Encounters with angels and food in tubes: 7 popular myths about the ISS

Myth 1. If a hole is found in the skin, the astronaut will be sucked into it

In science fiction films, holes in the walls of spaceships and stations lead to dire consequences for astronauts. During decompression, the crew is drawn into the hole by streams of air flying into space, like a vacuum cleaner.

If a person’s hand is pressed against a hole in the skin, it can be torn off. And if the unfortunate one “sticks” to the hole with the whole thing, he can literally be ground and drawn in like a liquid.

In fact, the filmmakers exaggerated the effect of decompression a little.

When in 2018 a hole was discovered in the ISS skin, through which the station's atmosphere flowed. Astronaut Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency is trite gagged with his thumb, and nothing tore off.

A pressure drop of one atmosphere generates 1.03 kilograms of load per square centimeter - this not enough to damage the skin of a person, and even more so to grind him into pieces and drag him into space, as in horror movies.

Myth 2. Astronauts on the ISS eat from tubes

Space is traditionally associated with tube food. But this was true only for the very first launches. Both in the USSR and in the USA space pioneers fed paste-like food from aluminum tubes, so that crumbs and parts of the liquid do not get into the on-board systems of stations and ships.

But modern space food in tubes has long been not packed. First, they are heavy. And secondly, more successful methods food storage in microgravity. For example, easily crumbling food is served in small pieces and covered with a special gelatin layer so that it does not crumble.

Now astronauts have a wide choice of dishes, including fruit salads, soups, spaghetti, bread, chocolate, coffee, stew. Particularly popular enjoys dried meat, because it is tasty and has a long shelf life.

Myth 3. Going into space and returning to the ISS does not require much time

Fragment of the film "Gravity"

In the movie Gravity, the heroine of Sandra Bullock, having got through the airlock to the ISS, immediately pulls off her spacesuit and remains in a T-shirt and shorts. But in fact, going into space and returning back to the station takes a much longer time.

Before falling into vacuum space, astronauts in spacesuits carry out several hours in the lock chamber, from which air is gradually vented. This is done to avoid decompression sickness.

If the transition from atmospheric pressure to vacuum is abrupt, nitrogen will begin to boil and bubble in the human blood, which will cause just hellish pain. Such a problem, for example, is faced by divers who rise too quickly from the bottom.

Therefore, the astronauts sit in the airlock for several hours and perform special breathing exercises, “washing out” nitrogen from body tissues. Traveling to outer space and back without such precautions, the heroine Bullock would most likely be paralyzed or die.

Myth 4. The ISS does not exist, and the astronauts simulate weightlessness in the pool

One of the most popular conspiracy theoriessurfing the Net: The International Space Station is not really there. And the astronauts you can watch on YouTube are the actors swimming in the pool. So they imitate the state of weightlessness.

Conspiracy theorists cite the following as evidence: pictures, in which people in spacesuits are captured next to the ISS mockup in the water. See? None of these astronauts, one name. Just actors-divers.

Another argument of conspiracy theorists: images from the ISS sometimes show white objects in the black vacuum of space - as in the picture below. These are supposedly air bubbles in a pond with divers.

In fact, the pools, pictures of which you can see on the Internet, are used for training astronauts on Earth. They provide trainees with neutral buoyancy, simulating a microgravity state, as in orbit. Both Roskosmos and NASA have such training bases. No one, in general, hides their existence.

As for those round things that you can see in pictures from the ISS, these are not air bubbles, but particles of water ice. Vapor that enters space from the atmosphere of the station quickly crystallizes.

Training astronauts in the pool. Video: Roscosmos

You can see how real bubbles in the water look like from the breath of astronauts diving in training, you can see in the video above.

Myth 5. ISS crew regularly sees angels, ghosts and aliens

Even on the Internet, tales are extremely popular about how astronauts on the ISS constantly come into contact with various paranormal entities - here are aliens, and angels, and people from the other world, and the Lord himself God.

In addition, in orbit, people allegedly see prophetic dreams, prophesy, and catch messages from other layers. universes, observe flashes of "cosmic energy" with their eyes closed, become psychics, and so Further. But, of course, the authorities forbid them to be frank about such things.

Remember how they said about Gagarin: “I flew into space, did not see God? So it was his Politburo that forced him to hide the truth. And then he completely eliminated it, because he knew too much!

In fact, astronauts really often face with the oddities of the work of the human psyche in space. But the reason for this is purely material: extreme conditions affect brain function, do you know.

For example, during the flight of the Soyuz-7 spacecraft in 1969, Vladislav Volkov reported auditory hallucinations - he heard dog barking and baby crying. And Vasily Tsibliyev, who flew to the Mir station in 1993, saw “enchanting” dreams and even reincarnated as a dinosaur.

On the ISS, people often suffer from lack of sleep, the inability to sleep and see nightmares. These are not contacts of the subconscious with the astral, but a completely natural reaction to stress.

And yes, astronauts who close their eyes on the ISS do see flashes of light under their eyelids. But it is not the souls of the dead that are and not the aliens semaphore. So affects cosmic radiation: flying high-energy particles stimulate the optic nerves. Similar outbreaks see patients on radiation therapy.

Myth 6. There is no gravity on the ISS

Scott Kelly plays ping pong with a drop of water. Video: NASA

Many people sincerely believe that the astronauts on the ISS are floating in the air because there is no gravity. The force of gravity allegedly only works on the surface planetsbut not in space. But this, of course, is not true.

If gravity existed only on the surfaces of celestial bodies, the Sun would simply not be able to keep the planets in their orbits.

There is gravity on the ISS. At an altitude of 400 km, where it flies, the free fall acceleration is 8.63 m/s². This is only 11.2% lessthan on the surface of the earth.

Astronauts fly through the station not because there is no gravity. The fact is that the ISS constantly makes circles in orbit around the Earth - both it and the objects inside it seem to constantly “fall forward” with the first cosmic velocity of 7.9 km / s. This state called weightlessness or microgravity, not the absence of gravity.

Myth 7. The ISS is needed only to maintain the prestige of the countries participating in the project

A fairly common opinion on the Internet says that a lot of money is being thrown at the ISS in vain, and there is no practical exhaust from it. Supporters of this point of view argue that the station is needed only so that the participating countries of the project proudly declare their status "space power». And experiments on it are carried out only to satisfy the curiosity of scientists. They are of no use.

But this is also not true. Thus, thanks to the technologies developed for the ISS, new liquid purification systems have been created that help solve the problem of drinking water in developing countries. Experiments with the growth of protein crystals in space allow pharmaceutical companies to create new drugs and vaccines.

And air quality control filtration devices specially designed for the station proved to be useful for agricultural technology: they can be used to remove fungi and microbes from chambers where they are grown plants. In addition, this space technology has given opportunity keep fruits and vegetables fresh longer in grocery stores and wine in winemakers' cellars.