Spaciousness

The visual tour I had of the space capsule where our Canadian astronaut spent many months, made me sure that space travel would not be one of my dreams. Claustrophobia is the first reason, even though I don't own that particular one. When I saw how cramped the quarters are for space station dwellers, no thanks. The cheerful space woman from the US, took "us" on tour from one section of the station to others, but all of them reminded me of being in a large culvert with doo dads dangling or floating tentacle-like from the sides. Various sections of the tunnel-like venue were the lab, the communications area, the space walk suit-up, the recreation, gymn areas and so on. The window views weren't like the ones in space films either. Captain Nemo may strut about in front of his window wall to the blue planet, Earth, but it's different on a non-fictional space station. To enjoy your earthscape view on this vehicle, there area few tiny windows here and there which are apparently the favorite window view of the stars, the real ones. On went the tour through the tunnel. The bathroom routines left me cringing as did the beds in which you latched yourself under a little belt to keep  from being the bump in the night to the others strapped-in next to you. There was no walking around but plenty of space swimming which is the art of holding onto something and propelling your body air flying toward your target. If you want to stop,"stand and stare" a bit, you tuck your toes under  belts installed here and there to hold yourself from wandering everywhere at once. Your hair likely will be fastened down somehow. Those with long bewaved tresses stay home, because our tour guide who had medium length hair had it haloing all around her face standing on end - but nicely. Being without gravity, it didn't fall around her face, it soared all over in a kind of out-of-control-Afro. You wouldn't need to curl your eyelashes, I presume, they'd just curl up on their own. To eat, you choose from a bunch of plastic bags labelled enticingly: fruit, vegetables, meat etc to heat them, if you wish, you locate the little tubular microwavy sized thing. When eating, you squeeze your dinner out of its plastic carefully or else you'll be seeing it from then on, flying past your eyes and those of every other person on board. Same with tears or drops of any other kind of fluid. Everything is in orbit out in space. Imagine your earth room up here. You wouldn't have to put anything away because none of it would go there. If you needed something you'd just wait and pick it up when it passed by. On the other hand, things you don't want aloft, have to be fastened down. It would be a bit like swimming through your room with all of its flotsam and jetsam roiling about. The crew of the space station sat at a small table to chat and enjoy a drink through straws while ensuring continuance of their conversation by holding onto straps with their feet or fastening seat belts. How these admirable space personnel live this way for months even with Skype, makes me nervous and certainly the thought of it, claustrophobic.