{"id":28791,"date":"2014-11-21T07:27:40","date_gmt":"2014-11-21T12:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=28791"},"modified":"2014-11-21T07:27:40","modified_gmt":"2014-11-21T12:27:40","slug":"marsha-ivins-talks-about-the-reality-of-working-in-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/11\/21\/marsha-ivins-talks-about-the-reality-of-working-in-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Marsha Ivins talks about the reality of working in space"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Wired<\/em>, former astronaut Marsha Ivins talks to Caitlin Roper<\/a> about what it’s really like to work in space:<\/p>\n

Everyone imagines that when you\u2019re sitting on the launchpad atop 7 million pounds of explosive rocket fuel, you\u2019re nervous and worried; but the truth is, there isn\u2019t much to do for those two hours after you climb into the shuttle. Many astronauts just take a nap. You\u2019re strapped in like a sack of potatoes while the system goes through thousands of prelaunch checks. Occasionally you have to wake up and say \u201cRoger\u201d or \u201cLoud and clear.\u201d But the launch itself is a whole other thing \u2014 from the pad to orbit in 8.5 minutes, accelerating the entire time until you reach the orbital velocity of 17,500 mph. That<\/em> is a ride.<\/p>\n

It turns out that once you\u2019re actually in orbit, zero-g has some upsides. Without gravity, bodily fluids move toward your head. It\u2019s a great face-lift. Your stomach gets flat. You feel long, because you grow an inch or two. (I thought, \u201cOh cool, I\u2019ll be tall,\u201d but of course everybody else was taller too.)<\/p>\n

But zero-g also has some disadvantages. As that fluid shifts north, you get an enormous headache. Your body compensates and loses about a liter of fluid in the first couple of days \u2014 you essentially pee the headache away. And a lot of people get nauseated. The way to feel better is to \u201close up,\u201d to convince your visual system that \u201cup\u201d is wherever you point your head and \u201cdown\u201d is where your feet are. When you can do that, and go headfirst or earlobe-first wherever you want, then you\u2019re getting adapted to zero-g. On each flight this adaptation happens more quickly \u2014 your body remembers having been in space. But it can take a few days before your stomach finally settles down and says, \u201cOK, what\u2019s for lunch?\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t eat much on any of my flights. I don\u2019t have a big appetite even on Earth, but between the lack of gravity and the shifting fluids, things can taste different in space. I\u2019d bring great chocolate with me and it would taste like wax \u2014 it was very disappointing. But you don\u2019t go to space for the gourmet dining. There\u2019s no way to cook, on the shuttle or on the ISS. Space food is already cooked and then either freeze-dried and vacuum-packed \u2014 so you add water and put it in the oven to warm up \u2014 or it\u2019s thermo-stabilized, like a military MRE. With no refrigerator on board, fresh food won\u2019t keep. So on the shuttle we\u2019d have to eat anything fresh \u2014 usually fruit like apples, oranges, and grapefruit \u2014 early in the mission.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Wired, former astronaut Marsha Ivins talks to Caitlin Roper about what it’s really like to work in space: Everyone imagines that when you\u2019re sitting on the launchpad atop 7 million pounds of explosive rocket fuel, you\u2019re nervous and worried; but the truth is, there isn\u2019t much to do for those two hours after you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,15],"tags":[825,69],"class_list":["post-28791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space-science","category-technology","tag-iss","tag-nasa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7un","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28792,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28791\/revisions\/28792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}