Houston (AFP) – They’re sipping smoothies, snapping phone pics, dealing with crashed email and fixing broken toilets: astronauts, they’re just like us. The four crewmembers zipping through space toward the Moon are carrying out a mission unlike any before it, but they’re also still muddling on through life’s mundanities — all while they float around together in a square footage equivalent to two minivans.
Mission specialist Christina Koch, the first woman to venture into deep space, said preparing for the 10-day journey was akin to planning for a camping trip. “It represents togetherness and something a little out of the ordinary,” she said in a video released by NASA. Orion wares include 58 tortillas, 43 cups of coffee, barbecued beef brisket, and five types of hot sauce. And one toilet…which had a problem.
It’s the first time astronauts venturing into deep space have had a real toilet onboard: the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 70s provided crewmembers with waste collection bags that were ultimately left on the lunar surface. Much to the astronauts’ relief, Koch remedied the issue with the toilet aboard Orion — “I’m proud to call myself the space plumber,” she said during a Q&A session late Thursday with US media. “I like to say that it is probably the most important piece of equipment on board,” she said. “So we were all breathing a sigh of relief when it turned out to be just fine.”
– Sleeping ‘like a bat’ –
The toilet is in a small cubicle that’s quite loud; the astronauts need to wear ear protection when they use it. But it’s “the one place that we can go during the mission where we can actually feel like we’re alone for a moment,” Canadian Jeremy Hansen said during a demonstration video released by the Canadian Space Agency prior to blast-off. The Artemis astronauts also quickly encountered email trouble: mission commander Reid Wiseman said he was experiencing issues with Microsoft Outlook. “I also see that I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working,” he said on NASA’s livestream. Who among us?
Members of the Houston-headquartered Mission Control fixed the problem — where would we be without our IT experts? The astronauts must adhere to a sleep routine to ensure they’re rested for the mission that will see them slingshot around the Moon and conduct a battery of test maneuvers, equipment checks, and scientific observations. They have sleeping bags that tether to the wall to keep them from floating around the capsule. “Christina has been sleeping heads down in the middle of the vehicle, kind of like a bat suspended from our docking tunnel,” Wiseman explained, describing their preferred spots for shut-eye. “It’s more comfortable than you would think,” he added.
– Childlike joy –
But there are no rest days for the weightless: the astronauts have 30 minutes of exercise built into their schedules. They use a “flywheel exercise device,” similar to a yo-yo, that can allow for aerobics like rowing as well as provide resistance to perform moves like weighted squats and deadlifts. It’s paramount that astronauts work out: the microgravity environment takes stress off bones and muscles, which can lead to significant loss without precautions.
NASA also recently updated their policy to allow smartphones on its flights: “We are giving our crews the tools to capture special moments for their families and share inspiring images and video with the world,” the US space agency’s administrator Jared Isaacman wrote on X in February. And while their mission demands extreme precision, there is still room for childlike levity. Hansen took questions from media while wedged in horizontally and described the joy of floating: “It just makes me feel like a little kid.” For Victor Glover — the first person of color to fly around the Moon — a lot of that raw delight arrived at takeoff. “It was a ride where you’re trying to be professional,” he said. “But the kid inside of you wants to break out and just hoot and holler.”
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