Astronaut Shane Kimbrough lucked out when he snagged what has to be the coolest “bedroom” of any of the crew members currently staying on the International Space Station (ISS).
Sleeping aboard the docked Crew Dragon spacecraft, Kimbrough is the only astronaut on the orbiting outpost who enjoys a room with a view. And what a view it is, too.
Fellow astronaut Thomas Pesquet this week tweeted a photo (below) taken through one of Crew Dragon’s windows. It’s an idyllic scene, showing a dimly lit Earth with part of the space station’s solar panels in the foreground.
Pesquet said Kimbrough can sleep in the vehicle “until we give it back and it’s reused by the next crew!”
The view from Shane’s windows. They are his because he sleeps in our @SpaceX 🐉 Dragon, our vehicle… until we give it back and it’s reused by the next crew! #MissionAlpha #Crew2 pic.twitter.com/5TAIS540EA
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) June 15, 2021
During a stay on the space station in 2013, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded a video showing how astronauts sleep in space.
As Hadfield explained, at the end of a workday, an astronaut heads to their personal crew station, a small space large enough for just one person that also includes a door for privacy. The original plan was to put all of the crew stations inside a single habitation module, but in the end, a total of six were split between the Node 2 Module and Service Module, located at opposite ends of the station.
Microgravity means there’s no up or down on the ISS, so once inside their station, astronauts secure themselves inside a sleeping bag that’s tethered to the wall (or is that the floor?). Then it’s just a case of lights out and slipping off.
Kimbrough and Pesquet will be keen for a decent sleep tonight as they have a busy day ahead of them tomorrow. The pair will be conducting the first spacewalk of their current mission, though it’ll be their third together after completing two others during a previous stay on the ISS in 2017. If you fancy dropping by NASA’s livestream of Wednesday’s spacewalk, Digital Trends has all the information you need.
