Space · Living in space and watching the sky
Life as an astronaut
A day with no down and no up
Only spacecraft can see it
The numbers
- What changes
- There is no down anymoreEverything floats
- What happens to the body
- Muscles and bones get weakerYou have to exercise every day
- From how many countries
- 38Astronauts have come
How it happens, step by step
Sleeping strapped in
The sleeping bag is fastened to the wall: otherwise you spend the night drifting around the module.
No shower
Water does not fall and clings to your skin, so you wash with damp cloths.
The day's work
Experiments, upkeep and repairs, with every single tool tied to a cord so it does not get lost.
Two hours of gym
Every day, strapped onto an exercise bike or a treadmill, so as not to lose muscle.
Fifteen sunsets
The station goes around fast: dark and light take turns, and only the clock decides the time.
To get an idea
An object you let go of does not fall: it drifts off on its own and turns up again days later.
Daily exercise is not optional, because without weight muscles and bones get weaker.
Fun facts
These are not in the book: there was no room on paper.
You cannot take a shower: water does not fall and would stay stuck to you.
With no weight to hold up, the muscles of the legs and back get weaker fast.
The bones lose strength too, and that is one of the most serious problems of long flights.
That is why people exercise for hours every day, strapped to the machines.
The people who have traveled into space so far come from thirty-eight different countries.
Someone coming back after months has to learn to walk again, because the body got out of the habit.
Test yourself
The first question is the one printed under the QR code, with the answer the book did not give. The other four only exist here.
Question 1 of 5★ is the one from your book
What changes the most when you live in orbit?
Question 2 of 5
How do you sleep on a space station?
Question 3 of 5
Why can't you take a shower?
Question 4 of 5
What happens to the body without weight?
Question 5 of 5
How many countries have people who went to space come from?
Riddles
To sleep I do not lie down, because lying down means nothing here: I slip into a bag fastened to the wall, or else I wake up at the other end of the room. What am I?
I have to work out every day, not to look good but because I must: with no weight to carry, my legs and my bones would forget how to do their job. What am I?
Try it yourself
Drop a pen and see where it ends up. In orbit it would end up nowhere: it would keep going, slowly, until it bumped into something.
Walk for five minutes with a heavy backpack and then take it off: that sudden lightness is a tiny taste of what they feel.
The words
- Velcro
- The hook-and-loop fastener used on board to fix objects to the walls.
Sources: Wikidata (Q11631), Wikipedia (Astronauta).