Blast off and spend 24 hours in space with the astronauts who completed NASA's first ever all-female spacewalk! Christina Koch and Jessica Meir share an intimate look at their out-of-this-world routine on the International Space Station, revealing their health and hygiene habits, their daily assignments, and how they keep themselves entertained as they orbit the Earth.
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00:00We're over a lot of ocean right now. Yeah, we're over the Pacific. We're going to come over the tip of South America. Awesome.
00:30Hi, Marie Claire. I'm Christina Koch of NASA. And I'm Jessica Neer.
00:51We're both NASA astronauts living on board the International Space Station, and I've actually been here since March 15th.
00:57I think it's somewhere almost 250 days, something like that. That's about 200 days longer than me.
01:03And actually tomorrow will be my 50th day on the International Space Station.
01:06The last 50 has been the best I've ever been here.
01:09It's been pretty amazing being up here together with both of us having worked and been friends together and colleagues for so long.
01:16One of the highlights of my 50 days thus far was the spacewalk that Christina and I conducted together.
01:21We were doing a series of spacewalks to upgrade some batteries,
01:24and then something went a little bit awry with the battery channel,
01:27and we had to do an unplanned spacewalk to replace the battery charge discharge unit.
01:32The ground team planned for that in only a couple days.
01:34That spacewalk was also the highlight of my mission.
01:37I think to be a part of both professionally and personally, of course,
01:40it's just an extraordinary experience. The views are amazing.
01:44On board, our days consist mostly of maintenance of the space station and doing science to basically benefit life on Earth,
01:53and also to further our goals of exploration.
01:55A lot of the work we're doing here on long duration spaceflight is going to inform the future missions that we do back to the moon,
02:02and also onto Mars.
02:03Outside of our workday, which is about 12 hours long in and of itself,
02:07we have meals with our friends and we have other hobbies we can do,
02:11keep in touch with people on Earth,
02:13look out the window, take pictures, read, watch movies.
02:17This is my favorite window to read by.
02:19You can usually find me here on Sunday mornings.
02:22Sometimes it's sunnier though, and that's a little bit nicer.
02:26We don't have a ton of time for free time, but what we do, we make the best of it,
02:29and I think the real joy about living up here is getting to know your crewmates
02:33and getting to spend time with them.
02:35We hope you enjoy our day aboard the International Space Station.
02:41A very important part of our daily routine on the International Space Station is exercise.
02:45This ensures that we keep our muscles and bones healthy,
02:48and that we can come back from our missions back to Earth still in a healthy state.
02:54So this is our resistive exercise device where we can actually achieve the same thing as lifting weights
03:05would be on Earth in space, in microgravity.
03:07Just like on the ground, we have to wash our hair in space too,
03:12so I'll show you a little bit about what that looks like in microgravity.
03:16So we get some of our drinking water in a pouch like this, a little initial rinse.
03:21Basically, I'm just squeezing the water out of this drink bag, as you can see here.
03:28And I'm just getting that all in my hair.
03:32One of the things that's interesting up here, when I would work out on the ground,
03:37if I'm running or biking or doing any kind of exercise, I always have my hair back,
03:41so it doesn't get in my face, of course.
03:43Up here, actually, you don't need to do that since it never gets in your face.
03:46So often I'll just leave it down, but when I say down, up here it usually ends up being mostly up, up like this.
03:55But it stays out of your face while you're working out, so that's all you need.
03:59So I'm just working all the water through here, getting a nice little rinse.
04:06And, of course, because I'm in space, I can also do it with what looks like being upside down to you.
04:15You can feel like Spider-Man when we jump up to the ceiling like this up here.
04:20I'm just going to get a little bit of shampoo in here, especially at the roots, and give it a bit of a scrub.
04:28First I'm going to get some of it out with a towel.
04:31Now we'll give it a rinse.
04:35Perhaps the most important part of washing the hair is getting rid of all the extra hair that's falling out,
04:42so I don't leave it around all over the space station for my crewmates to find.
04:46Some people have described it a bit like you're floating along and suddenly you get hit in the face by something that feels like a spider web
04:52because somebody's long hair is just floating there in front of you and you can't see it.
