we're about to speak with astronauts Tim Peake, Jeff Williams and Tim Kopra aboard
the International Space Station to find out what life is like in lower Earth orbit
[NASA radio control] please stand by for a voice check from The Verge.
Loren: Station this is The Verge how do you hear me?
Tim Kopra: We hear you loud and clear
Loren: First off I would love to have you describe your day-to-day routine on the station
You know, what are your hours like? Is it a typical 9 to 5 gig and what do you spend
most of your time working on?
Tim Kopra: You know it's a great question
you know and it's an interesting place to both work and live because some
aspects of our jobs are sort of like at home we have a list of events we have to
perform every day but when you wake up and you get out of your sleeping bag in
your crew quarters you float out. Usually float out to, uh,
the place we have all our food stowed and get some coffee and some breakfast
Tim Peake [nat pop]: Scrambled Eggs!
Tim Kopra: and then do some cleanup.
Loren: Originally coffee came in a freeze-dried bag but
recently astronauts were treated to a microgravity espresso machine which
pours coffee into a special 0g coffee cup.
Tim Kopra: and then the rest of the day is
really filled with the science experiments, with maintenance so that we
can maintain the quality of life that we have up here
Loren: The microgravity environment of the space station offers up a lot of
opportunity for research and the astronauts are responsible for making
sure those experiments run smoothly. That can involve growing human tissues and
protein crystals, starting fires, or cultivating produce and plants in the
VEGGIE plant growth area.
Tim Kopra: There are very specific skills that we all have to have
even just be assigned. To be able to fly the robotic arm because we have a
vehicles that come here that we capture and then the ground docks it on to the space
station. We have spacewalks and it's very challenging task and we have to be
proficient in that.
Loren: Of course space isn't always the easiest place to live
and work. What have been the biggest adjustments both physically and mentally
to living in microgravity?
Tim Peake: I it took about 24 hours before I felt actually comfortable because for the
first 24 hours
there's a lot of dizziness and disorientation just as your vestibular
system needs to really shut down
and I think your brain tends to then rely just on information coming from the
eyes so that you don't feel nauseous.
Loren: Along with this space adaptation syndrome astronauts often experienced a
lot of other health changes while in orbit. People lose bone and muscle mass
because they don't have to work against gravity. Astronauts must exercise such as
weight lifting or running on a treadmill for two and a half hours each day to
counteract this problem and the space environment has some other frustrating
side effects too.
Tim Kopra: you know, um, living in zero gravity is some of the best things
about living and some of the most frustrating things about living because
uh, you know you can't just put your things out on a table and expect
it to be there. You have to be very meticulous about all the things that you
have. It has to be in a certain place and you have to remember where you put it,
because you no longer is it just a flat surface and which something can be stowed.
It can be stood on any surface either with tape or with velcro and so that
becomes a, you know, a little bit of a challenge until you get used to living
in this very unusual environment
Loren: But once you get the hang of microgravity, it makes for a great place to show off your skills
As for general human up keep the astronauts are deprived of one key earth comfort
Jeff Williams: obviously we don't have a shower and that's probably one of the things
that most of us most
miss while we're up here and look forward to when we get back on the
ground. But we are, we still are able to keep a very clean essentially taking
sponge baths. Uh, we have a toilet that you would you would recognize as a toilet
that works very well
Loren: Wonder how that toilet works? The answer is suction. Astronauts use leg restraints
to position themselves over the toilet and then a fan draws out waste and
liquid. Each astronaut has their own personal funnel for going number one
but don't worry the space environment is kept super clean
What's the air like up there? Is there a distinct difference between the
environment on the space station and the air here on earth?
Tim Peake: You know, we get to
enjoy pretty good air up here. It, it's recycled it scrubbed from carbon dioxide
and other harmful gasses.
It's a fairly constant humidity and temperature
the one thing that's very different from Planet Earth is we we have about 10
times the co2 level up here but other than that it's a it's a pretty good
atmosphere.
Often people ask about the smell of space and and the smell of the space
station. I remember it being almost like a a clinical smell when I came on board
and i know you're Jeff having just arrived couple of days ago said "ah that
that's very familiar smell." Its quite hard to describe of the space station
Loren: The workday starts to wind down around seven or 730 p.m. after that the
astronauts can enjoy some free time such as watching a movie
reading a book or talking with loved ones back on earth.
Tim Peake: we also have great
communications on board the space station with our families. We can use
voice over IP telephones and effectively we can call anywhere in the, on the
planet
so we can keep in touch with friends and families in the evenings once we've, uh,
finished our working day.
Loren: Then it's time for bed. The astronauts crawl back into their sleeping bags and
get some shut-eye before they do it all again the next
day. And that's how life continues on the station, well until the astronauts hurdle
back to Earth in a capsule at more than 500 miles per hour
[NASA radio] Thank You The Verge. Station we are now resuming operational audio
communications. Loren: Oh my god, I love this.
they're doing flips
All rightttttt
Did we kill it?
Yeah!