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.
“Today I broke out a new pair of pants; not too bad after 2 months. I could definitely have made it for the duration, but when we do that we contribute to the stowage issues. We have an overabundance of cargo pants and shorts.”
“You will start packing one area, get done with that, you think, and put stuff in the next area, which you find out doesn't match up… It took a lot longer than it would have if we had a Big Picture of how things were [supposed to fit].”
“It amazes me that 150ml of hot water on a hygiene towel can bring me such joy and satisfaction up here. We get one every other day. Hygiene towel days, as we call them, are very nice days!”
Water is a valuable resource, and so wet things are left out to air dry. A water conduction collection unit then removes moisture out of the air to purify and recycle. The crew jokes that they're all very close, given they drink each others' sweat.