!

[Zoxed]

> He has a Microsoft Windows PC!

But in space noone can hear you scream :-)

Re:Windows! Windows! Windows!

[Anonymous Coward]

> He has a Microsoft Windows PC!

But in space no one can hear you bluescreen. FTFY

Re:Windows! Windows! Windows!

[Coren22]

Unfortunately, the MacBook Air didn't pass the mil spec requirements in time (if at all) and the one you don't see is running Linux.

Re:Windows! Windows! Windows!

[MichaelSmith]

I thought it was amazing he could do his banking from orbit.

Re:Windows! Windows! Windows!

[rubycodez]

I deal with many government RFP and contracts, haven't seen "lameness factor" as a requirement yet

Sponge Bath Bob ...

[Anonymous Coward]

does a very poor impression of Pickard.

Lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to turn around in zero-gravity in a cramped space with a camera is what took the 7 minutes.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

When I first read it, i envisioned a giant robotic George Washington quarter

sponge baths

[k6mfw]

That is what they used on Skylab even though they had a shower but having to vacuum all those floating water droplets was time consuming. Interesting Scott had vertical orientation once in his bunker. From the book "A House In Space" by SF Cooper talked about room layout needs to be vertically defined top and bottom, some portions were not and were disorientating.

I bet it a real shower and a real bath feels great after 6 months. And a real girl too.

"The Long Walk" Fraud?

[Sam_In_The_Hills]

Don't anyone tell him but the book he's reading is probably a fraud.
BBC - Walking the talk?

"From the start, a ferocious controversy has raged about whether anyone really could achieve this superhuman feat. Critics particularly questioned one chapter in the book where the walkers apparently see a pair of yetis."

When/where do they masturbate?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm actually quite serious.

Several months is a long time to go without getting off. There is documentation from some of the early space missions of the doctors advising regular masturbation for the crew. One of the crew members claims not to have, but other than that the record I am aware of is silent.

I'm seriously curious on a practical level. There is the privacy issue of where but there is also the practical issue of not having ejaculate floating all around the cabin. Does this mean they spend extra time on the toilet?

Re:When/where do they masturbate?

[MichaelSmith]

I thought he was being a bit too clear when he showed his hands outside the sleeping bag. Thats not how I would do it. In answer to your question he has his own room and he took his pictures down to film the video.

Or try this

[Moraelin]

Or just as an example that doesn't need to watch the whole movie, try the music clip based on footage from the movie: U96: Das Boot

Around 2:16 and a while after, when you see those guys running down a narrow free space between the beds, that's how cramped such a submarine was.