Confined quarters, rising tensions and no escape: the astronauts were trained for it. I had a desk, a drawer and a long-running feud over a window that pushed me to my limits
Four people have joined the tiny percentage of humans who can say they have come back to Earth with a bump, literally. Welcome home, Artemis II crew: you have much to be proud of after following in the illustrious footsteps of Katy Perry and Jeff Bezos’s missus. Most importantly, you survived. Not in space – although obviously that too – but, far more impressively, you made it through an extended period trapped in extremely confined quarters with colleagues. As anyone who has worked in an office can verify, this is the greatest test of endurance known to humankind.
Commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen as well as pilot Victor Glover have just spent 10 days in a capsule described as “not much bigger than a family tent”. Normally, if tempers fray and the atmosphere (no pun intended) becomes tense between workmates, being able to leave for the evening provides the opportunity to relax, reflect and regroup. Getting along with no time off for good behaviour would be seriously hard, even for a rocket scientist. Imagine how all their quirks and habits must have got on each other’s nerves, even though it’s presumably impossible to chew with your mouth open in zero gravity.
