Seeing sunrise 16 times a day and with zero gravity: this is the life of astronauts on the International Space Station

From the International Space Station You can see unique sunrises … but perhaps also repetitive: orbiting the Earth at seven kilometers per second, astronauts see the sun rise no less than 16 times each day from there.

But, What is it really like to live on the space station? Its facilities measure like a football field and have six rooms, two bathrooms, gym and recreation area. Maintaining it costs 2,600 million euros per year, a third of NASA’s budget.

Until now, only one Spaniard has inhabited it: the former Minister of Science Pedro Duque, who we can see floating between its compartments in the video that illustrates these lines, when he carried out the ‘Cervantes Mission’ in 2003, which lasted 10 days. In the images, Duque showed how astronauts exercise or the challenge of preparing a tea with zero gravity.

Former US President Ronald Reagan asked NASA to build the Space Station in 1984 and, since its launch in 1998, has hosted more than 200 visitors. In these 23 years, your astronauts on board have taken incredible photos of the Earth from this privileged window to the world, including the La Palma volcano, as seen in the video.

We have recently seen astronauts eat a zero gravity menu there for Thanksgiving and other moments of their day to day, including how one of their best kept secrets works: the bathroom, which recycles all liquids, including urine, which is transformed into drinking water.

He explains it in the video Samantha Cristoforetti, the first European woman astronaut, who next year will also become the first woman to lead the Space Station International. Starting in 2024, the station will pass the baton to private companies and there are already three agreements signed, one of them with Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.