It’s a routine practice of most of us to wash our hair regularly, but have you ever thought how astronauts do the same in space? It will be fascinating for you to discover.
It’s totally a different story. Washing hair in zero gravity is a precarious business – but it needs to be done.
On a trip to the International Space Station in 2012, Expedition 36 astronaut Karen Nyberg demonstrated just how she and her colleagues keep their hair clean while floating around in orbit.
As you can see in this video from Nasa, it’s not entirely dissimilar to how we wash hair on Earth, except we don’t have to catch the water as it floats away from us.
They also have to use no rinse shampoo (we sincerely hope they are using the right shampoo) and a towel, rather than a hair-dryer, as they have limited supplies.
Although it looks like a real ordeal, it’s cool to know that astronauts are keeping themselves and their hair clean in outer space.
If you weren’t impressed already, Karen reveals that there is an even more fascinating aspect to cleaning hair on the ISS.
In an extended video, Karen states that as her hair dries, the evaporated water is condensed by the space station and eventually turned into drinking water.
