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In the Age of Spaceplanes

Stories from the shuttle astronauts, in their own words.

  • By The Editors
  • AirSpaceMag.com, November 18, 2010
«« Previous | 8 of 11 | Next »»

NASA


A bag of clean underwear
Ken Bowersox

After six months, I’d pretty much been every place onboard the station. But one day when we were taking inventory, I decided to do a little exploring. I went up to this area above one of the ventilation units in the node, and it was like going up into your attic. I hadn’t even realized there was so much volume up there. And once I got up there, I found all this stuff that previous crews had stored, including a bag of underwear—clean underwear—that had been left behind. And it was my size! At the time we were conserving underwear, because the shuttle was out of commission [after the Columbia accident] and supplies were going to be tight for a while. I called down to the ground to tell them about my find. The bag was labeled “Voss” and “Usachev.” Expedition 2 underwear from two years earlier!

Photo: Ken Bowersox unloading a Russian Progress cargo ship onboard the space station in 2003.


«« Previous | 8 of 11 | Next »»



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    Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine has been delighting aerospace enthusiasts with the best writing about their favorite subject since April 1986. As an adjunct of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, Air & Space matches the grand scope of the Museum, encompassing every era of aviation and space exploration. With stories that range from the Wright Brothers to the design of NASA's next lunar lander, Air & Space emphasizes the human stories as well as the technology of aviation and spaceflight.

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