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At Work in Outer Space

What’s it like to work more than 250 miles above Earth?

October 14, 2024
By Brian Fitzgerald

As You Read, Think About: What do you think would be the hardest part of living in space?

NASA

 The diagram shows this part of the ISS. 

SpaceX/NASA; Shutterstock.com (background)

Jeanette Epps

Many people take a car, train, or bus to work. To get to her job on March 3, astronaut Jeanette Epps blasted off in a rocket. 

“It was like one of the most amazing rides at an amusement park,” she says.*

 About 28 hours later, Epps and three other crew members arrived at the International Space Station (ISS). The giant space laboratory would be their “office” for the next six months. 

Epps says one big challenge on the ISS is that the pull of gravity is much weaker than on Earth. Anything that’s not screwed in or strapped down floats away. 

“You’ll work on something and turn around and it’s gone,” Epps explains. 

Read on to find out more about Epps’ out-of-this-world workplace.

Note: All quotes are from interviews with students and reporters conducted in May 2024, via NASA Video

Time to Work

NASA

Astronauts on the ISS spend a lot of time doing experiments. Many are on themselves! The goal is to better understand the effects of living in low gravity. 

Epps regularly drew blood to see how her immune system changed while she was in space. This type of research could help future astronauts stay healthy on longer missions, to the moon or even Mars.

Sleep Tight

NASA

There’s no night and day on the ISS. The space lab orbits Earth so fast that the crew sees the sun rise 16 times every 24 hours. 

At bedtime, astronauts zip into sleeping bags strapped to a wall. 

“It’s odd to not really have an up or down,” Epps says. “You wake up kind of just disoriented almost every day.”

Taking a Walk

NASA

Sometimes astronauts go outside the ISS to work in space. During spacewalks, they might spend up to six hours installing equipment or making repairs. They wear spacesuits that provide oxygen, water, and protection from the sun’s harmful rays.

Staying Fit

Roscosmos/NASA

Living in space can do strange things to the body, like weakening bones and muscles. To stay in shape, crew members exercise for about two hours a day. But that has some unique challenges. For example, astronauts wear a harness while running on a treadmill so they don’t float away.

1. Why do astronauts on the International Space Station often do experiments on themselves? How might their findings help people in the future?

2. Summarize what happens during a spacewalk.

3. In what ways might working on the space station be considered an “extreme job”?

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