Read this passage
based on a real entry in astronaut Ed Lu’s journal. It was written in the
spring of 2003 when he was on an expedition to the International Space Station.
After you read the passage, answer the questions on the next page.
Living in Space
Life up here in space
is very different from life down on earth. The main difference is this: on
earth, things fall down to the floor, but up here, they don’t fall to the
floor. Instead, they float in the air.
On earth, we walk
from one place to another, but up here we don’t walk normally. We float around
inside the module. It’s like flying. We go straight ahead until we grab onto
something or we hit a wall. And sometimes we bump into
objects. With practice, we learn how to control our movements. We push
ourselves from object to object, or we move along and hold onto the handrails.
We don't have a real
kitchen aboard the spacecraft, but we do have a kitchen table. We can't set
things down on it, but we have bungee straps and Velcroon the tabletop so our
food containers, spoons, napkins, etc. don’t fly away. If the salt flies away,
we have to go after it to pull it back. Of course there are no chairs around the
table. We float around the table while we prepare our meals and eat.
space shuttle= a
vehicle that is designed to go into space and return to Earth
module= apart of the
space shuttle that can separate from it
