Astronomy
Lots of kids want to be astronauts when they grow up, and why wouldn’t they? Space is exciting and cool, full of new discoveries waiting to be found.
But space is also gross. Like, really gross.
If you want to be an astronaut, you need to have a strong stomach. Check out some totally gross (and totally true!) facts about space that may make you rethink your career choice.
It Smells
Space stinks! Astronauts have reported that when they remove their helmets after spacewalks, they’re greeted with a particular odor. The metallic-y scent has been compared to gunpowder, burning metal and seared steak. Since the ozone also includes ethyl formate, which is found in rum, and estor, which is found in raspberries, you can add those scents to the mix. NASA has actually started training astronauts with the scents of space, to get them used to the stinky odor. If you want to smell it for yourself, you can buy an astronaut-approved space cologne!
That may be the scent of outer space, but don’t think that the planets are any better. Thanks to their chemical makeup, other planets could smell like anything from bitter almonds (hydrogen cyanide on Jupiter) to rotten eggs (hydrogen sulfide on Uranus. Yes, Uranus smells like rotten eggs).
You Have to Wear a Diaper
While astronauts don’t have to wear diapers (called Maximum Absorbency Garments, or MAGs) the whole time they are in space, but they still need them for those busy times they can’t take a bathroom break — like during a launch, or on a spacewalk.
MAGs are slightly different from a regular diaper, although they fulfill much of the same purpose! These diapers were created by NASA specifically for space missions, so they absorb the liquid and pull it away from your skin. The chemical used in MAGs is sodium polyacrylate, which can absorb up to one thousand times its weight! This makes it great for astronauts, since they may need to wear the MAG for hours at a time.
If the thought of wearing a diaper upsets you, just remember it could be worse: in 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard was sitting in his capsule for hours without a bathroom break or a diaper. Eventually, mission control gave him permission to urinate in his suit, and he completed his mission wearing wet clothes. Ewww.
The Moon is Full of Waste
Basically, going to the bathroom in space is really inconvenient. “How do you go to the bathroom” is one of the most common questions asked of any astronaut, and for good reason! It’s really tricky and it took us a while to figure out. Space toilets like the one on the International Space Station (ISS) use air pressure to remove waster: astronauts carefully use a tube for liquid waste (urine), which vents into space and turns into gas. Solid waste goes into a bowl, much like in Earth toilets, and is stored there for the duration of the flight.
That’s not how it worked for the Apollo space missions in the 1960s and 70s. Astronauts relied on “a plastic bag which was taped to the buttocks to capture feces,” according to NASA, and some of those bags were left behind on the moon. There are an estimated 86 bags of excrement and vomit left behind on the moon! That is gross enough on its own, but some scientists believe that the bacteria in their poo could still be alive — maybe there’s life on the moon after all!
Astronauts Drink Their Own Pee…
More potty talk, sorry. NASA astronauts take reduce, reuse and recycle to the next level, even going so far as to recycle their urine into drinking water! The ISS recently got a new toilet that makes this even more efficient, using powerful acids to control any fungal or biological growth in human urine. This cleans and purifies the urine and turns it back into crystal clear drinking water — astronaut Chris Hadfield said it’s even purer than the water you get on Earth!
If you don’t want to drink your own urine, you’re not alone. Russian astronauts don’t partake in this particular activity, and have actually leaned their urine to the Americans when they run low!
… And Don’t Wash Their Clothes
Astronauts have to conserve water while on the ISS (hence the pee-drinking), so laundry is a no-go. Any detergent or cleaning chemicals would contaminate the water, making it hard to filter and reuse for things like drinking or showering. So, astronauts don’t wash their clothes and instead wear them until they are too dirty or stinky to deal with. And yes, that includes underwear!
Once their clothes are past the point of no return, astronauts will either bring them back to earth for cleaning or, more likely, toss them in the trash. All ISS waste burns up in the atmosphere on re-entry, and the dirty clothes are gone for good.
Your Blood Can Run Backwards
The microgravity of space can cause your blood to flow backward, which is just as gross as it is deadly. A study found that astronauts could experience stalled or reverse blood flow in the left internal jugular vein, which normally flows blood out of your head to the rest of the body when you’re lying down. When upright, the vein collapses and blood takes a different route through the circular system.
NASA doctors discovered that some astronauts had a backward flow, and one had a blood clot, which could potentially be very dangerous. Fortunately, the astronaut was given blood thinners to disrupt the clot and they returned to Earth safely.
Your Farts May Be Flammable
We still have a lot to learn about space travel and its effects on the human body, but we do know one thing already: what happens when you fart in space. Back in 1969, the University of California set off to study this phenomenon and discovered that the gases were much more flammable in space than they are on Earth. If an astronaut lets one rip in an enclosed area, it could be a fire hazard!
It Can Make You Sick
For their first few days in space, many astronauts come down with “Space Sickness” or Space Adaptation Syndrome (SAS). SAS is likely caused by the changes in gravity, and it makes astronauts nauseous and disoriented — even after all their anti-gravity training on Earth!
After you’ve gotten over your SAS, you have other illnesses to worry about too. Earthly conditions like chickenpox and shingles, which you may have experienced years before, can reactivate once you’re in space. These types of viruses typically flare up during times of extreme stress, and space travel is the most stressful time of all. Having chickenpox on a space mission sounds like an absolute nightmare.
Dead Skin Is Everywhere
On Earth, our skin sheds almost invisibly. Gravity pulls our dead skin cells away from our body to the ground, and that’s that. But without gravity, the skin has nowhere to go, and things can get gross, fast.
Astronaut Don Pettit described life on the ISS, including the skin shedding problem. The calluses on your feet will start to fall off after several months, thanks to floating instead of walking, and then your skin will begin to peel in large chunks. If you pull off a sock too fast, you might get a floating cloud of dead skin on your face. Astronauts have to make sure to change their clothes close to a vent, so that the vacuum will suck all their dead skin away.
If Aliens Exist, They’re Going to Look (And Smell) Disgusting
We don’t know about life on other planets, but there are lots of theories. Evidence suggests that extraterrestrial life won’t be the big-eyed green Martians of popular culture, but may have more similarities to Earth’s sea creatures. Some deep-sea creatures on Earth are living in similar environments to those of other planets and moons, and could be a clue to what aliens may look like. And it’s not pretty!
One thing scientists are starting to explore is the possibility that aliens may not be oxygen-based life forms, and could rely on an entirely different gas to survive. One theory is that phosphine, found in swamps and marshlands, could be the life force for extraterrestrials. Unfortunately for us, phosphine has a foul odor. Much like how space itself can smell, so could those that live in it.
With all this in mind, it might be best to stick to Earth!
