How NASA's Female Astronauts Wash Hair, Exercise And Eat In Space | Marie Claire
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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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 We're over a lot of ocean right now.
00:10 Yeah, we're over the Pacific.
00:11 We're going to come over the tip of South America.
00:15 Awesome.
00:16 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:20 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:23 Hi, Marie Claire.
00:39 I'm Christina Koch of NASA.
00:41 And I'm Jessica Neir.
00:42 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:47 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:50 We're both NASA astronauts living
00:53 on board the International Space Station.
00:55 And I've actually been here since March 15.
00:57 I think it's somewhere-- almost 250 days, something like that.
01:01 That's about 200 days longer than me.
01:03 And actually, tomorrow will be my 50th day
01:05 on the International Space Station.
01:06 The last 50 has been the best I've ever been here.
01:09 It's been pretty amazing being up here together with both
01:12 of us having worked and been friends together
01:14 and colleagues for so long.
01:16 One of the highlights of my 50 days thus far
01:18 was the spacewalk that Christina and I conducted together.
01:21 We were doing a series of spacewalks
01:23 to upgrade some batteries.
01:24 And then something went a little bit awry with the battery
01:27 channel.
01:27 And we had to do an unplanned spacewalk
01:30 to replace the battery charge discharge unit.
01:32 The ground team planned for that in only a couple days.
01:35 That spacewalk was also the highlight of my mission.
01:37 And to be a part of both professionally and personally,
01:39 of course, is just an extraordinary experience.
01:42 The views are amazing.
01:44 On board, our days consist mostly
01:47 of maintenance of the space station
01:49 and doing science to basically benefit life on Earth
01:53 and also to further our goals in exploration.
01:55 A lot of the work we're doing here on long-duration space
01:58 flight is going to inform the future missions that we do back
02:01 to the moon and also on to Mars.
02:04 Outside of our workday, which is about 12 hours long
02:06 in and of itself, we have meals with our friends.
02:10 And we have other hobbies we can do,
02:11 like keep in touch with people on Earth,
02:14 look out the window, take pictures, read, watch movies.
02:17 This is my favorite window to read by.
02:20 You can usually find me here on Sunday mornings.
02:23 Sometimes it's sunnier, though, and that's a little bit nicer.
02:26 We don't have a ton of time for free time.
02:28 But what we do, we make the best of it.
02:30 And I think the real joy about living up here
02:32 is getting to know your crewmates
02:33 and getting to spend time with them.
02:35 We hope you enjoy our day aboard the International Space
02:37 Station.
02:41 A very important part of our daily routine
02:43 on the International Space Station is exercise.
02:46 This ensures that we keep our muscles and bones healthy
02:48 and that we can come back from our missions back to Earth
02:52 still in a healthy state.
02:54 So this is our resistive exercise device,
03:00 where we can actually achieve the same thing as lifting
03:05 weights would be on Earth in space, in microgravity.
03:09 Just like on the ground, we have to wash our hair in space, too.
03:12 So I'll show you a little bit about what
03:14 that looks like in microgravity.
03:16 So we get some of our drinking water in a pouch like this,
03:20 a little initial rinse.
03:23 Basically, I'm just squeezing the water out of this drink
03:26 bag, as you can see here.
03:30 And I'm just getting that all in my hair.
03:34 One of the things that's interesting up here,
03:36 when I would work out on the ground,
03:37 if I'm running or biking or doing any kind of exercise,
03:40 I always have my hair back.
03:42 So it doesn't get in my face, of course.
03:43 Up here, actually, you don't need to do that,
03:45 since it never gets in your face.
03:46 So often, I'll just leave it down.
03:50 But when I say down, up here, it usually
03:52 ends up being mostly up, up like this.
03:56 But it stays out of your face while you're working out,
03:58 so that's all you need.
04:01 So I'm just working all the water through here,
04:04 getting a nice little rinse.
04:06 And of course, because I'm in space,
04:11 I can also do it with what looks like being upside down to you.
04:16 You can feel like Spider-Man when we jump up
04:18 to the ceiling like this up here.
04:20 Just going to get a little bit of shampoo in here,
04:22 especially at the roots.
04:23 Give it a bit of a scrub.
04:28 First, I'm going to get some of it out with this towel.
04:31 Now we'll give it a rinse.
04:36 Perhaps the most important part of washing the hair
04:38 is getting rid of all the extra hair that's falling out,
04:41 so I don't leave it around all over the space station
04:44 for my crewmates to find.
04:46 Some people have described it a bit like you're floating along,
04:48 and suddenly you get hit in the face by something that
04:51 feels like a spider web, because somebody's long hair is just
04:54 floating there in front of you, and you can't see it.
04:58 OK, I'm ready for my conditioner.
