The APSIS journal
Dispatches
Field notes from the people who fly the missions. Flight surgeons, pilots, engineers and commanders, writing in their own words about orbit, training and coming home.
What returning crew can never quite explain
Forty years after the term was coined, the overview effect is still the thing every passenger tries, and fails, to put into words.
By Dr. Iris Vega
Week nine is the one nobody is ready for
The centrifuge is fine. The pool is fine. Then comes the day we take the lights and the certainty away.
By Marco Alvarez
Sixteen sunrises, and what they do to your sleep
A day in low orbit is ninety-two minutes long. Your body has opinions about that.
By Dr. Layla Haddad
Why we still come home in the water
Runways look modern. The ocean is the safer answer, and we will take safer over modern every time.
By Erik Novak
How a seat actually gets assigned
We do not sell tickets to the highest bidder. The manifest is built around the mission, and that order matters.
By Tomas Okonkwo