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Space is a fascinating and mysterious place that has captured the imagination of humans for centuries. Outer space and the rest of our universe are incomprehensibly large, uncharted, and usually void and empty, but it still holds a lot of wonders that we have yet to discover.
But while I can say that space is cool because we are weightless and float in space, I’ll show you some things that are completely normal here on Earth but are weird and unexpected in space, but cool either way.
We’ll talk about how weird water behaves or how our daily lives will change when we are in a space station, and possibly more! Let’s start!
Water
Water is an essential part of our lives here on Earth and even more so in a space station or even on the moon and other planets, because there is little to none! So that meant bringing our own supply of water every time our astronauts explore space, and that also means astronauts need to conserve every last drop of water in space.
But how does water behave in space anyways? What happens if you spill some?
That’s a trick question of course! You can’t spill water in zero gravity! It just floats away and forms into blobs!
The video above is an experiment showing us how water behaves in space! But what we can instantly observe is that water in space forms a sphere! Why is that?
Two things come into play with this, first is surface tension. If you remember your physics lessons from high school, you know that water and most liquids have surface tension, a property that makes the liquid’s surface act like a membrane, and it mainly depends on the attraction between the particles of that liquid and even on other liquid, gas, and solid particles.
This is why you can blow bubbles, and float a paperclip on stagnant water, and also a part of why capillary action happens (more on that later), it’s also why water remains a sphere in space even if you blow air or put a carbon tablet in it, which is so cool by the way, it looks like it’s alive!
We now know how water still keeps a shape in space, but why is it a sphere? It’s because of gravity! But then there isn’t any gravity in space is there? Yes, there isn’t any gravity in space that affects the water as an external force. But that water is a matter that has mass so that means it has its own gravity pulling itself together into a sphere! That’s Newton’s law of universal gravitation right there! By the way, it’s also great evidence against the flat Earth theory.
More Cool And Concerning Stuff With Water…
A water blob floating in space is cool and all, but more interesting stuff happens when water is combined with other stuff in zero gravity!
First and foremost, crying, sweating, urinating (we’ll get into more of this later), and any form of liquid leaving your body can be quite weird up there. Remember that there are virtually no external gravitational forces affecting liquids up there? That combined with greater surface tension makes liquids, especially bodily fluids quite annoying to deal with.
When you cry, your tears will form into a blob and they’ll stay on your face! That’s what happened with Astronaut Chris Hadfield back in 2001 on the ISS. This happened when he was on his first space walk when all of a sudden some of his space suit’s anti-fog irritated his eyes and caused him to tear up and ended up blind out in space, you can’t just wipe your face up there.
Fortunately, purging his helmet of air and replacing it with fresh oxygen caused the tears to evaporate out into space, pairing that with years of training against stress and dealing with issues ultimately saved him. Making it cooler, he went back to work; as if that’s what one would do right after a scary experience that can mean life or death!
To show you just how “sticky” water is in space, here’s a video showing that you can’t even remove water from a cloth by wringing it out:
Due to surface tension and lack of gravity, the water just doesn’t drip out! The water comes out of the towel, but the water will just crawl into your hand, it’s weird but it’s also cool and mesmerizing to watch!
Fire
That’s not really something you’d like to hear while on a space station right? But if you do experience seeing a controlled flame in space, you’d be surprised that it’s also quite different!
Like water, fire combusts in a sphere! But what is the thing that determines the flame’s shape in the first place?
It’s because of buoyancy! Hot air rises, and cold air sinks. Let’s take a candle as an example, as it is burning, the hot air it produces will rise upwards while it’s being fed by the cold air near the bottom of the flame.
©NASA
In zero gravity, there is no buoyancy! That means hot air doesn’t rise, the gases expand outward in every direction and in equal amounts thus forming a spherical shape. Interestingly enough, it’s not the flame that follows the oxygen in zero gravity, but the other way around, the flame just sits there as oxygen molecules go towards it.
In some cases, flames are literally cooler in space; some fires combust at a lower temperature, and some look completely flameless but are still combusting, some combusting with little fuel for a very long time. But unfortunately, that topic is still being highly researched and we don’t know a whole lot about it, but you can read more about it here.
Overall, flames in space and zero gravity are still being researched! Just goes to show that we still don’t know everything that happens in space!
Hygiene
Hygiene is another normal thing we can deal with, with little to no issues here on Earth, but since water is a precious thing up in space, astronauts can’t just turn on the tap to wash! Then again, there’s also the water blobbing up in space which can cause quite a problem. So, how do they do it in space?
