Food, clothing, housing and transportation in space

10 10 18, "Tian Wen-1" flew 256 million kilometers in the universe and completed the third mid-course correction of its orbit. It takes more than half a year to reach Mars. Will Mars be the next home for mankind? People often ask this.

Nearly 60 years have passed since Soviet astronaut yury alekseyevich gagarin completed his first manned space mission in Dongfang 1 in 1. From "going into space" and "living in space" to "living in space", astronauts' quality of life in space has made a qualitative leap.

The thick shell and round mask are probably the classic images of spacesuits in most people's minds. However, the spacesuit weighing tens of kilograms can't be the daily wear of human life in space.

In fact, astronauts who work and live in the space station usually wear the same shirts and pants as those on the ground. Astronauts usually prepare clothes for months at a time and send them to the space station regularly by supply spacecraft. Water is a rare thing in space. There is no washing machine on the space station, so astronauts can't change their clothes as often as they do on the ground-they may get a new T-shirt or trousers in a few days. Fortunately, there is little dust in the space station, and astronauts also have the opportunity to take a bath and wipe off the sweat on their body surfaces after daily exercise, so clothes will not get dirty quickly.

If you want to get out of the spaceship, astronauts still need to wear spacesuits to protect themselves. EMU spacesuit is like a small spaceship. It needs heat preservation and pressure preservation, has excellent performance and strength to resist cosmic rays and micrometeorite attacks, and also has a complete set of communication system and life support system. There is also an advanced crew escape suit (ACES), which is generally used in the cockpit of spacecraft to protect astronauts when launching and returning to Earth, and has the functions of balancing temperature and providing atmospheric pressure protection.

At present, spacesuits are developing in the direction of portability and beauty. Space exploration technology company, Boeing and other newly developed spacesuits are about 40% lighter than before, and NASA has also designed two new spacesuits for Artemis, the next generation of lunar exploration mission. In the future, spacesuits should allow human beings to move and explore freely in space.

Eating and drinking is certainly a great pleasure in life. If we live in space, can we still enjoy a big meal happily?

The earliest space meal was a daunting "toothpaste": astronauts had to squeeze semi-fluid food out of a tube and swallow it directly without chewing. Soviet astronaut Gorman Titov was fortunate to be the first person to enjoy this space meal. His menu includes a tube of vegetable soup, a tube of French fatty liver meat sauce and a tube of blackcurrant juice. By the way, he was also the first person to vomit in space, but not because the food was too bad, but because of space sickness caused by sleeping in space environment. When john glenn, an American astronaut, took off on the Mercury spacecraft in 1962, his lunch box was full of bite-sized food freeze-dried blocks. These cubes must be re-melted with water in space and put into toothpaste tubes before eating. Without the fun of chewing and all kinds of choices, the diet of the first generation of astronauts was quite difficult.

The productivity of eating goods should not be underestimated. Soon, the toothpaste tube was driven out of the "space restaurant". People invented all kinds of tableware that can be used in weightlessness, including coffee cups and frying pans. Nowadays, astronauts can use tableware and other tableware freely in space, which is quite close to eating on the ground.

There are many kinds of food in space. Astronauts on the International Space Station have hundreds of kinds of food, and they can choose their own meal plan-although this meal plan circulates every eight days. This does not prevent astronauts from developing new space dishes: biscuits, Japanese sushi, peanut butter popsicles, and even "yesterday's coffee"-the commander of the space shuttle Endeavour proudly displayed a batch of reclaimed water in the interview, and the raw materials are self-evident.

However, making space recipes is still quite limited. Most fruits and vegetables can only be kept fresh for two days at most in the universe, and fresh food in the space station is extremely scarce. Most foods can only be dehydrated or canned and transported to space. Scientists are trying their best to solve this problem, such as planting vegetables (mainly lettuce, tomatoes and other convenient vegetables) on the space station and raising spirulina. Now, some astronauts have eaten lettuce for space experiments. When the "space vegetable garden" becomes a reality, human self-sufficient living in space can be realized.

