While you are in space, could you keep a diary?
That is the unusual request that Jack Stuster of Anacapa Sciences in Santa Barbara, California, has been making of NASA astronauts for the last decade.
NASA wants to learn how to keep astronauts happy during future missions. "It's all based on the assumption that the more someone writes about a topic, the more important it is to them at that time," says Stuster, who presented his latest analysis of the diaries at a NASA workshop in Houston last month. "We don't want to stress astronauts to the point of breaking, so we need to know the limits."
A specialist in the psychological effects of isolation, Stuster used his previous studies of people who spent long periods on tropical islands or Antarctica as the foundation for the astronaut diary experiment. Astronauts who agree to participate must write in their journals at least three times a week. The diaries are anonymised, but Stuster is free to publish excerpts.
As well as helping with the design of future missions, the diaries provide a unique glimpse into the joys and frustrations of life in space. We combed through the snippets published so far – all written by astronauts onboard the International Space Station between 2003 and 2010 – and, grouping our favourite quotes according to their content, found that six clear themes emerged.
1. Houston, you are so annoying
"Interesting, how you can be on top of the world one moment (literally) and then be completely demoralised the next, because of what is said on the ground."
"I was awakened in the middle of the night by the ground telling me to close the shutter on the lab window. It is beyond me why it couldn't wait until wake-up time."
"Sunday is meant to be a day of rest, but somehow Houston managed to make it feel like Monday."
2. Food, food and more food
"No one ever told me that there are practically no tortillas onboard, even though everyone knows they are incredibly popular for eating just about anything."
"One last funny story – during the first month of our stay, I noted that the labelling on two types of food packets were backwards: 'Beef Tips with Mushrooms' was actually 'Chicken Teriyaki' and vice versa. I reported this to the food people and they thanked me for pointing out the labelling error. Today I wanted chicken teriyaki. So, I gambled that the labelling problem had not fixed for the new batch of food that came up recently, and selected 'Beef Tips with Mushrooms.' I was rewarded for not having overestimated NASA! The chicken was in the packages labelled beef."
3. Ordinary tasks are really frustrating
"It was a frustrating day. The urine collection started disastrously first thing this morning. I think I got about 75% in the bag; the rest was all over me. Not a good way to start the day."
"I had to laugh to myself at the procedures today. To replace a light bulb, I had to have safety glasses and a vacuum cleaner handy. This was in case the bulb broke. However, the actual bulb is encased in a plastic enclosure, so even if the glass bulb did break, the shards would be completely contained. Also, I had to take a photo of the installed bulb, before turning it on. Why? I have no idea! It's just the way NASA does things."
"One of the problems is that our training doesn't really cover some of the basics of life in orbit that we need to have under control. We spend all of our time on emergency scenarios and spacewalks. Sometimes understanding how to live would go a long way to increasing the success of the mission."
4. Space is lonely – and that is a good thing
"Suddenly I'm really appreciating the solitude that I have here. It does help to have control of your own environment if you're going to be isolated… We are very lucky to be here [at]a time when the Station is so huge, yet there are only three of us to share it. This is quite a luxury!"
"This journal would be really different, if we did not have so much ability for communications. We would fall into our routines, oblivious of all the bustle and gossip on Earth, and time would fly all the faster, never distracted to worry about whether someone is going to reply in a day or so! Comm is both a blessing and a curse. Maybe JPL [NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, which runs robotic space missions] scientists are better off in some ways. They have to treasure the meagre flow of bits they receive, like I used to treasure the infrequent scented letters from girls, with long gaps of mystery and anticipation in between. Oh, the good old days when people wrote letters."
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