Brushing Teeth
Let’s start with them brushing their teeth. Seems simple enough right? Get some water in your mouth, put a toothbrush in with toothpaste, and brush away! But what do you do afterward? Where will you spit it out? And the answer is also simple, you either spit on a paper towel or YOU DON’T, some astronauts swallow it instead! Seems pretty disgusting, but it is what it is.
Number One and Two
Urinating and defecating in space is also quite weird but the way to deal with it nowadays is certainly cool.
Both calls of nature are pretty straightforward, poop is mostly solids and our urine leaves our body with some pressure so you don’t have to worry too much about it forming into a ball, unless you have a weak bladder, of course.
The way they’ve dealt with it before is they just used sealable plastic bags. Nowadays, they use toilets and urinals that have vacuum pressure to make sure that their waste will go wherever it needs to go.
Fun but slightly icky fact, the urine goes straight into a water filtration system and their urine essentially becomes their drinking water again. Sounds disgusting I know, but according to NASA, the filtered water up on the ISS is cleaner than what we have as drinking water here on Earth.
Bathing
Since water is scarce and there is virtually zero gravity, you can’t just shower up in the ISS. What the crew does is use rinse-free soap and shampoo! They still use water, but only to get things damp for the soap and shampoo to lather up a bit. But when it’s all said and done, they finish up with a washcloth to wipe away soap and shampoo.
Eating
Astronauts still got to eat right? But what do they eat? Back in the early days of space exploration, food is dehydrated and put on squeezy pouches and tubes. But these days, their menu variety has grown and is basically the same as what we eat here on Earth, most of it is just either vacuum sealed and/or dehydrated and compact to get them up in orbit easier.
But they do have to make some adjustments. For instance, they can’t eat anything that produces crumbs, that includes bread and chips. But in the case of staple foods like bread, they just substitute it with a crumb-free alternative which in bread’s case is tortillas.
Condiments are usually available for them to have fun and even whip up some recipes to make their food better, but powered seasonings like salt and pepper are also not allowed and are replaced with liquid alternatives.
They even got desserts that look good! In the video above, Chris Hadfield had some chocolate pudding cake, and it does look appetizing at least. The video even finished with him having some hot coffee which often comes in powdered form and they dispense either cold or hot water from their water system.
Overall, I’d say eating and drinking up in the ISS is pretty comfortable, and the best part is the weightlessness! In every video of astronauts eating in space, munching your floating food looks pretty cool, and I’d argue that it’s the best part!
Exercise
When humans are put in zero gravity, we lose bone density (they literally dissolve!) and our muscles weaken, making astronauts weak and even handicapped when exposed to gravity once again. To help alleviate and prevent that from happening, astronauts exercise for up to two hours daily.
There are three exercise machines in the ISS, a stationary bike, a treadmill, and a weight training machine called ARED which you can use to do squats, lifts, and even curls. But, to keep astronauts from floating away, all of these machines use bungee cords and straps to keep you tethered and attached to the machines, that way you get the load that your body needs!
The best part? If someone overdid the exercises and gets sore, they can still do most of their work since you only need a tiny amount of force to move around in zero gravity.
If anyone’s wondering, the sweat that astronauts produce eventually evaporates and turns into humidity, and to no surprise, it also gets recycled into drinking water! That’s another fun but slightly icky fact for you!
Leisure
Of course, this is the part that every astronaut probably signed up for! It’s fun in zero gravity! The experiments they do are usually fun or a whole adventure in itself, but what do they do in their free time?
Eating is already part of their leisure time and you have to admit, it’s probably pretty fun to eat with your astronaut friends!
They said that the first couple of days in space is pretty hard for an astronaut, but once you get used to it, you can spin around forever and not get dizzy! It’s probably a must-do for most astronauts that dreamt about it as a kid!
In zero gravity, you can also come up with a ton of sports, but the most played is probably just a ping pong game with random objects, I mean, you can even play with water and a pair of hydrophobic paddles!
But if all fails to keep you amused, you can just go to the ISS’ Cupola module to relax which has this amazing window showing a magnificent view of Earth at all times.
If I was there, I’d stay there with a camera and take photos at all times! But in the case of Chris Hadfield, he even made a music video of a cover of Space Oddity! Even David Bowie absolutely loved it and fought to keep it on YouTube!
Conclusion
There you have it! I know there are a lot more cool things in space and this article barely scratched the surface of everything cool and odd to do in space! But what do you think? What will you do if you’re up there? Who knows, maybe you’d have the opportunity to become a space tourist soon! Let us know in the comments below!
