You’ve seen the movies. Usually, the hero floats gracefully through a cavernous, glowing hall of high-tech monitors while a dramatic soundtrack swells. Reality was way messier. Space is cramped. It's noisy. Honestly, it smells a bit like a mix of ozone and unwashed laundry. If you were actually standing inside the space shuttle, you wouldn’t feel like a sci-fi protagonist; you’d feel like you were living inside a very expensive, very crowded walk-in closet packed with seven of your closest, sweatiest coworkers.
The Three-Story Flying House
Most people don't realize the shuttle’s pressurized crew module was basically a three-level apartment, but one where the furniture is bolted to the ceiling. The Flight Deck sat at the top. This was the cockpit, featuring more than 2,000 switches and displays. Seriously, two thousand. Below that was the Middeck. This was the heart of the ship—the kitchen, the bedroom, and the bathroom all rolled into one tiny 160-square-foot room. Finally, there was the Lower Deck (the equipment bay), which was mostly for life support systems and storage, though astronauts sometimes crawled down there to fix things.
The Middeck is where the real "living" happened. It didn't look like a sleek Star Trek bridge. It looked like a garage. There were lockers everywhere—dozens of them—held shut with velcro and metal latches. Blue nylon bags were bungee-corded to the walls.
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Gravity is the Ultimate Interior Designer
Everything changes when "up" and "down" stop existing. Astronauts like Mike Massimino have described how they’d use the entire volume of the room. You aren't limited to the floor. If you needed to get out of someone's way, you just floated to the ceiling and hung out there. This sounds cool until you realize that you lose your sense of orientation. If you close your eyes for too long, your brain can't figure out where your feet are. This is why the interior was color-coded—usually a muted "space grey" or off-white—to help the eyes distinguish the floor from the ceiling.
Living inside the space shuttle meant mastering the "shuttle shuffle." You don't walk. You push off a handrail with one finger and glide. But if you push too hard? You're going to smack your head on the airlock.
The Reality of the Space Toilet
Let’s talk about the Waste Collective System (WCS). It’s the first thing everyone asks about. It was located in the Middeck, tucked behind a thin curtain. It wasn't private. It wasn't glamorous. Because there's no gravity to make things "fall," the toilet used suction.
- You had to strap yourself down with thigh restraints so you didn't float away mid-business.
- Airflow pulled waste into a container.
- For liquids, there was a long hose with a funnel.
If the suction failed? You had a "floating debris" problem. Astronauts had to be trained at Johnson Space Center on a "positional trainer"—a toilet with a camera inside—just to make sure they were lined up correctly. It’s the kind of technical detail NASA doesn't put in the glossy brochures, but it was a vital part of daily life.
Sleeping in a Vertical Sleeping Bag
Where do you sleep when there’s no bed? Anywhere you want, technically. But mostly, astronauts used sleep stations. These were basically bunk beds, but instead of a mattress, you had a padded closet with a sleeping bag inside. You’d zip yourself in so you wouldn't drift into the air vents during the night.
Some crews preferred just tethering their sleeping bags to the wall of the Middeck. It sounds cozy, but there's a catch: CO2. In microgravity, the air you exhale doesn't rise. It just forms a bubble around your face. If you don't have a fan blowing on you, you can actually suffocate on your own breath while you sleep. That’s why the shuttle interior was constantly humming with the sound of loud, industrial-strength fans. It was never quiet.
The Smell and the Sound
If you stepped inside the space shuttle during a mission, the first thing that would hit you is the noise. It was about 60 to 70 decibels—roughly the sound of a vacuum cleaner running in the next room, constantly. Between the cooling pumps, the avionics fans, and the hum of the computers, silence didn't exist.
And the smell? NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and others have noted that the shuttle had a distinct "metallic" odor. Some describe it as seared steak or hot metal. Once you add in the fact that seven people are exercising daily and can't take a shower, the Middeck became a bit ripe. They used "rinseless" soap and shampoo, which is basically like using a giant wet wipe for your entire body for two weeks.
The Flight Deck: The Best View in the Universe
While the Middeck was for survival, the Flight Deck was for the "wow" factor. During the day, the sun would hit the windows, and the temperature inside would spike. When the shuttle moved into the Earth's shadow, the temperature would drop. The windows were thick—triple-paned silica glass—to protect against the vacuum of space and the occasional micrometeoroid.
Looking out those windows changed people. It’s called the "Overview Effect." Seeing the thin, fragile line of the atmosphere from the inside of a spacecraft makes the Earth look incredibly lonely. Most shuttle missions involved intense work—deploying satellites like Hubble or building the International Space Station (ISS)—but astronauts always fought for "window time."
The Galley: Why Everything Tasted Bland
Eating inside the space shuttle was a chore. Because of the way fluids shift in the body in microgravity, astronauts' sinuses get clogged. It feels like having a permanent head cold. Consequently, food tastes like cardboard. This is why Tabasco sauce and spicy peppers were the most popular items on the shuttle.
Food came in two main types:
- Dehydrated: You’d hook the package up to a water needle, inject hot water, and knead it until it became mush.
- Thermostabilized: Basically MREs in green pouches.
You couldn't have bread. Crumbs are a nightmare in space; they get into the electronics or into someone's eye. They used tortillas instead. Tortillas are the unsung heroes of space exploration.
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Dealing with the "Space Adaption Syndrome"
About half of the people who went inside the space shuttle got "space sick" for the first 48 hours. Your inner ear is screaming that you're falling, but your eyes see that you're sitting still. It leads to massive nausea. NASA actually had a scale for this called the "Garn Scale," named after Senator Jake Garn, who became legendarily ill during his 1985 flight.
The shuttle was equipped with "emesis bags"—barf bags with a built-in wipe—stashed in every corner. Most crews eventually found their "space legs," but those first two days were often a struggle of trying to do high-level physics while feeling like you’re on a spinning teacup ride at 17,500 miles per hour.
The Complexity of the Airframe
It wasn't just a tin can. The shuttle's interior was a masterpiece of 1970s and 80s engineering. It used five General Electric AP-101 computers. By today’s standards, your toaster has more processing power. But these systems were redundant and incredibly "hardened" against radiation.
The walls were lined with "Beta cloth," a fireproof material made of silica fiber. After the tragic Apollo 1 fire, NASA became obsessed with fire safety. Everything inside the shuttle was designed not to off-gas or burn. If a fire did break out, there were portable fire extinguishers and "Personal Rescue Enclosures"—basically giant beach balls an astronaut could climb into if they had to be moved to a rescue ship.
Actionable Insights for the Space Enthusiast
If you're fascinated by the mechanics of the shuttle, don't just watch movies.
- Visit a retired Orbiter: To truly understand the scale and the "cramped" nature of the ship, visit Discovery at the Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, Atlantis at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, or Endeavour at the California Science Center. Looking at the tiles and the airlock in person changes your perspective.
- Study the Crew Operations Manual: NASA has declassified the actual shuttle flight manuals. They are thousands of pages long and offer a granular look at every switch on that Flight Deck.
- Listen to Mission Audio: The Apollo 11 audio is famous, but shuttle mission archives (available on the NASA website) capture the casual, professional, and sometimes humorous banter of crews living in the Middeck.
The space shuttle era ended in 2011, but the lessons learned from living inside that cramped, noisy, brilliant machine are currently being used to design the Orion capsule and the next generation of moon habitats. We learned how to eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom in the dark—so that one day, we can do it on Mars.