Blast off and spend 24 hours in space with the astronauts who completed NASA's first ever all-female spacewalk! Christina Koch and Jessica Meir share an intimate look at their out-of-this-world routine on the International Space Station, revealing their health and hygiene habits, their daily assignments, and how they keep themselves entertained as they orbit the Earth.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00We're over a lot of ocean right now.
00:09Yeah, we're over the Pacific.
00:10We're going to come over the tip of South America.
00:11Awesome.
00:12Hi Marie Claire, I'm Christina Koch of NASA and I'm Jessica Meir.
00:42We're both NASA astronauts living on board the International Space Station and I've actually
00:55been here since March 15th.
00:57I think it's somewhere, almost 250 days, something like that.
01:01That's about 200 days longer than me and actually tomorrow will be my 50th day on the International
01:05Space Station.
01:06The last 50 has been the best time since I've been here.
01:09It's been pretty amazing being up here together with both of us having worked and been friends
01:14together and colleagues for so long.
01:16One of the highlights of my 50 days thus far was the spacewalk that Christina and I conducted
01:21together.
01:22We were doing a series of spacewalks to upgrade some batteries and then something went a little
01:26bit awry with the battery channel and we had to do an unplanned spacewalk to replace the
01:31battery charge discharge unit.
01:32The ground team planned for that in only a couple days.
01:35That spacewalk was also the highlight of my mission.
01:37Being to be a part of both professionally and personally, of course, is just an extraordinary
01:41experience.
01:42The views are amazing.
01:44On board, our days consist mostly of maintenance of the space station and doing science to
01:51basically benefit life on Earth and also to further our goals in exploration.
01:55A lot of the work we're doing here on long-duration space flight is going to inform the future
02:00missions that we do back to the moon and also on to Mars.
02:04Outside of our workday, which is about 12 hours long in and of itself, we have meals
02:09with our friends and we have other hobbies we can do, keep in touch with people on Earth,
02:14look out the window, take pictures, read, watch movies.
02:17This is my favorite window to read by.
02:20You can usually find me here on Sunday mornings.
02:23Sometimes it's sunnier though and that's a little bit nicer.
02:26We don't have a ton of time for free time, but what we do, we make the best of it and
02:30I think the real joy about living up here is getting to know your crewmates and getting
02:34to spend time with them.
02:35We hope you enjoy our day aboard the International Space Station.
02:41A very important part of our daily routine on the International Space Station is exercise.
02:46This ensures that we keep our muscles and bones healthy and that we can come back from
02:50our missions back to Earth still in a healthy state.
02:57So this is our resistive exercise device where we can actually achieve the same thing
03:04as lifting weights would be on Earth in space, in microgravity.
03:10Just like on the ground, we have to wash our hair in space too, so I'll show you a little
03:13bit about what that looks like in microgravity.
03:17So we get some of our drinking water in a pouch like this, a little initial rinse.
03:23Basically I'm just squeezing the water out of this drink bag, as you can see here, and
03:30I'm just getting that all in my hair.
03:34One of the things that's interesting up here, when I would work out on the ground, if I'm
03:38running or biking or doing any kind of exercise, I always have my hair back so it doesn't get
03:42in my face of course.
03:43Up here actually you don't need to do that since it never gets in your face.
03:46So often I'll just leave it down, but when I say down, up here it usually ends up being
03:53mostly up, up like this.
03:56But it stays out of your face while you're working out, so that's all you need.
04:01So I'm just working all the water through here, getting a nice little rinse, and of
04:07course because I'm in space, I can also do it with what looks like being upside down
04:14to you.
04:15You can feel like Spider-Man when we jump up to the ceiling like this up here.
04:20Just going to get a little bit of shampoo in here, especially at the roots, and give
04:26it a bit of a scrub.
04:27First I'm going to get some of it out with this towel.
04:31Now we'll give it a rinse.
04:36Perhaps the most important part of washing the hair is getting rid of all the extra hair
04:41that's falling out so I don't leave it around all over the space station for my crewmates
04:45to find.
