Thse insights have been pulled from the individual experiences of astronauts and cosmonauts recorded in published first person accounts — journals, diaries, debriefs, and post-flight reflections.As this database includes the personal, subjective experiences from a diversity of flyers, they may sometimes contradict, but together they provide a more holistic, if messy, picture of life in space. To learn more about how these categories were developed, please see this related publication.
“Woke with no headache today after putting a sleep bag in front of vent. Tonight I sleep in a crew quarter, which will be a great improvement in living conditions and convenience.”
“Today I broke out a new pair of pants; not too bad after 2 months. I could definitely have made it for the duration, but when we do that we contribute to the stowage issues. We have an overabundance of cargo pants and shorts.”
“The best part of exercise is that, aside from sleep, it’s the only time the brain gets to take a break. …the time is accounted for already – it’s been given to exercise time, and so we feel we can mentally do what we want.”
“X and Y did a great job on the Progress trash gather. We’ve been swimming in trash for months and it will be great to have some free space again.”
“I did some serious cleaning – pulling tape and Velcro off of walls, straightening up modules, throwing out anything that didn’t look like it had a purpose. Some stuff has been there for years.”
“Body hasn’t adjusted just yet. I still feel the pressure in my head of body fluids pressurized by my cardiovascular system still being shoved cephalad like on Earth. Lower GI system hasn’t adapted yet either…”
“I went down to the Soyuz, which definitely has good orientation. It is very comfortable [to sit there] and I am used to the visual picture…. I [my brain] needs a visual orientation system to reference.”
“Food is still just okay... There is definitely a difference in quality. I don't know really why that is. Maybe manufacturing or just age of it in the package. But that is something that needs work.”
“I want to clean up the eating area – new straps for the table, new Velcro, maybe even scrub some of the stains out of the fabric lockers. There are just odds and ends everywhere, and I would like to make it a little bit more orderly.”
“The Russian telemetry system is still acting up. It is not the way you want to wake up, especially when you can sleep in."
"The toilet is very noisy and is probably damaging our hearing.”