太空生活苦也甜 且听女宇航员道来

Spacewoman Stuck in Orbit with Too Much Shrimp(2002)

peggy whitson

Peggy Whitson, the American astronaut spending her 130th day in space, said on Sunday that she was happy in orbit, but maybe she brought along too much shrimp.

"Sometimes, when you come to space, your tastes change. One of my favorite foods on the ground is shrimp, and up here I can't stand it," said Whitson, the science officer on the International Space Station .

A quick check of the station's manifest showed that Whitson had planned more than 40 shrimp meals for her stay.

"The guys like it because they get all my shrimp," she said, referring to her two Russian crewmates, Valery Korzun and Sergei Treshcvev.

The three members of the space station's Expedition Five team held a joint news conference with the six astronauts from the space shuttle Atlantis on Sunday.

"I'm having a great time up here. It's fun to live here and do the science," said Whitson, a biochemist conducting and monitoring dozens of studies on the station.

When someone asked about her plans for Christmas, Whitson said "It's hard to imagine being back home because I guess I feel like this is my home right now. I don't have my husband, but other than that, this is my home."

Whitson, due to return to Earth with Korzun and Treschev aboard a U.S. shuttle in November, said some changes in space take more getting used to than others.

Salsa can usually overcome space blandness. "We could probably eat paper if we had it with salsa," she said.

But calluses are another matter. In weightlessness, she never actually stands, but does sway about with her feet in foot restraints.

"It was really interesting to me to lose the calluses from the bottom of your feet and to get calluses on the top of your feet after being up here for a few months," she said.

到2002年10月13日为止，美国女宇航员佩吉·惠特森已经在太空度过了漫长的130天。她对自己的太空生活感到愉快而满意，如果真的要问有什么麻烦的话，也许是她带上了太多的虾到太空来。

这位国际空间站的女科学家说："也许人到了太空里，口味就会发生变化。虾是我在地面上最喜欢吃的食物之一，但到了这儿，我却再也受不了了。"

从空间站的物品清单中可以看出，佩吉为她的太空之行一共准备了40顿"虾餐"。

在空间站的还有惠特森的同伴，俄罗斯宇航员瓦莱里·科尔尊和谢尔盖。她说："他们都很爱吃，因为我带来的虾都用来犒劳他们了。"

10月13日，空间站五人探索小组的这三位成员携同亚特兰提斯号太空梭上的其他六位成员召开了一个新闻发布会。

作为在空间站监管并进行着许多研究的生物化学家，惠特森说："我在这里过的很好。不论是生活还是搞研究都充满了乐趣。"

当被问到圣诞节怎么过时，惠特森说"很难想象回到地球的情景，因为我已经把这儿当成了我自己的家，除了我丈夫不在我身边,这里跟家没有什么区别。"

按照计划，惠特森、科尔尊和谢尔盖将于11月乘坐一艘美国太空梭返回地球。她表示，自己付出了更多的努力来适应太空中的变化。

太空的食物总是平淡无味，还好有辣味番茄酱来帮忙。惠特森说："如果蘸上辣味番茄酱，我们甚至可以把纸也吞下去。"

可足茧问题就没那么容易克服了。由于失重，宇航员在太空不能进行真正意义上的站立，而只能靠在脚部固定装置里移动脚来四处"游走"。

佩吉说："在这里呆上几个月，脚底的老茧都不见了，他们全部都长到了脚背上，这对我来说实在是有趣之极。"