Actually, I'm only going to focus today on one specific part of our various space explorations, and that is ISS. ISS is the abbreviation for the International Space Station, shown here:
ISS is a technological wonder, the product of 5 global space corporations working together. America, Japan, Canada, Russia, and Europe have been working together since 1998 to create ISS, the largest man-made space station ever. And guess what? It's not even done yet.
As I said before, it began construction in 1998, and it is due to be completed next year. We plan to use it until the late 2020s. ISS has been constantly inhabited by humans for almost 11 years straight. The planning for it came about when those five nations I mentioned (America, Japan, Canada, Russia, and Europe) realized that they should work together to create one global space station. For today's post, I am going to show you how these people on ISS live. Hopefully, their boring and difficult lifestyle will help you to appreciate your exciting awesome ones.
First of all, since the space station experiences 16 sunrises and sunsets per day, they have to follow their own time zone and carefully prepare their sleep schedules. The following crew schedule is based off of their Coordinated Universal Time Zone. They wake up at 6:00 every day, and they start off with an inspection of the station, and themselves. They then have to eat breakfast and have a council meeting before starting daily work activities at 8:10. They exercise periodically during the day to ensure that they don't loose the use of their muscles.
At 1:05, they take a one hour lunch break, and they continue working until 7:30, at which time they prepare to sleep again. No late night parties for this bunch. They have dinner and another council meeting, with lights out at 9:30. Now, what they do for those many hours each day, I have no idea. It seems to me like they'd just be sitting around twiddling their thumbs for the entire time, but hey. Who knows what they do up there.
As for the food, the astronauts have it pretty good. Apparently they send dietitians up to ISS to help out with the meal planning. Since your sense of taste is reduced in space, spicy Mexican foods are the local favorite. Beverages are made by mixing water with differently flavored powders, and the food is attached to the plates by magnets. Every bit of food that does float away has to be collected so that it doesn't clog up ISS's air system.
As I said before, they have to do a lot of exercise to keep their muscles and bodies strong. They have their own personal gym up there equipped with two treadmills, a weightlifting machine, and a stationary bike. Everybody is required to spend about two hours a day exercising. As for sleeping, the crew members get their own little cubbies that they can put stuff in like desks, laptops, and snack foods. Visitors to the station, however, just have to tether up to a free wall spot with a velcro sleeping bag.
So I wanted to tell you all that I am now enrolled in a Creative Writing class at my high school to try to jumpstart my writing career. Today, on the first day of classes, we had to write a couple paragraphs about a location. Any location. No editing, barely any thinking. Just writing. I have included these rough two paragraphs in this post, so you'll get to read two unedited pieces of garbage. Hooray! (Actually, this entire blog is unedited garbage.)
A beautiful sunset streaks red and gold across the sky as heavy twilight permeates the air. The clearing of grass just north of a rough gravelly parking lot collectively sighs as the wind bends their light green strands. A cloud parts from its union with the sun, and bright, harsh red light washes over everything. An automobile rolls through the lot, grumbling at the chill breeze that frolics its way through the lot of red brick buildings. The energy of the pumping machinery inside the car seems to distract the calm and quiet atmosphere of the coming night. The car rolls to a stop and the driver inside switches the ignition off, relenting control of the dusk to nature.
The man inside the car rolls the windows down, and perks his ears up to experience all the sights and sounds of the night. After the sun goes down and the stars come out, the crickets slowly begin to weave their sound into the melting pot of night noises. A long, low whistle pierces the air and cracks nature’s pot of sound, signaling the arrival of the night’s first train. Soon, a cacophony of engines that dwarfed those of the car fill the pot and break it, destroying the sacred silence that harbors itself in the remote areas of the world. Wanting to breath the night air and be closer to the train, the man opens his car door and enters the night.
So there you have it. See you next time, when I take on an incredibly controversial and taboo subject. Religion!!!
Good post :)
ReplyDeleteThe astronauts are, of course, busy maintaining the space station, running diagnostics and spying on you :)
The scientists and physicists that are on board are running tests, performing experiments and spying on you :)
It is true, though...nowadays, the Space program doesn't seem to entice people to notice or care. NASA even has a cable channel set up so you can watch all of that stuff live as it happens. Some schools might be tuning in to that, but most people don't unless something blows up.
Some people take the Space program for granted, while others bemoan the fact that trillions of dollars are being spent on a Space program rather than addressing real concerns here on Earth. As it always seems to be, there are at least two sides to every story...and conflict.
I liked your two unedited paragraphs, although you seem to go a little heavy on descriptive text. It's good to paint a picture; it's better to leave some of it to the imagination to fill in some of the brush strokes.