Here it was, this beautiful planet turning graciously about itself, under the warm rays of the Sun... so peaceful... so full of life... no signs of war, no signs of borders, no signs of trouble, just pure beauty.
New Delhi: Sounds like an extra-terrestial feeling? Yes, that is exactly what it is.
The world's first female space tourist and first space blogger, American national Anousheh Ansari, who returned to Earth last week, is finally ready to tell to world what it is to be in space - not as a scientist but as a common man.
Anousheh, who has started blogging on the World Wide Web sharing her unearthly experience, reveals everything - about the difficulties of keeping tidy in zero gravity, the roller-coaster ride up, the food she ate, the way she bathed and brushed and all the wonders she witnessed in space.
The space has a very unique smell, says she about her first encounter with the infinity.
"As they pulled the hatch open on the Soyuz side, I smelled 'SPACE'. It was strange… kind of like burned almond cookie. I said to them, 'It smells like cooking' and they looked at me like I was crazy and exclaimed: 'Cooking!' I said, 'Yes… sort of like something is burning… I don’t know it is hard to explain…"
And then "as soon as I stepped on the station I felt like I was home… I felt 100 per cent better… I had a hard time keeping myself from smiling… I could not believe it… I made it to my destination… I was finally home," Anousheh exclaims.
The Ride Up:
Anousheh gives a poetic description of seeing the Earth shortly after the Russian Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft blasted off to bring her to the International Space Station (ISS).
"Tears started rolling down my face. I could not catch my breath... Even thinking about it now still brings tears to my eyes. Here it was, this beautiful planet turning graciously about itself, under the warm rays of the sun... so peaceful... so full of life... no signs of war, no signs of borders, no signs of trouble, just pure beauty."
She says the launch of the Soyuz TMA 8 was too smooth to believe for her.
"It was like an airplane takeoff... then the separation and the Nose Fairing ejected. Still very smooth. A ray of light filled the capsule and warmed my heart. I think I was laughing out loud. The joy in my heart was indescribable… The separation of final stage was the most noticeable to me and then weightlessness…," she recalls.
But then the ride up was not really as hunky-dory.
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"I took a motion sickness pill on the launch pad, which was great. When we got to orbit I felt fine and I was able to look out the window as the world kept spinning around us, or more correctly I should say, we spun around the world. They usually say you should not do that the first day because it will make you sick. Well, I just couldn’t resist it."
The Rough Ride
Moving inside the capsule is not a good idea, says Anousheh. She did try, but "as soon as I stopped I realised what I did was not a good idea! I felt my internal organs doing a cha-cha inside my belly. After that I only did very small slow movements and even that would make me feel really sick."
"On top of that, I was having two more space flight symptoms. The first one was lower back pain. Basically your spine stretches because of the fluid and you get taller. I was happy about being taller but the pain was not fun."
"The second symptom was fluid shift to the head. Because gravity is not there to help the blood that is pumped by your heart go down to your feet, it accumulates in your head, so your face gets puffy and red and you get a headache. It sort of feels like when you do a headstand for a long period of time."
"So here I was with a big headache, pain in my back and nausea."
"I told myself, "'This is not a good start - what if I feel like this the entire time!' After vomiting a couple of times, I decided to go for the big guns… The flight surgeon had packed some motion sickness injections to be used as needed."
A Day at ISS
Thirty-two beautiful sunrises and sunsets a day! Well, only those in space can afford this fantasy.
Recalls Anousheh, "It is a nice a cosy feeling. As you may know, the station makes an complete orbit every 90 minutes, so when I talk about night don’t think of it as night on earth when it is dark outside. The sun rises and sets during each orbit and you can watch 32 beautiful sunrises and sunsets over the course of the day."
A day onboard ISS starts at about 0400 hrs (GMT) and ends about 1930 hrs (GMT). "1930 hrs is supposed to be lights out! But it is the time that everyone can relax a bit and just chat, make some personal calls to family members, or simply look out the window and admire the views… "
And that is all poetry.
