Ariel Waldman, creator of Spacehack, has just published a delightful book titled “What’s It Like in Space? Stories from Astronauts Who’Ve Been There?” Illustrated by Brian Standeford, it’s a fun collection of astronaut anecdotes on everything from sneezing and farting in zero gravity to weird frights and the necessity of Sriracha in space. Here’s an excerpt:
While performing a spacewalk is an exciting experience, it is also a very serious operation that is meticulously scripted for astronauts. The only time astronauts might get a chance to look around at where they are is when there’s a glitch in equipment and they get a few spare minutes while someone makes a repair. Astronaut Chris Hadfield found an opportunity to look around during one of his spacewalks:
“The contrast of your body and your mind inside . . . essentially a one-person spaceship, which is your space suit, where you’re holding on for dear life to the shuttle or the station with one hand, and you are inexplicably in between what is just a pouring glory of the world roaring by, silently next to you—just the kaleidoscope of it, it takes up your whole mind. It’s like the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen just screaming at you on the right side, and when you look left, it’s the whole bottomless black of the universe and it goes in all directions. It’s like a huge yawning endlessness on your left side and you’re in between those two things and trying to rationalize it to yourself and trying to get some work done.”
Buy “What’s It Like in Space? Stories from Astronauts Who’Ve Been There?” (Amazon)
Excerpted from What’s It Like in Space by Ariel Waldman, illustrations by Brian Standeford (Chronicle Books, 2016).