Can we live directly on the planet or in outer space? It seems impossible at present. Whether it is the space station at this stage or the imaginary "Mars colony", human beings need an artificial building big enough and strong enough to protect themselves. The International Space Station (ISS), which has been operated by many countries for many years, is the only space place that truly realizes the long-term residence function at this stage. The interior of the International Space Station is much more spacious than a five-bedroom one. In addition to the laboratory for scientific research, there are two bathrooms, fitness facilities and a protruding porthole with a 360-degree view.

If you want to lose weight, the space environment is definitely the best choice. The weightless environment will disturb the gastrointestinal function of human body, so most astronauts lose their appetite and eat less in space, but they spend up to two hours on various special fitness equipment every day-the space environment will lead to complex changes in human muscles, bones, heart and lungs and other organs. In order to resist the decline of physical function, astronauts must exercise every day. The International Space Station is equipped with a treadmill, a bicycle riding device and a resistance exercise device. Astronauts will fix themselves on the machine when they exercise, so as not to float around-yes, astronauts are a group of people who "live with ropes". Life in space is tied down half the time. Fix yourself when you sleep, tie yourself when you take a bath during exercise, and even get stuck in the toilet when you go to the toilet to prevent yourself from floating out in a weightless environment.

Why can't we make the cabin of the International Space Station rotate and forge artificial gravity by centripetal force, as in science fiction movies? If you want to create a sense of gravity consistent with the ground, the structure of the space station must be long enough (the rotation radius is large enough) or the rotation speed is fast enough. No matter which scheme is adopted, it is a severe challenge to materials and energy. It is more expensive to build several gyms than to spend a lot of money to build a land environment in a space of land and gold.

There is also an often overlooked but indispensable "luxury configuration" in the space station: the toilet. It may be more like a vacuum cleaner, which can generate strong suction and suck excrement in quickly. If the speed is not fast enough, the excrement will easily disperse in weightlessness, and such a picture is of course unwilling to be imagined by anyone. Space toilets require much higher air tightness and corrosion resistance than ground toilets, and are also equipped with a sewage treatment system to extract water from excreta for reuse. This year, the cost of "luxury toilets" transported by NASA to the space station was as high as $23 million. Astronauts will test the performance of this toilet on the space station, and this toilet system may be applied to the subsequent moon landing or mission to mars.

Space is so vast, do people living in space have a chance to go out and have a look? Interstellar transition and wormhole crossing in sci-fi blockbusters are more like today's myths such as Gankun changing hands. At present, the speed that human beings can reach is far less than one thousandth of the speed of light. Even on Mars, whose orbit is closest to the Earth, the spacecraft will go through complicated orbit change, which will take more than seven months to arrive.

At present, space travel mainly depends on the space shuttle and manned spacecraft. Many international spaceships have visited the International Space Station to transport people and materials. As for walking in space, it is still out of reach. Although the Soviet astronauts walked out of the cabin door as early as 1965, it is still not easy to walk in space today. Walking out of the cabin is an important action that needs to be prepared several days in advance. Even well-equipped astronauts still face considerable risks in the cosmic environment. In addition to the necessary equipment installation, maintenance and spacewalk experiments, astronauts generally do not leave the cabin door.

On September 27th, 2008, China astronaut Zhai Zhigang completed the first spacewalk mission in China, and China became the third country to independently master the technology of extravehicular activity. Similar to the previous missions of other countries, Zhai Zhigang also walked with an umbilical cord and connected with the spacecraft through a thick and long "electric umbilical cord".

Perhaps in the future, with the further improvement of a single mobile device, astronauts can move more freely outside the cabin, and the speed of the aircraft will continue to increase, helping mankind March into a broader universe.

After decades of space exploration, we have been able to live partially in space. We can imagine the future, and we should always be in awe-in the vast universe, building a space station, building a space base, and even migrating to another planet may all be just ants building holes. The deeper you go into the universe, the deeper time and space will be, and the limited and infinite manpower will be fully displayed.

Starting from a piece of cloth and a seed, starting from every difficulty that may be encountered in space, mankind is moving towards the splendid and vast starry sky. "Beyond the Cloud" and "Tiangong" are not so far away.

This article is from Guangming Daily.

(strict editor)