Andreas Mogensen: Space Station sucks

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On the space station astronauts drinking their own pee, they go a week in the same T-shirt, and it smells horrid the enclosed rumlaboratorium. "You get used to it," said Andreas Mogensen in an interview about all the small practical details on the ISS.

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Andreas Mogensen should only stay on the space station for eight days so that he can probably change clothes more often than the others up there. He has certainly already posed in a few different jerseys - including the national team jersey. (Photo: Andreas Mogensen's Twitter profile)

Before the Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen, traveled into space, we asked him a number of small practical details questions about life on the space station.

His answer reveals that one should not be sensitive if you want to be an astronaut:

A reader has asked what happens if you hit a fart on board the ISS? Here on Earth would the spread ...

"There are probably the same. The spreads on Earth because of gravity, because hot air, cold air and the difference in density allows gases falls or rises. "

"Because we are weightless, it does not happen naturally on the space station, and that's why we have the ventilation running all the time just to make sure that the atmosphere is mixed together properly. If we did not, there would be formed CO2 bubble in front of us, and then we suffocate. "

"Therefore it is very important that these air pumps running constantly. If ventilation is suddenly stopped, we must also only dwell in a module for half an hour before we have to leave the module, because suddenly we can not be sure whether there is oxygen to breathe. "

Yes, you can not just open a window and air out. But what smells so of there?

"I do not think it smells particularly good, once you get on board. It's stuffy, and people have exercised and unable to take a bath. I have heard from people who open the hatch to the Soyuz, when the country is that they think, 'Oh my vacation where it smells'. It's probably the same smell, which is aboard the space station. But it's something you get used to very quickly. "

"It was something we experienced after a week in a cave under the earth to the underground mission, I was on. You can adapt very quickly to your own smell and the smell of those around you. As soon as we came out of the cave, the smell one of the most powerful things we noticed. It was everything from grass and leaves, but also those who came to meet us. It was really incredible. After a week under the earth, if you came in, you would think: 'Wow holiday where we smell of soap and shampoo,' but it's not something we pay attention to, because we are used to it. "

How washes up on the space station?

"We use wet wipes and towels, where we can get a little water, so it's a bit like a trucker-wash."

To go astronauts 'the bath' (Video: ESA)

What happens to your used underwear and other clothes?

"It is part of the waste. All waste will be loaded aboard the unmanned supply vessels. So we link them from the space station, and because they have no heat shield, they burn up in the atmosphere. "

"I have heard that the MIR had an airlock, where they could throw out the trash. Trouble is that if you have a garbage bag of waste, and you throw it out of the airlock, so it hangs just next to the space station, and then you can sit and look out at your disposal bag for the rest of the mission. "

How long are you in your clothes before you throw it out?

"There is no rules. Trunks we change every three days. A T-shirt do you use for a week, and then use it to exercise in and is then thrown out. "

Series:

Andreas in space

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Andreas Mogensen: Space Station sucks

Is not it time to go in the same clothes?

"Yes, but on the other hand, there is a constant 21 degrees on the space station and beyond when you exercise, it requires no effort, so you do not sweat. But it may well be that one's T-shirt after a week is not the tastiest. "

What about your pee and poop?

'Stool, we bring together in containers, and it becomes part of the waste that burns up. Urinated we purify, and we drink it again when it has been to water. "

To move astronauts on the toilet (Video: ESA)

How is it to drink his own pee?

"If you think of it as tis, it is obviously disgusting. But it's been to clean water again, and it is the same thing that happens here on Earth too. Here on Earth, it just takes many years before it has come through the natural cleansing system and have come back in the water. We then just speeded the process up a bit, so it might take 24 hours instead of several years, but basically it's the same process. "

To transform urine into drinking water on ISS (Video: CSA)

How do you clean up there?

"We usually use Saturdays to make all the various household tasks so that vacuum we and wiping surfaces of. Mainly vacuum cleaner we. We vacuum cleaner especially air filters, because we create such an artificial ventilation, as much of the dust is sucked up in the air filters. "

How do you ensure that there is enough water?

"I do not know what recycling rate is on - it is perhaps 90 or 95 percent, when we talk about tis. So we lose some of it, and therefore will be continuously sent water into the supply vessels. "

What about oxygen?

"When the water comes up, we can split it and it is one of the ways we get oxygen. Otherwise, you can just send tanks with oxygen up. "

Read more about Andreas' life on the space station in the article Andreas Mogensen: How will my life on the space station.

Every day you can in this article read updates about what Andreas doing up there, where you also on a map to see where the space station with Andreas board is right now.

Quelle: ESA-Dänemark, Videnskab-dk

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