In the long history of underwear the latest entries in that book are about just underwear in outer space. What goes on up there? Are they wearing specially designed men’s designer underwear? Are they wearing classic long underwear? Do they wear specially designed insulated underwear? Talk abou tnot just underwear look at these excerpts from an article on the nasa.govwebsite. It’s about Astronauts’ men's designer underwear by NASA. We’re not talking about your everyday variety of men’s designer underwear. As a matter offact we’re not even talking about insulted underwear or special fiber long underwear. We’re talking about just underwear on the International Space Station. The ISS is so climate controlled there's no need for any specia linsulated underwear; the crew can hang out in just underwear.
The article starts out:
“It's been a longday, and your clothes show it.
After you change into something more comfortable (and clean), you realize the clothes you just took off could really use a good wash.Unfortunately, there's no washing machine within 250 miles. That's justatypical day of life on board the International Space Station (ISS). While theSpace Station does offer more amenities than did earlier spacecraft, such as the best free gym off the planet, one of the many things it still does not have is a way to wash clothes. So, what do you do with your dirty underwear when you're orbiting the Earth aboard a spacecraft with no washing machine? Here are four choices.
Option One: Wear It Again
This is the mos tcommon answer. When you're going on a long trip, it's hard to pack enough clothes, but when you're about to spend several months on the Space Station,it’s literally impossible. Packing enough underwear for three members of an ISS Expedition crew to have a clean pair for every day of a 6-month stay would mean launching at least 540 pairs of underwear into orbit. Picture how big your dresser would have to be to hold all that. There's just no room for it on the Station. Plus, when it costs between $5,000 and $10,000 per pound to launch it into space that becomes some very expensive underwear. As a result, astronauts have to stretch out how long they wear the underwear that they can take withthem in order to make it last for their whole stay. On the Russian SpaceS tation Mir, that meant that cosmonauts generally had to wear their underwear or up to a week before it was time to put on a clean pair.
On the International Space Station, things are a little bit better. In his series of"Space Chronicles," ISS Expedition Six Science Officer Don Pettitwrote that he changes his underwear once every 3 or 4 days. That's not quite asbad as it sounds, since clothes don't get dirty as quickly on the Space Stationas they do on Earth. Astronauts on the Station are living in a controlled environment, so the temperature stays at a constant, comfortable level. Andwhen everything around you is virtually weightless, you don't have to exert yourself physically the same way you do in the gravity on Earth's surface. However,astronauts do have to spend a substantial amount of time each day exercising so that their bodies don't atrophy in micro gravity, so they do still get a workout. And, underwear isn't the only item of clothing that gets worn longer than usual. In an interview in February, Pettit said that he was still wearing the same pair of shorts he had been wearing since he first arrived on the Station - in November! Even though they have more shorts to change into, Expedition Six Commander Ken Bowersox also has a favorite pair he chooses to wear frequently. Even though there's no laundry facility on the Station, Bowersox even figured out a way to wash his shorts using a plastic bag.”
I’ll tell you that sounds a little funky to me. It sounds to me like it could turn from just underwear to something else. As I read this Irealized these Astronauts were not wearing any kind of insulated underwear o rlong underwear. They were wearing just regular underwear like we wear on earth except their own NASA men’s designer underwear (and ladies too).
“Option Two: Turn It Into A Shooting Star
When it's time forthe Space Station crew to return to Earth at the end of their stay, the Space Shuttle usually serves as their moving van to carry them back home. In additionto the ISS crew and their personal effects they are bringing back with them,the Shuttle also has to carry home science experiments that have been completed at the Station so that new ones can be performed there. As a result, there' snot a lot of free space on the Shuttle for the ride home, and so nobody wants to use that space to carry several months’ worth of dirty underwear. So what happens to it, then?
To make sure that the ISS crew has enough food, water, andother necessities for their stay in space, the Russian Space Agency launches unmanned Progress ships to carry supplies to the Station. The Progress is a non reusable spacecraft, good for a one-way trip to the Space Station. Once it is there and the Station crew has unloaded the supplies, the Progress is then loadedup with trash, including dirty laundry. Since only a limited number of Progress crafts are sent to ISS each year, the dirty clothes can sit around on the Station for a while before they can be disposed of. The Progress is then undocked from the Station and "de-orbited," placed on a course that causes it to burn up in Earth's atmosphere over the
This option explains what to do with your dirty men’sdesigner underwear when returning to earth. At this point it really isn’t justunderwear anymore – it’s a shooting star.
“Option Three: Grow Plants With It
When Science Office Pettit recently decided to try and grow some tomato and basil seeds he had aboard the Station, he had a problem. Since there's no soil, he had to figure out some other way to grow the plants. In his Space Chronicles, Pettit wrote,"To construct my planter, a spherical core is needed. An old pair of underwear worked well. We have supplies on Station sufficient to change our underwear perhaps once every 3 to 4 days, so I figured there might be a few nutrients in there as well. An old pair of underwear was folded into a spherea nd held in place with a few well-placed stitches using needle and thread fromour sewing kit." For the outside of the planter, he sewed some Russianspace toilet paper to the outer surface of the underwear. “This toilet paper is not like what you normally think of as toilet paper," Pettit wrote."It consisted of two layers of coarsely woven gauze, 4 by 6 inches indimension sewn together at the edges with a layer of brown tissue sandwichedin-between. It works very well for its intended purpose. It also makes awonderful sprouter." After Pettit solved a problem that was causing theseeds to stay too cold to germinate, the seeds sprouted in the underwear-toilet paper planter within 2 days.”
Now this option makes a lot of sense. The undergarment is nolonger just underwear but becomes a planter. Of course you still have to wearthose NASA men’s designer underwear a few days to build up the nutrients. (Justjoking).
“Option Four: Feed It To Bacteria
This one isn't really an option right now, but it might be in the future. While the Mir station was still in orbit, Russian scientists were already working on a new solution to the problem of dirty underwear beingstored on the Station for months at a time. The scientists began designing a system that would use bacteria to digest the astronaut's cotton and pape runderpants. The researchers said that it was even possible that the methane gas given off when the bacteria ate the underwear could be used to help power the spacecraft. The system would even be able to be used to dispose of some other waste on the Station, as well. While the system was never completed for use on Mir (researchers said it could take up to a decade to find the right combination of bacteria), it may be an option for people living in space in the uture”.
Nice – convert something considered just underwear into energy. Take those dirty NASA men's designer underwears and use them to power the Station. This will definitely be an important entry into the history of underwear. I don’t mean that tongue in cheek but in a real sense – to ultimately break down waste into totally usable energy or chemistry is the future for all waste and NASA men’s designer underwear fits the bill.
“So while astronauts have a well-deserved reputation forbeing smart, well-educated, hardworking, physically fit, sociable, dedicatedpeople, now you know their dirty little secret-despite their mothers advice,they don't always wear clean underwear”
I bet all of this about Astronaut's men's designer underwear is something you didn’t know about nor probably even thought about before you read this articles. Even though you might think of some undergarments as special ike NASA's men's designer underwear it isn't special - when you come down to it it's all just underwear. In the history of underwear traveling to space and performing its function underwear reaches new heights. It's no longer just underwear - it's space underwear.