04:46People have described it a bit like you're floating along and suddenly you get hit in
04:50the face by something that feels like a spider web because somebody's long hair is just floating
04:55there in front of you and you can't see it.
04:57Okay, I'm ready for my conditioner.
05:01Work some of that in here, and this is just a leave-in conditioner, and that's it.
05:05That's how you wash your hair in space.
05:07Not that complicated.
05:13So today we're going to harvest the mizuna lettuce that we've been growing for about
05:16the past month.
05:17This is the fourth iteration of the veggie experiment, and this one is in particular
05:21looking at different light levels.
05:22So we have two different wavelengths of light.
05:24As you can see, this one is a bit more red on the top, and this one on the bottom is
05:28a little bit more blue.
05:29So today Christina and I are harvesting the lettuce.
05:32As I mentioned, we'll be cutting several of these leaves off, half of it to go back and
05:35found with the ground with the scientists to evaluate, and half for us to make some
05:39delicious salads up here.
05:41That is quite a treat for us to have fresh lettuce up here on the space station, since
05:45we don't have any many opportunities to have fresh food.
05:53So right now, Drew Morgan and Christina Koch are doing a tool audit of the spacewalk tools
06:00for the upcoming spacewalk series that we will start this Friday.
06:04Here's Christina.
06:05She's photo-documenting the tool config for one of the Kulak bags.
06:11They're doing this work in the airlock.
06:18This is the area where the crew members get suited up in the spacesuits.
06:22They'll be right here, mounted to the wall, getting into the spacesuits, and then they'll
06:26go out just past Christina there into the Kulak, and that's the area that we will depressurize
06:32in order to then open the hatch and go out into the vacuum of space to start the spacewalk.
06:37Another way that we spend our day on board the ISS is doing maintenance on the space
06:41station itself.
06:42So you can see Jessica here is doing some cleaning of one of our ventilation ducts.
06:47That's important because dust and debris that's in the air doesn't really fall to the ground
06:51in microgravity, so it actually all ends up on the surface of our ventilation ducts.
07:06What are you having for dinner tonight?
07:07Oh, man.
07:08So good.
07:09I have Indian fish curry in, and also a Russian ham that I actually took out already to let
07:15it cool down a little bit.
07:16That's one of my favorites.
07:17Yeah.
07:18I've got beef chips with mushrooms.
07:19Ooh.
07:20And I'll start with the pea soup.
07:24Okay, there you go.
07:25Try it.
07:34I was going to try the beef steak.
07:35I haven't actually tried the beef steak yet.
07:37It's good.
07:40Let's put some music on for dinner.
07:42Absolutely.
07:44All right, I'm going to attempt to do your trick and get the whole peel off in one.
07:47Okay.
07:48I have an honorary mirror.
07:49Oh, smell that.
07:50It smells so good.
07:52It's so fresh.
07:53Look at the orange.
07:54I was going to find one.
07:56I know.
08:01Man, that would have been so awesome.
08:10This is our hygiene station.
08:12Can't go to night without plastic, you know what I mean?
08:15Believe me, I do.
08:16Oh, this is that exfoliator I was telling you about.
08:19I used it, and I really like it.
08:21What'd you think?
08:22I knew you would because it's all natural, and it's actually food-based even.
08:25Yeah, it was just like there was some sugar in it.
08:27Yes, yes.
08:28It's actually not sweet.
08:29It's like not gross if it gets in your mouth.
08:30But I used it the other day, and I felt like my skin looked really good.
08:33Yeah?
08:35It's kind of like camping in some ways, you know?
08:38You have everything you need, you just don't have running water.
08:40It's just all a little different.
08:43Luckily, we both love camping.
08:45Maybe I will try some of my facial cleanser today.
09:08Hey, Goose.
09:09Hey.
09:12Our only time to stare at the earth is after work,
09:15right when we shouldn't be getting blasted by sunlight.
09:19We're over a lot of ocean right now.
09:21Yeah, we're over the Pacific.
09:22We're going to come over the tip of South America.
09:27Awesome.
09:37All shut down.
09:43Good night, Earth.