Encore: A Day In Space

01You're listening to NASA's Curious Universe.

02I'm your host, Patti Boyd.

03Above Earth's surface, an international team is living in a space station, conducting scientific research, and orbiting Earth at 5 miles per second.

04And here's the really cool part.

05That sentence is old news.

06This fall, the International Space Station reached 25 years of continuous occupation.

07Think about how incredible that is.

08An unbroken streak of humans living hundreds of miles above Earth's surface.

09That's 25 years of sending astronauts to space and back, 25 years of international cooperation, and 25 years of science that is paving the way for humans to return to the moon and take the next giant leap to Mars.

10So to celebrate the big anniversary, we're revisiting one of our favorite episodes.

11It's called A Day in Space.

12And it lets you experience the ISS through the ears of astronauts who live there.

13This episode was recorded in 2021.

14And some details you're about to hear have changed since then.

15The number of science experiments on ISS keeps going up.

16It's now over 4,000.

17And some of the experiments from back then have changed or are no longer active.

18After you listen, you can catch up on the latest ISS news at nasa.gov slash station.

19Okay, here we go.

20Hello, everyone.

21I'm actually in the Dragon spacecraft now called Endeavor.

22This was the vehicle that we flew up on.

23I just wanted to give you some sounds of this vehicle.

24All right.

25Welcome to Safety Tour of Space Station.

26I'm your captain today.

27Right now, I'm in the Node 1 module of the International Space Station, which is where we prepare and eat our meals.

28And Node 1 is right next to Node 3, which is where we typically conduct our exercise.

29We have a treadmill.

30Hi, Curious Universe listeners.

31We have a very exciting episode for you today to finish out Season 3 of NASA's Curious Universe.

32Right now, in August of 2021, there are seven people living and working aboard the International Space Station.

33A few weeks ago, we asked some of those astronauts, NASA's Shane Kimbrough and Megan MacArthur, and European Space Agency's Thomas Pasquet, to take their microphones and walk us, or should I say, float us, through a day in space.

34We're excited to share the audio that they recorded in this episode.

35So let's listen in on our explorers on the International Space Station and find out what a day in space really sounds like.

36Station, this is Houston.

37Are you ready for the event?

38Houston, we are ready.

39Hello, I'm in one of the sleep stations on the International Space Station.

40We call it Crew Quarters.

41This is Shane Kimbrough.

42Shane is a retired U.S.

43Army officer and three-time space explorer.

44He served as the commander of the SpaceX Crew-2 flight to the space station in April 2021 and is a flight engineer for the current mission, Expedition 65.

45The International Space Station is made up of different nodes and modules, a lot like rooms or hallways in a house.

46Right now, he's in one of the crew cabin modules, taking us through the steps and sounds of his morning routine.

47This is where it's kind of our private space.

48It's where you get a chance to sleep, of course, but other things as well.

49The crew quarters on the space station look kind of like a padded pod.

50On the inside, there's a sleeping bag for each astronaut to zip into and space for personal items like laptops.

51But here's the sound that this makes.

52As I get ready to, you know, come out or get in the sleeping bag, it's mounted to a wall and it's connected to the wall so that we don't just bounce around in here as we're trying to sleep at night.

53We want to get a good night's sleep.

54So that's why we mount this thing to the wall and then you just climb in, zip it up, and then hopefully have a good night's sleep.

55Also in here, you have some personal items.

56Usually you have pictures of your family.

57I have a computer here that I can do my email on or I can check the schedule out for the day.

58You can watch movies.

59You can watch TV shows, those kind of things as well in here.

60But it's a nice space.

61So when I close the door, it gets really quiet.

62It's a really private space.

63So you can kind of get away from everybody if you need to, which we all need at some point.

64And then when you open up the doors, then you get the sounds of the International Space Station, which in general, just some background fans running.

65It's not very loud at all, which is really impressive with all the things that we have going on up here.

66And there is so much going on up there.

67The International Space Station has been continuously occupied since November of 2000 by astronauts from 19 different countries.

68During that time, the station has evolved from an orbital outpost into a full-fledged orbiting laboratory.

69An acre of solar panels power the orbiting lab, which is larger than a six-bedroom house, containing around eight miles of wire, weaving through the station, keeping all the science running.

70We come out of our crew quarters and float through the lab here.

71You can hear some fans a little louder here than our sleep stations for sure.

72And then once we get through the U.S.

73lab, we'll be heading into Node 1, which is where I usually get my breakfast ready to go before I go do anything else.

74All right, we're in the galley now, which is in Node 1.

75And I'll give you a few sounds of what it's like to go get our food out of our pantries.

76So these are metal containers that we get from the Russians, and we just pull out our food.

77I'll pull out some oatmeal today and then put that back and do the same thing with the drink.

78I have a hint of orange to drink.

79So then we come over here.

80We have packaging that we have most of our food in.

