moon_camp

Astronaut Logbook: A week in the life of an astronaut with Samantha Cristoforetti

Your Mission: Follow Samantha's routine at the ISS for one week and compare her daily tasks to yours. Observe your everyday routine and keep a record of it.

Download activity - EN

Day 4: Clothing - What Samantha wore today inside the ISS…


Surprisingly, astronauts can wear the same clothes they wear on Earth whilst they’re on the ISS! There is little time in an astronaut’s day to get changed into new clothes, and they can’t do laundry in space, so they change their clothes a lot less often than we do on Earth!
Samantha on her very first spacewalk outside the ISS. Credit: ESA / NASA / Roscosmos
Check out Samantha’s diary of what clothes she wears on the ISS:

Inside the space station we have a comfortable environment. We have air at the same pressure as on Earth, and the temperature is about 22°C. To work, we usually wear T-shirts and trousers with plenty of pockets and a lot of Velcro stripes to attach things. We only wear socks – no need for shoes!

I have one pair of trousers per month, one T-shirt per week, and I can change underwear every 2 days and socks every four days. I also have separate sets of exercise clothes. I can choose between which of my clothes to wear, for example whether I wear long-sleeved or short-sleeved shirts.

There are some materials we don’t wear often in space, due to their properties. We typically don’t wear synthetic fabric, except for exercise, because it is flammable. We mostly wear cotton!

– Samantha Cristoforetti

Exercise:

  1. How many T-shirts does Samantha wear in a week? _______________________________________________________________
  2. Why doesn’t Samantha wear clothes made from synthetic fabric? _______________________________________________________________
  3. Why can Samantha wear normal clothes inside the ISS?_______________________________________________________________
 

Day 4: Clothing - What Samantha wore today outside the ISS…


Sometimes astronauts need to venture outside the ISS for maintenance and repairs. In this case, astronauts wear an EVA (extra vehicular activity) suit, which is what we commonly call a spacesuit!

 

Check out Samantha’s video describing a spacesuit she’s worn on an EVA:

When we do EVA activities, we wear long underwear and a cooling undergarment under our suit, with lots of small tubes that wrap around your body. Water circulates in those tubes to keep you cool while you work hard during a spacewalk.

The EVA suit is very complex. You have the pressure suit, with gloves and a helmet, and you have the life support system, that provides oxygen to breathe, water for cooling, removal of the cardon dioxide (CO2) that you exhale, and a radio system to communicate.

– Samantha Cristoforetti

Exercise:

  1. Try to match the parts of the spacesuit to their correct function:

Day 4: Clothing - What I wore today…

Clothes are very important to keep us warm, comfortable, and looking stylish! But for astronauts they have an extra role: to keep them safe in space! The material our clothes are made from give them different properties. Some may be soft and comfortable, others may be resilient, and some may even be waterproof!
Fill in the diary of what clothing you wear in a day. 
Consider why you chose to wear these and what properties your clothes have.
ClothingWhy did I choose to wear this? What properties do your clothes have?
e.g., I wore my coat.It keeps me warm and dry from the rain outsideIt is waterproof and it’s pink.
Exercise:

  1. Can you recall a special occasion where you had to wear special clothes? _______________________________________________________________
  2. What is your favourite item of clothing to wear? _______________________________________________________________
 
Useful Video:
Keywords:
, , , , ,