Space Trip
SPACE
What Astronauts Eat In Space
To make most freeze-dried foods , astronauts squeeze water into the food packages and then eat the food after it absorbs the water. Astronauts can use hot water to make hot meals that are tasty and nutritious. Some freeze-dried foods, like fruit , can be eaten dry.
Supplies Astronauts Need In Space
These needs are particularly pressing during spacewalks, when astronauts are outside their ships. As explained by NASA, spacesuits are sophisticated protective garments with oxygen tanks, carbon dioxide scrubbers, active fingertip heaters and other protective measures.
Activity Astronauts Do In Space
The concept of a day aboard an orbiting spacecraft is a little abstract: every 24 hours, astronauts on board the ISS will experience 15 dawns as the station speeds around the world. But human beings have been conditioned by millions of years of evolution to a 24-hour daily cycle, and so-called circadian rhythms of waking and sleeping are hard-wired into our brains and bodies. So astronauts work and sleep to fixed schedules that match these ancient rhythms. Any other arrangement would soon have crews living in a state of permanent jet lag.
Health Risk
In microgravity, astronauts no longer walk to get to different parts of the spacecraft, they float. This means that the bones in the lower part of the body that typically bear weight – the legs, hips and spine – experience a significant decrease in load bearing. This reduction leads to bone breakdown and a release of calcium, which is reabsorbed by the body, leaving the bone more brittle and weak. The release of calcium can also increase the risk of kidney stone formation and bone fractures. To put it in perspective, postmenopausal women who are untreated for bone loss can lose 1 to 1.5 percent of bone mass in the hip in one year while an astronaut can lose the same amount of hip bone mass in a single month. On missions outside Earth’s orbit, radiation exposure may also impact bone loss.