81I'll open this up.

82I'll hydrate it here with our machine.

83Put in 75 milliliters.

84You hear kind of a click when it's done, and then you know it's safe to...

85We always put this in the off position so that if water's coming out, it doesn't spray you.

86It's a good safety tip for us.

87And this oatmeal takes about 5 to 10 minutes to kind of be ready to go.

88Some food on the International Space Station doesn't need to be rehydrated because it can be sent up in the natural form, like fruit and brownies.

89But most of their food starts out dehydrated.

90And you can't just sprinkle on extra seasonings as you want.

91Shaking salt particles in space could mean trouble for instruments on station.

92Instead, the seasonings come in liquid form.

93So we'll head over, and I'll show you what I do in the mornings as well to just get ready for the day.

94Brush my teeth, go to the restroom, that sort of thing.

95Everybody has their own little station where they keep all their items.

96The sounds you hear are coming from all the tinkering that has to be done to get Shane's morning items ready to go.

97With everything on station experiencing the condition of microgravity, things need to be latched down to keep from floating away and unlatched when you're ready to use them.

98Now let me just briefly show you over here to the restroom.

99And I'll only show you a whole lot, but I just want to turn it on so you can hear the sound that it makes.

100So that's the fans cranking up.

101It's good to use the restroom as the system cranks up and while you're using it.

102I'll just shut it off.

103I hear it winding down now.

104Microgravity can make doing things we normally do here on Earth really complicated in space.

105The first modules of the orbiting laboratory were sent into space in 1998.

106And since then, scientists have worked to create and upgrade the different systems humans need to live in space.

107In upcoming space missions for the Artemis program, NASA plans to build another outpost.

108This time, it will be orbiting our moon.

109The research we're doing in low Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station continues to provide important new information on what humans need in order to survive and thrive in space.

110The ISS is a critical stepping stone for NASA's further exploration of deep space.

111The other NASA astronaut we mic'd up for this episode was Megan McArthur.

112Megan is an oceanographer who flew her first mission in 2009 on space shuttle Atlantis to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

113She serves as pilot of the SpaceX Crew-2 mission, and she's also a flight engineer for Expedition 65.

114Right now, I'm in the Node 1 module of the International Space Station, which is where we prepare and eat our meals.

115And Node 1 is right next to Node 3, which is where we typically conduct our exercise.

116We have a treadmill and the advanced resistive exercise device in Node 3.

117So the sound that you're hearing is the sound of the treadmill.

118Let's listen for a minute.

119Exercising is important in space because it prevents bone and muscle loss while in microgravity.

120So one of the things that we have also in Node 1 in the deck is a toolbox that people are getting into all day long to get tools they need to accomplish various tasks.

121So Aki's about to put away a socket that was used earlier.

122Aki is Akihoshide, a Japanese engineer, astronaut, and current commander of the International Space Station.

123He works for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency called JAXA.

124As Tomah begins setting up for his workout, let's pause and listen to how the device sounds as it's getting prepared for activity.

125Tomah works for the European Space Agency, or ESA, and was born in Rouen, France.

126Okay, between sets, what do you usually like to listen to during your workouts?

127Some really cool music cranked up, sometimes by Megan, sometimes carefully curated by Mark, sometimes just random music from the internet.

128All right, well, we'll let you get to that.

129Enjoy your workout.

130Even though the names and faces change, people from all around the world have been living and working together continuously while they're sharing the close quarters of the International Space Station.

131A day in the life of an astronaut includes many of the normal things we do here on Earth.

132Exercising, eating, chatting with coworkers.

133But the majority of an astronaut's day is spent doing important research that can only be done in space.

134They also participate in video interviews with schools and the media.

135On this day, the astronauts kicked off an experiment growing peppers for the first time in space, performed combustion research, and even set up a camera that allows middle school students on Earth to take pictures of our home planet from space.

136I'm in the U.S.

137lab now, which is a location that we do a lot of experiments, obviously.

138It's also a location for some of our exercise.

139There's always an ambient sound of fans and pump noise in here.

140This is probably one of the loudest places on the International Space Station.

141And like I said, we conduct science in here.

142We also conduct a lot of our conferences with the ground.

143We communicate with ground throughout the day for all of the activities that we do.

144They give us permission to proceed in different places.

145They answer our questions.

146They maybe make changes to procedures.

147So we really need that communication with them throughout the day.

148And it's very important that we're able to hear that.

149While they work, space station astronauts are talking to mission control centers around the world.

150Here's Shane checking in on some of the research she's conducting.

151Here's the station on 2 for AAA.

152Go ahead, Shane.

153Yeah, yeah, I'm ready to get going.

154Waiting.

155Just checking with you on step 1.11.

156Staying is in place at 1.1.

157You gotta go.

158Copy.

159Thanks.

