If you like space at all (as you should; it’s out of this world, I’ll see myself out), you’ve already watched astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) lead us around our only extra-terrestrial home. But micro-gravity can make everything pretty disorienting — up there, there is so such thing as “up.” What is it really like to live inside the football field-sized station?
In a very clever new video from the fantastic science YouTube channel SmarterEveryDay, our host Destin gets a personal tour of a full-sized ISS mock-up from astronaut Scott Kelly, who is currently spending one year in space. What sets this video apart from other, in-space, tours we’ve gotten from astronauts before is that Destin has added a video game-style mini-map (complete with sight lines). Combined with the Earth-based orientation we’re all used to, the 12-min tour gave me a much better sense of how our intrepid space travelers are living.
What struck me the most is that the ISS is much more spacious than I gathered from watching other astronaut videos. Granted, Kelly states that there would be a lot more hardware when you’re actually in space, but still, I didn’t get the cramped vibe from this video. I know I’d like to launch my weightless self down one of those corridors! And yeah, that tiny coffin of a space bed does look cozy.
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IMAGE: NASA