Shutterstock.com (background, ISS)

Article Options

Presentation View
Teaching Resources

Language

At Work in Outer Space

What’s it like to work more than 250 miles above Earth?

January 6, 2025
By Brian Fitzgerald

As You Read: What might be the hardest part of living in space?

NASA

The diagram above shows this part of the ISS. 

SpaceX/NASA (Jeanette Epps); Shutterstock.com (background)

Jeanette Epps 

Many people take a car, train, or bus to work. But not Jeanette Epps. To get to her job last March, she blasted off in a rocket. 

“It was like one of the most amazing rides at an amusement park,” she says.

Epps and three other astronauts arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) about 28 hours later. The giant space lab orbits Earth. It’s about the size of a football field. The ISS would be the astronauts’ “office” for the next six months. 

Read on to learn more about Epps’s out-of-this-world workplace. 


Note: All quotes are from interviews with students and reporters conducted in May 2024, via NASA Video.

Sleep Tight

NASA 

On the ISS, the pull of gravity is much weaker than on Earth. That causes people and objects to float. 

At bedtime, astronauts zip themselves into sleeping bags strapped to a wall. 

“It’s odd to not really have an up or down,” Epps says. 

Time to Work

NASA

Astronauts on the ISS do a lot of experiments. Many are done on themselves! The goal is to better understand the effects of living in low gravity. 

Epps often took samples of her blood to see how her body changed. That data may help astronauts stay healthy during future missions to the moon or Mars.

Staying Fit

Roscosmos/NASA 

Living in space can weaken bones and muscles. Crew members exercise for about two hours a day. That helps them stay in shape. But exercising in space is tricky. Astronauts must wear a harness while running on a treadmill. Otherwise, they’ll float away!

Taking a Walk

NASA

Astronauts sometimes go outside the ISS to work in space. They might install equipment or make repairs. Spacewalks can be six hours long. Crew members wear special spacesuits. The suits provide oxygen, water, and protection from the sun’s harmful rays.

  1. Why do astronauts on the International Space Station do experiments on themselves? How might their experiments help people in the future?
  2. Explain what happens during a spacewalk. 
  3. What might be another good title for this article? Explain your answer.
videos (2)
videos (2)
Skills Sheets (2)
Skills Sheets (2)
Games (1)
TEACHER SUPPORT (1)
Text-to-Speech