160There are also opportunities for astronauts to connect with people on the ground, to hear from curious space enthusiasts and talk about their life on station.

161Hi, my name is Olivia and I'm from North Carolina.

162My question is, what does the Earth look like from outer space?

163Thanks for the question.

164The Earth looks absolutely amazing.

165It's really beautiful.

166The colors are just striking, no matter if you're looking at the Bahamas like a beach or the desert.

167To me, that's very striking.

168Being able to communicate in space is critical, not only with the ground, but with each other.

169And with all the background noise of fans and systems running to keep things operational, it can get pretty noisy on station.

170Research projects like the ISS acoustics experiment have been conducted on station to monitor these sounds and make sure things don't get too loud for the astronauts.

171One of the things that we talk about before we come into space is what the sounds of the environment are going to be like.

172We don't really exactly model on Earth the amount of background noise that we have up here, but we do work in a variety of noisy environments as part of our training.

173So for example, we fly in T-38 jets, which are quite loud, of course, on their own.

174And so thinking about how to communicate effectively in a loud environment is really important.

175When I first came to space station, the sound that surprised me was actually here in the lab, and it's the thermal amine scrubber.

176And if we're lucky, we might hear it make this noise.

177But I was floating through the lab directly underneath it, and it makes kind of this big, it's almost like an exhale.

178It sounded like something very large exhaling right next to me, and it really startled me.

179Fortunately, Shannon Walker, who was outgoing crew, had been up here for six months.

180She said, oh, don't worry about that.

181It does that all the time.

182The unique features of the space station, like microgravity and proximity to extreme temperatures, create a prime opportunity for experimentation in the different labs.

183Since the year 2000, there have been over 3,000 experiments conducted on the International Space Station, and each astronaut plays a role in making sure these experiments are successful.

184On any given day, they could be developing new treatments for diseases, or even testing concrete for future space structures.

185Today, Shane is working on agriculture in space.

186On his last trip to the station, Shane grew lettuce and made a bit of a name for himself as a microgravity gardener.

187If all goes according to plan, this experiment could add some spice to the astronauts' daily lives.

188Let's listen in.

189All right, I'm working on plant habitat now, which is going to be back in here.

190I'm going to refill some water into that system so we can grow some chili peppers.

191I'm going to for water refill.

192We do a lot of talking to the ground.

193They have a lot of data that we don't have, so they're checking right now to make sure I put enough water in, and if not, we'll add some more to get these plants growing.

194We're going to need another sole syringe, and then we'll put that in if you can let us look at it again, please.

195Okay, Huntsville, that's one more syringe.

196Let me know what you think.

197The quietest places on Space Station are probably our sleeping quarters.

198Do you have some soundproofing, but you can still always hear fan noise in there.

199The cupola is a little bit quieter, and that's nice when you're watching the Earth go by to have a little bit of calm, but that's probably the sound that I miss the most from Earth is really the lack of sound.

200It's just that quiet, and we don't ever get true quiet up here.

201And so we listen to music, or maybe we watch programs with headphones in to try to really be able to hear well what we're trying to listen to.

202The other things, the other sounds I miss from Earth are natural sounds, so the sound of rain or the sound of really strong wind, those are some of the things that I miss from sounds on Earth.

203And of course, birds singing, you know, that kind of thing.

204We don't get any of that up here.

205Living in space is a dream come true for these explorers, but it can also be challenging.

206You're isolated, away from your family, and can only access a limited living space.

207With such a small team working so closely together, it's important to keep morale up.

208And over the years, astronauts have found some pretty fun ways to shake things up.

209This is astronaut Chris Cassidy on a mission in 2020.

210Having our Russian crewmates over for dinner.

211So preparing a bunch of drinks.

212Apple cider, grapefruit juice, lemon-lime drink, another grapefruit juice.

213Here are astronauts aboard the station marking an important birthday celebration.

214Okay.

215Happy birthday to you.

216Happy birthday to you.

217In NMX 61.

218Happy birthday to Drew Hall.

219In NMX 61.

220Happy birthday to you.

221And this is current astronaut Thomas Pesquet showing off his saxophone skills in microgravity.

222Thank you so much for joining us for our listen-in on a day in space.

223And a huge thank you to the astronauts of the International Space Station for giving us a backstage pass into the out-of-this-world experience of living in space.

224Thomas, if you wouldn't mind, would you play us out?

225All right.

226I think that concludes our tour.

227Thanks a lot for flying with us today on Air ISS.

228This is NASA's Curious Universe.

229This episode was originally released in 2021.

230It was written and produced by Christina Dana.

231You can find the latest information about the International Space Station at nasa.gov slash station.

232The executive producer of Curious Universe is Katie Conans.

233Our team includes Christian Elliott and Jacob Pinter.

234Christopher Kim designed our show art.

235Our theme song was composed by Matt Russo and Andrew Santaguida of System Sounds.

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