I think I was laughing out loud. The joy in my heart was indescribable... This wonderful feeling of freedom that puts a smile on everyone’s face. I slowly lifted off my seat and continued giggling. I just couldn’t believe it... to be honest with you, the whole thing is still like a dream to me... I was strapped in so tight that I couldn’t look outside.
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What's on the Menu?
1830 hrs is the dinner time at ISS. Everyone gathers around the dining table in the Russian segment Service Module (SM). "We heat up a few cans and hydrate some freeze dried food (soup, mashed potato, vegetables) and have a few laughs and share some space stories," says Anousheh.
"The long-duration crew gets pretty creative with what they have available. After six months of eating the same 15 basic meals, it could get a little tiring. In order to add some spice, they combine parts of different meals together to make new recipes. From time to time they get a care package in the cargo containers sent up with the shuttle or the Russian Progress cargo ship. The care packages contain some fresh food that has to be eaten basically that same day."
A Bath in Floating Water
How do you take a shower in space? How do you brush your teeth? How do you wash your hair? Keeping good hygiene is a tough task in space, says the space tourist.
"There is no shower or faucet with running water. Water does not 'flow' here, it 'floats' - which makes it a challenging act to clean yourself."
So what do people do up here, specially the ones staying for six months at a time?
"They improvise! There are wet towels, wet wipes and dry towels that are used for cleaning yourself. Usually each person gets a wet towel a day and a couple of dry ones. Each person has a personal hygiene kit where they keep their stuff like toothbrush, shaving kit, creams, etc."
Ansari said she had been given the personal hygiene kit of Daisuke Enomoto, a would-be space tourist from Japan who was pulled from the flight because of health problems, leaving her with 'a razor and lots of shaving cream, but no makeup'.
"Brushing teeth in space is another joy. You cannot rinse your mouth and spit after brushing, so you end up rinsing and swallowing. Astronauts call it the fresh mint effect."
Anousheh says the most interesting experience was washing her hair.
"You basically take a water bag and slowly make a huge water bubble over your head and then very very gently, using a dry shampoo, you wash your hair. At the slightest sudden movement, little water bubbles start floating everywhere. I’ve made some video of my hair-washing experience that I will share when I return."
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Drinking Sweat
Water is a valuable resource at the ISS. Every drop of water is recycled there.
"Anything wet is not thrown out. Instead it is left out to air-dry. There is a water conduction collection unit that takes the moisture out of the air and recycles and purifies it. This includes your sweaty clothes after exercising. One of the cosmonauts once told me, 'We are all very close to each other, we are like brothers and sisters, it is very unique because we drink each others’ sweat.' Now I know well what he means."
Keeping Fit
In her long and detailed narrative of the facilities at the ISS, Anousheh also talked about the ways astronauts and cosmonauts keep fit in the outer space.
"There is exercise equipment here, a treadmill and a bike with the best view of the world in the Russian segment, and some resistance training equipment and another bike in the American segment. Astronauts and cosmonauts train every day, sometimes twice a day, to make sure they reduce the effects of weightlessness on their muscles and bones."
Just in case you didn’t know, when people are in weightlessness for an extended period of time, their muscles start weakening and shrinking because they are not used as much. There is no gravity to work against, so everything is effortless. You also start losing calcium in your bones so you have a bone density loss.
"They always say you cannot have your cake and eat it too, so I guess all the beauty and excitement of space comes with a price. Of course I’m sure one of you guys out there will become a biologist or a doctor who will figure out how to counteract all these effects so we can travel long distances to Mars and other solar system planets and moons and continue our quest beyond our solar system."
Anousheh became the first blogger from space with her blog on http://spaceblog.xprize.org.
In fact, the world's fourth-ever space tourist started her blog long before her takeoff. Earlier space tourists wrote emails to Earth but did not have a universally accessible online diary.
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