Chinese Stars | Protecting the Ground for Astronauts | Astronauts | China

This week, the Shenzhou 15 and Shenzhou 16 groups meet in space. How will their clothing, food, shelter and transportation be carried out in space? How can scientific experiments be carried out in an orderly manner? Face-to-face interview with Wu Dawei, deputy chief designer of the astronaut system of the manned space project and director of the general office of the China Astronaut Research and training Center.

"Let the astronauts return to the ground with radiance."

Wu Dawei: in fact, what I am thinking about is how to ensure that they return to the ground safely, healthily and radiantly, and make a beautiful end to our last task during the construction period in a good shape, so we put all our efforts here.

Wu Dawei: this is guaranteed by a system, whether from their physical health, physical fitness, mental state, as well as their preparation for the whole process of flying back to the mission, as well as their 180-day process, a good summary of the complete scientific experiments, so this is a dynamic and continuous process, and only when this process is done can there be a perfect ending. So this is going to take a while to do.

Wu Dawei: after 180 days, they have completely adapted to the flying environment of weightlessness in the sky, so when they return to the action of gravity on the ground, they will certainly have a process of re-adaptation. In order to ensure that they come back well, they have to be fully prepared physically, including the vestibular system.

Wu Dawei: for example, in view of his age, in view of his daily physical state, determine how he should run every day, how to push his bike, to what extent and how many times to exercise the core muscles, and what level the heart rate must reach before it can be stopped, so this is a complete small system.

Wu Dawei: usually everyone will feel very happy to be back, and there will be no problem. In fact, it is not. First of all, returning is a more dangerous part of manned spaceflight. When to take off the main umbrella and when to issue instructions are all required. So all of these are actually a little more stressful than in flight.

Wu Dawei: this kind of comparison is good to a certain extent, but it will also interfere with his work attention and his physical rest, so we will also do some debugging for them in this respect, for example, to calm him down through daily communication.

Build your own "space kitchen"

Wu Dawei: in fact, for space flight, the nutrient standards are different from those on the ground. Not all ground standards are applicable to the sky, where bone is decalcified, so we have to be very careful in the application of calcium agents.

Wu Dawei: yes, the loss of calcium will increase compared to the ground. In this case, a large amount of calcium supplement will lead to the formation of stones, but no calcium supplement will bring some new problems, so the dietary standard and the range of calcium intake should be determined. Other folic acid, such as iron, sodium and some vitamins, these levels will change.

Wu Dawei: will take some dietary nutrition tablets to supplement, the key is to rely on food, after developing the corresponding food, first of all in a wide range of ground people to taste, collect a lot of data, delicious or not delicious, optimize these varieties to form a recipe, but not every single delicious, the composition of a recipe must be delicious. You should make sure that his energy is not too high or too low, nor can he be hungry and full, but should be balanced.

Wu Dawei: yes, now fresh fruits and vegetables are brought directly from the ground. This time we will have plant cultivation of fresh fruits and vegetables in orbit. In addition, we will also do some processing and preparation of space food. We are also developing this technology.

Wu Dawei: for example, I think there is no problem with making a roast chicken leg. It is possible to make some baked bread staple foods, baked peanuts, roasted sweet potatoes, staple foods and meat foods. With the progress of our entire manned space project, after the cold chain is available, these frozen raw materials can be processed and prepared automatically in the sky. We will make a better kitchen and let him prepare these things. This is our vision for the future.

Space also pays attention to garbage classification.

It has been calculated that if astronauts eat the remaining bags of space food for six months, according to two bags of food per person per meal, more than 3000 bags will be produced. In addition, the waste produced by astronauts living in orbit is also exhaust gas, excrement and so on. Compared with the special environment and space size of the space station, the volume of these wastes is huge.

Wu Dawei: it is a closed environment. It is impossible for me to open the window and throw out the rubbish. There are articles on how to clean up every stitch and bag of garbage. Different garbage disposal methods may be different. Batteries, blades, chemicals, biological products and daily life garbage, clothing is different.

Wu Dawei: there are many buckets in the space station, dry and wet have to be separated, urine and household garbage, experimental garbage and some waste, such as broken equipment components, these have to be disposed of separately, the purpose is to ensure environmental safety, for example, microbes can not be allowed to breed everywhere, affecting the environment of the whole station.

When the three astronauts complete the six-month mission to the space station, they will carry the re-entry module back to Earth, and the solid waste will return with the re-entry module. The rubbish is thrown away after the re-entry capsule enters the atmosphere and eventually dissipates in the atmosphere under the action of atmospheric friction and combustion.

How to deal with the changes of growth, taste and smell in space?

Living in weightlessness for as long as half a year, the physical functions of astronauts will change a lot. The astronaut scientific research and training center has a special team to study the protection of the physiological effects of weightlessness.

