Why do astronauts need showers in space? First of all, to be precise, we can't take a bath in space. Since the establishment of the space station in the United States, the function of using a shower has not been realized. To keep the space station "nominally clean", we need to use the concept of "towel bath".
The crew of 15 of the entire space team sailed on the International Space Station for 152 days (the situation of the space shuttle is somewhat different, but it still needs to be bathed with towels), and an area from the Russian functional cargo hold was used for cleaning, which we called "health station". The front hatch of this area is connected with the first modular engine room in the United States, and a small area is cleared for us to clean. A water bag is stored on the roof panel of this area. The water bag is connected with a hose and a water pump (made in Russia), and there is a "faucet" at the end of the hose. In this area, we can take a bath, shave, wash our hair, brush our teeth and so on. And keep yourself clean and tidy, so as not to disturb other pilots and tourists.
I clean every day. Please ask the mission control center (MCC-astronauts control almost every minute of their actions every day) to understand my exercise schedule after breakfast. After getting up, I put on my sportswear and had a quick (short) breakfast. "Let's go to the gym to exercise!" "Every time I finish weightlifting training (more like resistance training, because there is no gravity) and aerobic training (powered bicycles or treadmills ... we alternate projects every day), I urgently need to go to the health station for cleaning. The cleaning process is very simple for me. I usually throw away a Russian wet towel after three days. The next day and the third day, I will use our drinking water to inject some water into the wet towel to keep it elastic, but it still contains some disinfectant. After each use, the towel must be stuck on the wall of the International Space Station (I "pulled" the towel off the wall, stuffed it under the elastic rope, and left an air bag on the wall), so that our environmental control system can "absorb" the residual water and convert it into drinking water.
When shaving and washing your hair, just like on earth, simply spray some water on your face or head, and then use shaving cream or disposable shampoo slightly (but I will wash it, because I hate leaving those foams on my face or head, which will make my scalp itch! You need to clean the blade every time you shave, because you can't wash it in the sink in space like at home. To this end, I specially prepared a small prepackaged Russian gauze pad and threw it into a "wet" garbage bag after use. Dry my head and face with a cotton towel. You can also stick it on the wall to let the environment absorb the remaining water.
Brushing teeth is more common. You can spit mouthwash on the towel or choose to swallow it. I usually swallow mints as breath fresheners after meals, which is not harmful to my health (when I told some people that I swallowed toothpaste, they were frightened). After I finish my personal cleaning, I will spray some Russian aftershave that was previously stored in the Dopter toolkit. This smell is not too strong, it is a kind of "manly smell", which makes me smell good all day. As my good friend and famous space expert Robert Frost pointed out, "Six people are trapped in a closed space, and hygiene is the most important thing." I quite agree! Once my Russian crew colleague Oleg kotov often wore a smelly spacesuit. I don't like this memory of the International Space Station!
Soyuz TMA- 19M is one of the Russian Federation TMA series spacecraft. The spacecraft carrying three astronauts of Expedition 46 was launched from Baikonur Space Launch Site in Kazakhstan on February 20 15 and flew to the International Space Station.