For all those of you who have been thinking about Sunita Williams’ record-churning 195 day stay in space as fun— and why not, you might ask. After all, imagine running a marathon inside a space station, with your co-astronauts cheering you on in the gravity-defying 4 hour 24 minutes run— well, life on board a space station is difficult.

In fact ‘difficult’ would be an understatement, for some say that it’s actually tougher than surviving in a desert. To begin with— astronauts never bathe in a space station. Instead, they use a damp soapy cloth to wipe themselves clean. For those who despise the winter, this might seem like a welcome change, but imagine not splashing, sprinkling or pouring water— the mother of all life givers— for six months flat, as did Sunita. She must have even drank her urine, pray, but not quite in the crude form!

To beat the scarcity of water, space stations are fitted with a mechanism whereby the urine produced by astronauts is purified, recycled and used for drinking and cooking purposes.

The scarcity of water also means that the hassle of doing the dishes is done away with, since used food containers are simply crushed and disposed. Also, and this isn’t a thing to giggle about, the toilet uses a flow of air instead of water to flush away the waste!

Zero-gravity
In case, while reading this, you suddenly recall footage of Sunita Williams in the space station with her hair standing up like a spring— well, the lack of gravity accounts for this.

In zero-gravity, an astronaut is bound to feel stuffy and nauseated; blood and other bodily fluids move towards the head, the bones and muscles become very weak and astronauts work out for at least two hours daily to combat this phenomenon.

Among other bodily changes, the human body grows a few centimetres tall when inside a space station, also owing to zero-gravity. While this could perhaps give an outlet to your dreams of acquiring at least two more inches, it would come crashing down once you’re back on Earth, since the spine that stretches during a visit to the space, shrinks back to normal once back on the Earth.

So pressing is the problem of zero gravity that once a spacecraft reaches the orbit, everything inside it appears to be weightless.  If not tied down, things start floating all around. Incidentally, the astronauts themselves feel the first effect of weightlessness when the rocket engines are turned off. Straight away, they begin to float, held down only by seatbelts.

There have been cases of astronauts complaining of zero-gravity making their work difficult.  You see, objects like screwdrivers and screws float around.

In such a case you could well imagine what would happen to a tin of chocolates— they’d begin floating all over the space station! Could there be anything more disheartening than somebody else taking a bite of your chocolates mid-air?

Incidentally, the space shuttle by which one travels to the space station could be likened to a vehicle ferrying people and materials into space.

It is launched like a rocket, but lands like a plane; that would probably answer your queries as to why newspapers and television showed Sunita returning in a ‘plane’.

A shuttle can be used many times over, provided it has not suffered any damage.

Saviour spacesuit
The spacesuit forms a significant part of an astronaut’s attire while in space. It envelops layers and layers of air, the absence of which would make it difficult for astronauts to breathe.

While in the orbit, the human body will either be charred or frozen depending upon the position. Zillions of lethal meteoroids hurtle in the space at the speed of about a hundred thousand miles per hour! Not to forget dangerous cosmic rays.

So to withstand the harsh conditions, the human body requires a pressurised suit which protects it from heat and cold and also supplies essentials like air, water and food.

A typical spacesuit, called an ‘Extravehicular Mobility Unit’ weighs nearly 50 kilograms! It is made from 11 layers of materials including polyester, hard shell fibre glass, nylon, bullet-proof kevlar, non-stick teflon, and stain-proof dacron. There is even a nappy inside! The suits come in interchangeable parts (upper torso, lower torso, helmet, arms and gloves).

The helmet of a spacesuit contains a bag of water and a high-energy food stick for snacking. It also has a radio headset and microphone, so that spacewalkers can talk to each other.

In spite of all the difficulties of life in space, the sheer experience is well worth it.

SPACE FIRSTS
*The tallest astronaut to fly in space was American Jim Wetherbee, who was 6 feet 4 inches high
*The shortest was American astronaut, Nancy Currie, who measured just 5 feet
*The oldest person to fly in space was 77 year-old American John Glenn
*The youngest was 25 year-old Russian, Gherman Titov
*Dennis Anthony Tito (born August 8, 1940) is a US multimillionaire who became the first space tourist to pay for his own ticket
*30-yr-old Santosh George Kulangara will be spending about 1-crore for a 3-hour long trip to space. He will be on board the Virgin Galactic Space ship in 2008, thus being the first Indian space tourist


MISSION TO MOON
Beginning in early 2008, India will kick off its mission to the moon. The project will proceed in stages and the first two stages have already been outlined.
*Chandrayaan (which literally means “Moon Craft”) I, slated for a February 2008 launch is an unmanned lunar mission by the ISRO. The spacecraft will be launched by a modified version of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
*Over two years, it will survey the lunar surface and produce a complete map of its chemical characteristics and 3-dimensional topography.
*The project is estimated to cost Rs 3.8 billion, and will carry 11 instruments including five from the ISRO and six from countries other international space agencies such as NASA, ESA, and Bulgaria .