Amanda Koenig: January 2009 Archives

Ben was curious about the following:

How do you plug in your computers if there are no outlets in space?

MAGNUS: Well we have outlets! We get our electricity from the sun through our solar arrays. The power collected from the solar arrays is sent through a distribution system that delivers it all over the space station. Our outlets do not look like the outlets that we have in our houses on Earth so in order to plug computers and other equipment in we had to make special plugs. With the special plugs we can plug all kinds of things in.

This is a question from Rion:

Can you play any type of sport in space? If you can, how do you do it?

MAGNUS: Well we have not yet come up with a space sport. It would be interesting to imagine what one would be and what kind of equipment you would need. You would have to come up with different games, or variations of the game, depending on what type of gravity you have. For example, here on ISS we have micro-gravity, which is essentially none at all. On the moon there is 1/6th and on Mars 1/3rd. It means here on ISS it would be hard to change direction quickly like you need to do in so many sports, but you could completely set up the game field in three dimensions. On the moon and Mars the conditions would be different. We do need to come up with a sport though!

This question was submitted by Becky.

What does it smell like in space?

Well inside the pressurized volume where we live it pretty much is a controlled climate so it does not smell like much of anything (unless we ourselves generate smells with our food, hygiene products, etc.). When people come in from spacewalks it is very interesting because they bring with them a specific smell, which is kind of metallic-burning like. It probably has to do with all of the materials of their equipment and suit out-gassing in the vacuum, but it is a distinct smell.