04:58Okay, I'm ready for my conditioner.
05:01Work some of that in here, and this is just a leave-in conditioner.
05:04And that's it. That's how you wash your hair in space. Not that complicated.
05:13So today we're going to harvest the Mizuna lettuce that we've been growing for about the past month.
05:17This is the fourth iteration of the Veggie Experiment, and this one is in particular looking at different light levels.
05:22So we have two different wavelengths of light. As you can see, this one is a bit more red on the top,
05:27and this one on the bottom is a little bit more blue.
05:29So today Christina and I are harvesting the lettuce.
05:32As I mentioned, we'll be cutting several of these leaves off, half of it to go back a pound to the ground
05:36for the scientists to evaluate, and half for us to make some delicious salads up here.
05:41And that is quite a treat for us to have fresh lettuce up here on the space station
05:45since we don't have very many opportunities to have fresh food.
05:48So right now, Drew Morgan and Christina Cooke are doing a tool audit of the spacewalk tools
06:00for the upcoming spacewalk series that we will start this Friday.
06:03Here's Christina. She's photo-documenting the tool config for one of the Kulak bags.
06:08They're doing this work in the airlock. This is the area where the crew members get suited up in the space suits.
06:22They'll be right here, mounted to the wall, getting into the space suits, and then they'll go out just past Christina there into the crew lock,
06:29and that's the area that we will depressurize in order to then open the hatch and go out into the vacuum of space to start the spacewalk.
06:36Another way that we spend our day onboard the ISS is doing maintenance on the space station itself.
06:42So you can see Jessica here is doing some cleaning of one of our ventilation ducts.
06:47That's important because dust and debris that's in the air doesn't really fall to the ground in microgravity,
06:52so it actually all ends up on the surface of our ventilation ducts.
07:06What are you having for dinner tonight?
07:07Oh, man. So bad. I have Indian fish curry in, and also a Russian can that I actually took out already.
07:15That's one of my favorites.
07:17I've got beef tips with mushrooms, and I'm going to start with the pea soup.
07:24Okay, there you go. Try it.
07:34I was going to try the beef steak. I haven't actually tried the beef steak yet.
07:38It's good.
07:41Let's put some music on for dinner.
07:43Absolutely.
07:44All right, I'm going to attempt to do your trick and get the whole peel off in one.
07:47Okay.
07:48I have an honorary mirror.
07:50Oh, smell that.
07:51It smells so good. It's so fresh.
07:53Luca.
07:54Yo.
07:55Orange.
07:56I was going to bite.
07:57I know.
08:02Man.
08:03That would have been so awesome.
08:05This is our hygiene station.
08:06Can't go a night without a faucet, you know me.
08:07Believe me, I do.
08:08Oh, this is that exfoliator I was telling you about.
08:09I used it, and I really like it.
08:10What'd you think?
08:11I knew you would because it's all natural.
08:12And it's actually food-based, even.
08:13Yeah, it was just like there was some sugar in it.
08:14Yes.
08:15Yes.
08:16It tastes like that's sweet.
08:17It's like not gross if it gets in your mouth.
08:18But I used it the other day, and I felt like my skin looked really good.
08:20Yeah?
08:21It's kind of like camping in some ways, you know?
08:22It is a lot.
08:23You have everything you need.
08:24You just don't have running water.
08:25It's just all a little different.
08:26Luckily, we both love camping.
08:27Maybe I will try some of my facial cleanser today.
08:28Maybe I will try some of my facial cleanser today.
08:49Hey, Goose.
08:50Hey.
08:51Our only time to stare at the Earth is after work, right when we shouldn't be getting blasted
09:18by sunlight.
09:19We're over a lot of ocean right now.
09:21Yeah, we're over the Pacific.
09:22We're going to come over the tip of South America.
09:27Awesome.
09:37All shut down.
09:43Good night, Earth.
09:48We'll meet you soon.
09:52We'll meet you soon.
09:57If we met you soon again.
10:04Good night.
10:09Friends, we were on the Evening Lostry