Exploding boobs, toilet target practice, the second birth…
1 Nearly every astronaut experiences some space sickness, caused by the wildly confusing information reaching their inner ears. In addition to nausea, symptoms include headaches and trouble locating your own limbs. Just like college, really.
2 And those are the least of your worries. In weightlessness, fluids shift upward, causing nasal congestion and a puffy face; bones lose calcium, forming kidney stones; and muscles atrophy, slowing the bowels and shrinking the heart.
3 At least you’ll be puffy, constipated, and tall: The decreased pressure on the spine in zero-g causes most space travelers to grow about two inches.
4 Lab rats sent into space during midpregnancy, while their fetuses’ inner ears are developing, spawn some seriously tipsy babies (pdf).
5 No humans have yet been conceived in space, so we can only imagine.
6 So that’s what it takes: A 2001 study showed that astronauts who snored on Earth snoozed silently in space.
7 But astronauts sleep less soundly; 16 sunrises a day throws a major wrench into their circadian rhythms.
8 And Ziggy played guitar. At the start of the workday on the space shuttle, mission control in Houston broadcasts wake-up music, usually selected with a particular astronaut in mind. On the all-work, no-play International Space Station, crews wake to an alarm clock.
9 If you are ever exposed to the vacuum of space without a suit on, don’t hold your breath: Sudden decompression would cause your lungs to rupture.
10 In addition, water on the tongue, in the nose, and in the eyes would boil away. This actually happened in 1965, when a space suit failed during a NASA experiment and the tester was exposed to a near vacuum for 15 seconds.
11 Contrary to Hollywood, though, you wouldn’t explode. Lack of oxygen in the blood is what would kill you, but it would take about two minutes.
12 More explosion paranoia: Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson’s space-tourism company, reportedly considered barring women with breast implants due to fears that they might blow up.
13 John Glenn found it hard to choke down his food, but not because of the lack of gravity: Early astronauts relied on aluminum tubes of semiliquid mush, food cubes, and dehydrated meals.
14 Today astronauts can spice up their meals with salt and pepper-in liquid form. Sprinkled grains would float away, tickling noses and clogging vents.
15 Missing something? Those vents on the space shuttle and International Space Station serve as the lost and found, sucking up anything that’s floating about unsecured.
16 The shuttle commode requires that astronauts align themselves precisely in the dead center of the seat. A mock-up of the shuttle toilet, complete with built-in camera, is used to train them how to position themselves.
17 NASA tried building a bathroom into its space suits-a fitted condom attached to a bladder for men, a molded gynecological insert for women-but gave up and passed out diapers to all.
18 Returning astronauts report extreme difficulty moving their arms and legs right after touchdown, one reason why they call landing “the second birth.”
19 But some long-duration cosmonauts report that the hardest thing to readjust to about life on Earth is that when you let go of objects, they fall.
20 Better just to stay up there? Eighteen people have died on space missions, but never in space-always on the way up or the way down.
译文:
太空生活中鲜为人知的20个事实
1.
在太空中，宇航员的耳朵内会充斥各种杂乱无章的信号，因此几乎每一位宇航员都会感到不适，并患上这样或那样的太空病。除了觉得恶心以外，太空病的症状还包括头痛以及手脚不听使唤。不骗你，其实就像在大学里念书时的感觉一样。
2. 上面这些其实根本算不了什么。在失重状态下，流体是往高处运动的，导致鼻子充血、面部膨胀；骨骼缺钙形成肾结石；肌肉萎缩减缓肠道蠕动，并使心脏缩小。
3. 不过至少你会膨胀，便秘，还有……长高：在零重力条件下，由于脊骨承受的压力减少，绝大多数遨游过太空的人，身高都会增加两英寸左右。
4. 实验室老鼠在怀孕期间曾被送入太空，由于胎儿的内耳尚在发育阶段，导致来到世上的小老鼠变成了一群东倒西歪的“醉鬼”。
5. 目前还没有人在太空怀孕，所以我们只能发挥想象力了。
6. 2001年的一项研究显示，在地球上睡觉会打鼾的宇航员到了太空则睡得很安静。
7. 但是宇航员在太空中是不可能睡个好觉的，由于每天要迎接16次日出，他们的生物钟受到严重扰乱。
8. 雷鬼乐巨星为你弹奏吉他。在航天飞机上，每当一个新的工作日开始时，休斯敦宇航任务控制中心就会播放音乐把你叫醒，这些音乐通常是经一名特殊的宇航员精心挑选的。但在那些24小时连轴转的国际空间站里，宇航员还是会用闹钟将自己闹醒。
9. 如果不穿宇航服就暴露在太空中的真空状态下，最好吐干净肺里的空气。因为压力的骤减会导致气体膨胀而撕裂肺部。
10. 除此之外，舌头上、鼻子和眼睛里的水分也会汽化。这种事情在1965年就曾发生过，当时，美国航空航天局在进行一项太空测试时，宇航员身着航天服突然“罢工”，导致该名受试者暴露在接近真空的环境下长达15秒之久。
11. 与好莱坞大片中描绘的景象有所不同的是，你并不会“爆炸”。血液缺氧才是最终导致你死亡的原因，不过整个过程需要大约两分钟的时间。
12. 更叫人乍舌的是，有报道称，理查德·布兰森所拥有的太空旅游公司“维珍银河”禁止做过隆胸手术的女性进入太空，原因就是担心她们的胸部可能爆炸。
13. 宇航员John Glenn发现食物难以下咽，但是这和“失重”没有任何关系（而是因为太难吃了）。早期的宇航员吃的都是“牙膏”食品，半流质的粥、块状食物以及冻干食品都是装在铝制软管中的。
14. 现在的宇航员用餐得到了明显改善，他们可以在流体食物中放入盐和胡椒粉调味。但洒出的颗粒会随处飘散，让鼻子发痒同时阻塞出气口。
15. 东西找不到了该怎么办？没关系，航天飞机和空间站上的出气口还有另一个用途，就是航天失物招领处，不安全的飘浮物都会被它们“没收”。
16. 在航天飞机上如厕可是一个技术活，宇航员需要毫无偏差地对准马桶的正中央。为了能“精确”地如厕，宇航员需要用1：1的仿真宇航马桶和内置摄像头进行训练。
17. 美国宇航局曾试图在其航天服内加上一个“盥洗室”——为男宇航员量身定做一个与膀胱相连的避孕套，为女宇航员设计一个妇科用的插入器——但最终还是放弃了该计划，男女都改用尿布。
18. 重返地球的宇航员报告说，他们在降落之后很难移动胳膊和大腿，这也就是为什么将返地称之为“第二次出生”。
19. 一些长期在太空中工作的宇航员报告说，在重新适应地球生活过程中最尴尬的事情就是，当他们松开手时，手里的东西就掉了下去。
20.其实待在太空还是比较安全的，虽然已经有18人在执行太空任务时遇难——但悲剧都产生于发射和返回的过程中——目前还从未有人丧生在太空中。