05:01 Work some of that in here, and this is just
05:03 a leave-in conditioner.
05:04 And that's it.
05:05 That's how you wash your hair in space.
05:07 Not that complicated.
05:08 So today we're going to harvest the mizuna lettuce
05:15 that we've been growing for about the past month.
05:17 This is the fourth iteration of the veggie experiment,
05:19 and this one is in particular looking
05:21 at different light levels.
05:22 So we have two different wavelengths of light.
05:24 As you can see, this one is a bit more red on the top,
05:27 and this one on the bottom is a little bit more blue.
05:29 So today, Christina and I are harvesting the lettuce.
05:32 As I mentioned, we'll be cutting several of these leaves off,
05:34 half of it to go back and found in the ground
05:36 with the scientists to evaluate, and half for us
05:38 to make some delicious salads up here.
05:41 And that is quite a treat for us to have fresh lettuce up here
05:44 on the space station, since we don't have any many
05:46 opportunities to have fresh food.
05:48 So right now, Drew Morgan and Christina Cook
05:56 are doing a tool audit of the spacewalk tools
06:00 for the upcoming spacewalk series
06:02 that we will start this Friday.
06:04 Here's Christina.
06:04 She's photo documenting the tool config
06:07 for one of the Kulak bags.
06:08 They're doing this work in the airlock.
06:18 This is the area where the crew members get suited up
06:21 in the spacesuits.
06:22 They'll be right here, mounted to the wall,
06:24 getting into the spacesuits.
06:26 And then they'll go out just past Christina
06:28 there into the Kulak, and that's the area
06:30 that we will depressurize in order to then open the hatch
06:33 and go out into the vacuum of space to start the spacewalk.
06:36 Another way that we spend our day on board the ISS
06:39 is doing maintenance on the space station itself.
06:42 So you can see Jessica here is doing some cleaning of one
06:45 of our ventilation ducts.
06:47 That's important because dust and debris that's in the air
06:50 doesn't really fall to the ground in microgravity.
06:52 So it actually all ends up on the surface of our ventilation
06:55 ducts.
06:56 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:59 What are you having for dinner, Chelsea?
07:07 Oh, man.
07:09 So good.
07:09 I have Indian fish curry in, and also a Russian can
07:13 that I actually took out already to let it cool down.
07:15 That's one of my favorites.
07:18 I've got meat, chips, and mushrooms.
07:19 And I'm going to start with the pea soup.
07:21 OK, there you go.
07:25 Try it.
07:25 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:28 I was going to try the beef steak.
07:35 I haven't actually tried the beef steak yet.
07:38 It's good.
07:38 Let's put some music on for dinner.
07:42 It's absolutely good.
07:44 All right, I'm going to attempt to do your trick
07:46 and get the whole peel off in one.
07:47 OK.
07:48 I have an honorary mirror.
07:50 Oh, smell that.
07:51 It smells so good.
07:52 So fresh.
07:53 Look at--
07:54 Yo, I was going to bite.
07:56 I know.
07:57 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:59 [LAUGHTER]
08:00 Oh, man.
08:03 That would have been so awesome.
08:05 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:08 This is our hygiene station.
08:13 Can't go to night without plastic, you know what I mean?
08:15 Believe me, I do.
08:17 Oh, this is that exfoliator I was telling you about.
08:20 I used it, and I really like it.
08:21 What you think-- I knew you would,
08:22 because it's all natural.
08:23 And it's actually food-based, even.
08:25 Yeah, it was just like there was some sugar in it.
08:27 Yes.
08:28 It tasted a little sweet.
08:28 It's not gross if it gets in your mouth.
08:30 But I used it the other day, and I felt
08:32 like my skin looked really good.
08:33 Yeah?
08:35 It's kind of like camping in some ways.
08:38 It is a lot like--
08:38 You have everything you need.
08:40 You just don't have running water.
08:41 It's just all a little different.
08:44 Luckily, we both love camping.
08:45 Maybe I will try some of my facial cleanser today.
08:49 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:52 [WIND BLOWING]
08:55 Hey, Goose.
09:09 Hey.
09:12 Our only time to stare at the Earth
09:14 is after work, right when we shouldn't be
09:17 getting blasted by sunlight.
09:19 We're over a lot of ocean right now.
09:21 Yeah, we're over the Pacific.
09:23 We're going to come over the tip of South America.
09:27 Awesome.
09:28 [MUSIC PLAYING]
09:31 All shut down.
09:38 [MUSIC PLAYING]
09:41 Goodnight, Earth.
09:44 [MUSIC PLAYING]
09:47 [WIND BLOWING]
09:51 [MUSIC PLAYING]
09:54 [MUSIC PLAYING]
09:58 [MUSIC PLAYING]
10:01 [BLANK_AUDIO]