Wu Dawei: yes, instinctively speaking, we should reserve this size of clothes for him on the ground.

Wu Dawei: yes. According to the data reported by domestic and foreign manned spaceflight, it is 3 to 5 centimeters high.

Wu Dawei: yes, the spine will compress the intervertebral disc under the action of gravity, and it will lengthen in the sky, and the legs will not get longer, but all these seams will grow, so the whole person will grow, and when you go back to the ground under the action of gravity, you will go back slowly. We will also record the changes in height and bones, in order to do some corresponding work for the follow-up development of our project more accurately.

Wu Dawei: the face becomes more round and looks richer. This is because the body fluid distributes to the head in weightlessness, just like your handstand. If you look at the face in this state for a long time, your face will be fuller, but it is actually two different concepts from her real fat, so this is the difference from the appearance to the nature of science. What we need to do is to look at its essence from its appearance. When I get back to earth, you watch me get fat. In fact, my blood volume is less than before. I need to make it up quickly. How can I make it up? this is a problem that medical scientists and scientists are going to study. Finding these corresponding measures to improve people's health, in fact, in the long run, it is also helpful for the medical health of the whole society on the ground as a whole.

The team found that when the astronauts returned to the ground, their sense of taste and smell changed.

Wu Dawei: for example, some people feel that the acidity of the food is higher than before, but those who used to feel sour now feel sour.

Wu Dawei: we think that their taste has become heavier than on the ground, and they like heavier food. Now we are also starting to use some new advanced technologies to do research on nutrition and metabolism.

Wu Dawei: simply adjusting the composition of food is just an appearance, which is actually similar to the corresponding changes in cellular and molecular biology, the underlying mechanism behind behavior, psychological emotional stability, decision-making ability, and so on. Finally, in the final analysis, what are the reasons for all the changes in human biology, physiology, cells, organs and tissues during different flight periods.

The sleep of astronauts in the sky is better than that on the ground.

Wu Dawei: judging from the fact that I personally did our space station and the previous missions, the astronauts slept well on the whole, and their sleep efficiency in the sky was better than that on the ground. Because one is before flying, they are in a state of all-out preparation. After arriving in the sky, they quickly adapted to the environment and became more down-to-earth, and their sleep efficiency was higher than that on the ground. We felt that their psychological quality was indeed very good, and it really proved that our manned spaceflight was making continuous progress. This is also a very good and very interesting data.

Wu Dawei: the big work and rest system is a normative system, but all these systems should be adjusted according to the needs of your task. For example, you have to leave the cabin in the middle of the night and he can't go to bed until three o'clock. I can't let him get up and work at six the next day.

"Dawn" holds up the umbrella of astronauts' lives.

Wu Dawei: we should say that all the staff in the astronaut center are members of "Dawn". "Dawn" is just a code name, which represents a team, a collective, an astronaut center and an astronaut support center.

Wu Dawei: eat well and exercise well.

Wu Dawei: if you don't want to eat, you have to eat well. Only when you eat well can you have the strength to do a good job. Therefore, the astronaut support center is quite different from other support centers. It is about a life. I am not looking at a machine and looking at its indicators. Far from it, it is necessary to invest a lot of feelings and treat him as a relative. Only by doing it with real heart can we do people's work well.

Wu Dawei: yes, because we don't have to wait for them to say, we will arrange psychological support for him on a regular basis. They can have a video chat with their children, and they will give him videos of their children and records of their daily life.

Wu Dawei: it's trivial, specific, but real.

A new group of astronauts adopt such a training program.

Today, the Chinese space station has entered the stage of application and development, and the crew rotation and cargo resupply missions will be carried out regularly. A spokesman for China's manned space program also said that the plan to land a Chinese man on the moon for the first time by 2030 will be realized. In order to meet the needs of the follow-up mission of the manned space program, the selection of the fourth batch of preparatory astronauts in China has been fully launched in 2022, with a plan to select 12 to 14 preparatory astronauts. As of March 2023, the selection of the primary stage has been completed, and more than 100 candidates have entered the re-selection stage, of which space pilots are active pilots of the armed forces, space flight engineers and payload experts are mainly from industrial departments and institutions of higher learning, and more than 10 candidates from Hong Kong and Macao have been re-selected.

Wu Dawei: after so many years of practice, we have actually become more mature. We know which direction we should make more efforts, but the new group of astronauts come from different backgrounds. You are an engineer, you are a load expert, or are you a pilot. You are from the Air Force, you are still from a technician, what exactly is your background? our plan for you is completely different. Therefore, when I make a training plan for him, I must formulate a more effective training program on the basis of major rules, principles, and norms, combined with the requirements of his task, and combined with his own characteristics. It's not that all people are carved out of the same mold. When we do the work of training people, we are people-oriented, give full play to people's subjective initiative, and make specific decisions according to the requirements of tasks and individual characteristics.