Thse insights have been pulled from the individual experiences of astronauts and cosmonauts recorded in published first person accounts — journals, diaries, debriefs, and post-flight reflections.As this database includes the personal, subjective experiences from a diversity of flyers, they may sometimes contradict, but together they provide a more holistic, if messy, picture of life in space. To learn more about how these categories were developed, please see this related publication.
“Biggest impact of X operations was the unstow and restow... Don’t think they understood how much overhead was involved. Gave them lots of pictures and movies, before, during, and after to help them get an idea.”
“Stowage is one area that deserves some attention, because ground doesn’t really understand the problems of gathering equipment from multiple locations and tying it down for use at a work site. Walls are already cluttered, and it’s hard to organize a location nearby.”
Each day, Moscow and Houston send a schedule with specific tasks assigned to each crewmate. Two calls are made with Ground Control, one in the morning to clarify and one in the evening for next steps. Even weekends have tasks to be done, systems to be repaired, and educational programs to be completed.