Shenzhou 13 enters the countdown to return! We will be ready to welcome the return of Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu, three astronauts, who are real heroes and can be said to have made great contributions to China's space industry.
According to the plan, the Shenzhou 13 astronauts carried out a six-month mission and are expected to return in mid-April, so what did they do?
For example, it is enough to carry out key technology tests for the assembly and construction of the space station such as assisted module transposition of the robot arm, manual remote operation, space out of the capsule, the installation of large and small robotic arm and two-arm combination adapters and suspension devices, preparation for the subsequent space station construction tasks, health, life and work support technology verification for 6 months, etc., which can be said to be "gradually" realized. Of course, the most concerned is probably the space science experiment, which has also been carried out twice.
Let many teenagers understand that under the weightless state of space, different scientific experiments are different states. So, although we didn't personally enter the space station, space experiments have made us "immersive". However, astronauts in space are also subject to great challenges. Let's illustrate a point.
Astronauts are "getting fat", how hard are they?
doubt? Getting fat and saying you have "pressure"? Those who don't know may say that the food in this space is too good, and the astronauts eat well on it, sleep well, and it is completely too comfortable. But what? It's not, astronauts are under too much pressure. Their fatness is not at all what we think of as "getting fat", but a physical reaction. Being "puffy" under the weightless environment of space, this is part of what they bear, and it is certainly not as simple as everyone thinks.
That being said, this "puffiness" is a normal physiological response. However, unlike what we bear on Earth, and it is not something that ordinary people can bear directly, astronauts have already endured a transformation process under the weightless state of space from the "0 base" when they train on Earth, and then after entering the space station, they will adapt again.
Therefore, after entering the space station, it will be readjusted. And after the astronauts are in weightlessness, the body fluids need to be redistributed, and more are distributed to the head, and the "impact" of the entire body rises to the top of the body. So astronauts will look fatter. At the same time, because human muscles also have weight, when on the ground, the muscles are subjected to downward force, in space, due to the loss of gravitational pull of the muscles, there will also be a "skinlift" cosmetic effect.
It's like something constantly "pulling" your body upwards, and the average person can't bear it at all. Although over time, the situation will improve after astronauts adapt to the weightless environment. However, when returning to the ground, astronauts also have to bear the same thing, that is, the impact of weightlessness on the distribution of human body fluids will change from the initial upward "impact" to the downward "impact", reaching the state we bear on The Earth. Therefore, this kind of challenge is really too hard for astronauts.
Of course, here we briefly understand the difficulties faced by astronauts and how much pressure they are under. However, for the space environment, life is certainly different, and there are differences with the earth.
In a weightless environment, how big are the problems faced in life?
Since we have said that the state of weightlessness is completely different from the earth, then life must be different. The most intuitive thing you should have seen is that the astronauts are completely floating in the space station. To stand up, you need some support points. In space, drifting, drinking, eating, and even sleeping in a weightless environment is very different from the ground.
For example, the meals we eat will be in a state of flutter, and when they will eat, they also need support to eat, rice, vegetables, etc. will not move, it is the same as the astronauts we see, "drifting" mode. Even if a drop of water comes out, it is all fluttering, so the problems faced by life are quite large.
After eating, the food waste generated by oneself, such as kitchen waste, must be sorted, and it will not be dumped together directly like we have on the earth, completely disregarded. And here is what we need to discuss, that is, what everyone said about how to deal with the space garbage generated, is it possible to put it in the space station at will? Will this have any impact? In fact, it seems to be difficult to deal with, but it also has to be processed.
Shenzhou 13 is about to return, will 6 months of household garbage be brought back to Earth?
During the life of the space station, it is inevitable that a large amount of garbage will be generated, but different garbage will be handled differently. In order to prevent the breeding bacteria from contaminating the entire space station, the garbage disposal is very strict. Paper towels, plastic bags and other ordinary garbage can be vacuum compression to reduce the volume, so as to store more garbage, convenient for further processing, and for the food to eat, 3 astronauts on the kitchen waste classified, food packaging bags to be put into a special large bag, wet garbage will also be recycled, strict classification.
Moreover, in the space weightless environment, if garbage is littered, food residues or water droplets suspended in the air are inhaled into the lungs by astronauts, it will cause suffocation and even endanger life. So there is no room for slackening.
For the space station, water is the most scarce. Therefore, the urine of astronauts will also be recycled again. In the bathroom, there is a special urinary equipment will directly extract the urine, through a special treatment system, rotary distillation, condensation collection, purification and reuse, including electrolysis oxygen production, carbon dioxide removal, it is possible to drink, the residual urine alkali concentrate is compressed and packaged.
Therefore, the problem of water is actually the biggest problem faced by astronauts, but the technology has been able to completely purify urine, and it can be reused, indicating that there is no impact. So don't think too much about it.
And after these space junk are packed, the garbage on the space station may take a year to be transported back to the surface, which is the general situation.
Of course, I've seen a lot of explanations that when a spacecraft returns, it will put all the garbage bags into the atmosphere and burn them. However, in the report that the three astronauts of Shenzhou XIII have traveled more than halfway through the space journey and the life of the space station is busy and wonderful (scientific and technological viewpoint), there is no clear statement, but it is said that the garbage on the space station may take a year to be transported back to the ground, which means that the garbage of the continental space station is to return to the ground, there may be different points, everyone refer to it.