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.
“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.”
“Most items are buried deep in bags, sometimes three or four deep. Inside a locker, there is a CTB, inside of which is a kit, which has a Ziploc with a tool inside. This can really add to the cost of doing business.”
“You will start packing one area, get done with that, you think, and put stuff in the next area, which you find out doesn't match up… It took a lot longer than it would have if we had a Big Picture of how things were [supposed to fit].”
Given the lack of running water, the crew has had to 'improvise' elements of hygiene - using wet wipes and towels, needing to swallow toothpaste after brushing, wearing a water bag over your head to wash hair.