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Wake up, work, relax, sleep, repeat.
For many on Earth, this is a typical day—a nine to five job, some downtime in the evening ready for the day ahead, and two days off at the weekend.
It might come as a surprise to learn that astronauts in space keep a very similar schedule. Just like us mere Earthlings, they work regular hours, with plenty of free time to unwind. They even get weekends off—barring any cause for alarm on the International Space Station (ISS) that requires immediate attention, like dodging space debris.
“It’s important to offer those opportunities for them to decompress,” says Alexandra Whitemire, the Deputy Element Scientist for the Human Factors and Behavioral Performance (HFBP) team at NASA. “They’re living and working in the same tin can, so it’s an important aspect of the mission.”
While it might seem obvious now, this consideration for an astronaut’s work-life balance and mental health was not always the case. Decades of space missions have allowed us to reach this point, and along the way, we’ve encountered and overcome a few challenges. To understand where it all began, we need to take a step back to the dawn of human spaceflight.
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Jessica U. Meir plays sax in the Cupola. (NASA)
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