Bored with your life? Dreaming of something different? When I feel like that I look up and wonder what life would be like 400 km above my head. That's where the International Space Station travels around the Earth, with six astronauts living and working on board for months at a time.
How do they sleep? They spend the night floating in a sleeping bag inside a small room on the ceiling. American astronaut Sunita Williams explains, "It's like a little phone booth but it's pretty comfortable and it doesn't matter if I turn over and sleep upside down. I don't feel I'm upside down. "
Brushing your teeth in a place where you can't have a tap or a sink will be a challenge. Can you imagine the mess that running water would make in zero gravity? Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield uses a straw to put water from a bag onto an ordinary toothbrush and adds a little toothpaste—which he has to swallow when he's done.
Daily exercise is necessary. The lack of gravity makes bones more fragile(易碎的)and muscles lose strength—so astronauts are encouraged to work out for at least two hours a day.
The role of astronauts in the International Space Station is to act as lab technicians(技工)for scientists on Earth. So they spend their time protecting their environment and performing and monitoring experiments in a limited space about the size of a Boeing 747. Almost every task is carefully planned by control—although most astronauts spend their first days losing things until they get used to sticking everything they use to the walls.
One of their most valued things is the view from the office controlled by that big blue ball down there，sitting in the darkness of space. Wow！Completely breathtaking!
