The eats and the life of the astronauts, child's affair

The International Space Station (short: ISS) hovers in space. Sometimes you can see them from Earth. Astronauts from different countries live on the ISS. What they do there and as you will experience here.

What is the ISS?

The ISS is a space station in which many countries are involved, e.g. B. USA, Russia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Brazil and other European countries. That is why it bears the name "International Space Station ".

You can’t just shoot a space station into space. That is why it has been assembled from a large number of individual parts since 1998. Astronauts have been able to live on the ISS since November 2000. It is still not finished today. The ISS is still under development.

Why is there the ISS??

The ISS is a kind of huge space laboratory. In February 2008, the "Columbus" research laboratory was installed on the ISS. Experiments on space medicine are carried out there. Many biological, chemical and physical experiments are also carried out.
Scientists therefore want to learn to understand many things, for example how things behave, but also people in weightlessness. The data from the experiments are transmitted to the control center on Earth. Researchers then evaluate the data later.

Facts about the ISS

The ISS circles the earth every 90 minutes
That is why astronauts on the ISS can admire the sunrise and sunset 16 times a day
Weight: about 455 tons on earth
Cost: around 100 billion euros to date
Size: 100 by 100 meters
Flight altitude: 320 kilometers above us
So far, around 177 astronauts have been on board

Life in space

Life in space is different from that on Earth because there is weightlessness. That means that everything hovers there, even humans. The astronauts must be buckled up when sleeping. Food comes from bags or tubes so that not everything hovers around. It also has to be durable. When showering or in the toilets, the water is immediately sucked in with a kind of special vacuum cleaner.

Sometimes the astronauts also have to leave the ISS and repair, add or replace something. Then they wear a spacesuit that provides them with oxygen.

Astronauts have to train a lot before they fly into space. If everything is weightless, the astronauts hardly need their muscles. If the muscles move too little, they will recede. That is why people on the ISS have to do a lot of sport so that the muscles do not contract.

How to become an astronaut?

Astronauts have to prepare up to three years before they are assigned a mission. First they have to do basic training and a lot about medicine, chemistry, physics, Learn biology and much more so that you can later carry out experiments. In addition, astronauts must know the technology of the space shuttle and space station well.

Astronauts very often have diving lessons. Because under water you can practice how it is in weightlessness. Weightlessness for training is simulated in a so-called “parabolic flight”. This is very tiring for the body. That is why the astronauts only spend a few months in the space station. The longest stay was a year on the space station.

For many, becoming an astronaut is a dream – for you too?